Timmy baby !

*i* (as an imaginary voice being ventriliquized by the I behind the hand
behind the mind behind the man who loves you (as a textual construct) berry
berry much - you do know that dude, yeah. Yeah bro?

I mean as a fictional Timmy towards whom i direct naught but cordiality, and
know that His imagination is a textually significant psychic signifier
signalling that the mind behind the eye behind the very well respected and
eminently intelligent man-lover of Poetry, is a veritable TA defending the
ark of our Religion in Norwich from the sneery unbelieving hordes whose god
is He who needs not naming. Ogma.

Thank you very very much for engaging in worship at the Langpo altar - as a
person who thus far exists only in the head of a colleague on the love bus
who respects what you are doing borth as a major political vehicle for great
change to the status-quo stasis and for engaging in what my very dear, first
and only tutor at third level, the criminally underspoken of, the marv oh
loss, undisputed, undefeated lite-heavyweight chat king of the whole wide
west lancashire plain, mister Robert Sheppard, from whom i learnt everything
i know about po-mo and the heirophantic rites of our Alternative Church in
which we both commune with the spirit embodied by our pontifical poetic
worship as parishoners Timmy baby --- terms:

Speculative Discourse.

~

Bob Sheppard has not been given his die by the more competitive bores in the
gorve who would seek to steal his ideas and pass them off as their own, or
incorporate them into good practice level twenty of the QLA Local
Educational Authority Doctrine, vis a vis - outright theft of Bob's most
perspicacious and brilliant pedogogic implement.

Speculative Discourse.

This is Sheppard's meat and two veg of the whole teaching gig Timmy:

"Poetics I define as a speculative writerly discourse about writing, taking
from past practice and projecting into the future. Its aim is the developing
autonomy of the student, so that he or she has reflective mechanisms to
continue development beyond the end of the course."

And in practical terms, this boils down to writing a *self-assesment* which
accompanied every piece of coursework over the three years of the writing BA.

This made us reflect on what we had written and inculcated in us newbs, a
systematic and methodoligical good-practice method, of digging into the mind
in such a way that this component of the course, occassioned the External
Examiner to testify to the  uniqueness of Bob's teaching genius in the 2002
report, one year after i had first been welcomed in a warm apostlistic
embrace of Robert Sheppard, Scott Thurston, Cliff Yates, to name just three
of the poets there:

"...the programme is unusually innovative in the tasks set and the types of
writing explored. I know of no other course that requires students to give
such serious attention to their own explicitly writerly philosophy, to
theoretical material and to the theoretical and political implications of
their choices of form."


...actually Timmy.

~

But joshing aside, this component of the course was perhaps the most
beneficial and efficacious in the long run, becuase it opened up the chanel
to a mode of practise which does exactly what it says on the tin:

Speculative discourse.

Sheppard defines Poetics as:

"...a writerly activity that speculates about the future of writing practice
in an attempt to enable its further development. It is ofen an intermittent,
mercurial discourse, quite distinct from literary criticism. I believe that
writers have often been drawn to this activity which often takes hybrid
forms (as defence, essay, biography, or in the creative writing itself)...
The discourse keeps open the speculative 'permission to continue' that
writing thrives upon. It is not simply the use of 'reflection' and
'commentary' which imply a retrospective trawl through the already achieved,
an ongoing"

...process which offers the widest and most freest plane of practise on the
planet, imho.  

Practically speaking it ties in with a substrand of the highest
compositional method (imbas forsnai - manifestation of knowledge which
enlightens)  in the old bardic curriculum, and one of the fourteen official
streams of poetic knowledge (srotha eicsi) detailed in this 1200 year
printed tradition --- dichetal do chennaib --- extemporisation from the tips
(of tongues/fingers).

Imbas Forosnai (manifestation of knowledge which enlightens) and the two
substrands which feed into it, one of which is dichetal do chennaib -
extemporisation from the tips (of tongue/fingers) -- were took on from the
eighth year of pratice on, at grade five (cli- ridgepole) or six (anruth -
great stream) of the seven of the 12 year course; which terminated on
qualifying at grade seven as an ollamh (poetry professor) after a dozen
short quick years of six month semester study.

The top three compositional methods were entirely extempore, essentially
orgiinating out of the same compositional pool as the Specualtive Discourse
 Sheppard has at the heart of his own Poetic.
 
I started hitting this zone about a year ago, and because my learning (which
began with Bob in 2001 when i had been writing for six months or so) has
followed a pattern of relevatory breakthroughs (in the form of texts) which
act as datum markers which plot define, delineate, guide and graph a course
over the years that  began in blindness and slowly evolved into a
self-created and sustaining career as a bore bodying forth into the light of
Poetry as a positive agent for enoblement.

So, the gig is, dive in and extemporise and at first we are the floundering
div getting laughed and sneered at by our betters with more experience whose
own careers and poetic belief, naturally, is unique to them. But over time,
if one is lucky enough to have natural ability (which according to the
ancient bardic sources is 50% of everyone) we get a true grip and slowly end
up acquiring bouyancy and singing in our own note. 

So, with this topic of technique and craft, i am like the rest here,
thinking it is all a bit hooey, but on beginning the specualtive discourse,
making it up as i went along, some sense of what Gravesy was saying started
to make itself plain.

Graves essentially was talking about the poets he liked and saying they were
craftspeople, with those he didn't saying they were mere technicians.

Essentially, everything anyone says is only opinion, which we call Criticism
when practicing as a fully ticketed bore Tim, and naturally, the poetry
world being as it is, we are not going to agree, all we can do is strive for
eloquence and elegance on the page, and if we are read and people take us
seriously, then that's all we can ask, innit?

~

I remember during the second year final semester poetry module, we had to
hand in six poems, five of which were sincere, but one i wrote as a cod,
sort of strung together a lot of airy fairy lines just for the sheer heckl
of slipping one under the radar which played the game of po-mo.

It began with a quote from Julia Barnes: (the layout may not appear as it
does int he poem)

COLLAGE

"Style is a function of theme
Style is not imposed on subject matter
But arises from it   - Julian Barnes -
Style is truth to thought"

Thursday morning rhythm’s business
Long dead poets
Who metered out rules 
We’re unaware of

    -  And the words  -

Ward Robe tables chair
One two point O five 
Contain no meaning

        -  I read  -

There was a cow in a field
The machine is out of order
Truth is not but evidence 

       -  And many more words  -

Thursday afternoon rhythm’s business 
Long dead poets
Who metered out rules
We’re unaware of

       -  And the words  -

Deconstructing schoolchildren 
Among Shadows on a cave
Looked good once

   -  I heard  -

Yeats 
Towering over
A simple wise man
Who the mountain shakes

~

So, i wrote this totally cynically, and five years later the strangest thing
happened, because i returned to it and it tuned into the seed-text of a long
poem i wrote about - can you guess:

"Style is a function of theme
Style is not imposed on subject matter
But arises from it
Style is truth to thought"

  Julian Barnes

                 --------------


Julian: he was the real big fellow
who thought outside the box, a giant
in ther canon

a big gun saviour who tore up the 
terrain with radical thinking 

fully functioning saint of the eternal 
theme and a main squeeze
of the triple godess.

To others he’s a just a barmpot: 
a loop-loop nut-job and jumped up office 

wallah who had no style or talent for 
anything other than filing, flannel, cobblers

daft ideas, conning everyone he met 
and being jammy on his toes. 

Some don’ profess to know either way
preferring instead to try and get a

considered perspective, then move with 
what’s left - living in the here and now. 

Some don’t care about the subject matter 
of his life or his written work, aren’t arsed 

couldn’t give a toss if his style was imposed 
or arose, and many in the world have 
never actually heard of him. 

He could be anyone. 
His truth to thought was his own. 

Same as everybody, he was unique 
and his words made a difference

Most had no clue who he was 
or what he was up to. 
An anonymous author nobody read

who remained unknown and unrecognised
and who could not get arrested if he was 

cart-wheeling naked on the high street.

~

He was from country stock. 
Great at field work, donkey work: 

a country tribe's baby blue-eyed  
"Jewels" - going places 

destined for greatness.
Be handy for a bit more than sweeping up 
and spitting in the farmyard     
D'yer get it? 

He couldn’t put a foot wrong 
and all things revolved round him. 

You know the type: 
the youngest on the farm who grew
up tall and could read and write in a 

wonderful style; 
shovel muck double quick 
from sty to dung heap, dig ditches 
and do a brilliant bit of building work

Jules: he was a man 
who thought about all sorts, not just 
pig swill or chickens and having a lend 
of his neighbours sheepdog. 

A jack-in-the-box with big ideas 
about spuds swedes, beetroot, dairy produce

small rural industry, stocks, bonds
treasury white papers, domestic think 
tanks, strategies that rid the workplace 

of prejudice and promote tolerance
inclusion, diversity, fairness 
and transparency in local government

transport and maritime-territorial  issues
national health concerns, contingencies 
for state emergencies and the most 

efficient and practical way of mucking 
out effluent from piggeries, stables and 
chicken coops . 

Several pub’s number one genius-in-residence 
who, in no time at all, could whip up 
a master-plan of attack on the back of fag 
packet or beer mat

and one who’d keep an army on its toes 
if he wasn’t devoting his energies to 
farm work or thinking of what style might 

arise from the subject matter of his next 
essay 

Barnsey: 

he was the intellectual giant who’d direct 
operations from a lounge bar or hay-barn 
HQ: wield the shovel for six hours solid, 

knew all about invisible ink, 
could grow a muzzy -
dabbled in any dodge going, and found how 
to disguise a dream when love was terminal. 

A large bloke who’d fight in the trenches 
for Art and Peace: plotting to overthrow 
the status quo as he cycled the countryside 

picnicking, keeping fit, necking a few scoops 
as he constantly mooched about rousing 
the troops

whipping up the craic, firing one liners
having a great gas then, taking it to the max.

A laughter lad giggling at being an all round 
live legend, who relieved stress by taking 
the mick out of cut glass titular rich ones 

who thought they were doing themselves 
a favour by not leaving her be and fecking off 
out of it. 

~

His doings foxed everyone but Kathleen
until that night. She always knew the score;
still does. She’s unreal. None of us con her 

Barnsey.

In Bloomsbury, Barnsley and Brum, 
he knew lovers, fighters, fanatics, violent 
shithouses, loons, frightened bullies

spivs, liars, cowards, spies, good people 
whose desire was for freedom and peace; 
who’d loot hearts, minds, mythologies 

and cop-shops on his whim, 
but only when desperation kicked in 
for the freedom he never had as a kid.

More than all this though Barnsey 
he was a style expert who spun tales 
by jumping straight in.

               --------------------


Aoife mouths words but it’s all 
Kathleen’s world, and the brown 
leather robe draped across the chair 

tucked beneath the table 
contained within this locked box 

is mine -

Niamh cries 
coming through the door of the
occupational therapy room where

Aoife O’Brien sits listening 
to angelus bells peel havoc at the hill top.

~

Julian deported your mind to see beyond
stereotype freaks from the underbelly 
out-patient agency of background artistes 

on peanuts a day for the full bore shoot 
pretending to be Tom, Robert or Marlon’s heir 
connected now to those you share 

consciousness with, through Niamh and Aoife’s 
angelus energy: 

have the sense to look for meaning 
where few dare peek for fear of being branded 
mentally unkempt, 

like Niamh was before she snuffed it a derelict 
in the loony bin 

opined to be beyond all reach by the boss head 
doctor of a crumbling psychiatric hospital, 
where she patiently waited in nineteen ninety nine 

for professor O’Brien to dish up pills 
and dole out injections from ten to eleven

depending on 
depending on…

If there is a cow in the field and 
 a machine out of order.

~

Niamh is on-ward and in role play as 
a not yet dead nut-nut strapped to a naughty chair
and babbling freely at the table. 

The machine is out of order.

as Niamh continues

"Within the four walls of this crypt I conjur 
the tall author, architect of state and soldier 
of memory who

lives on." 
 
Does Niamh now flit with the big man’s shade 

       in books

deconstruct schoolchildren 
from shadows in caves

and tower over oath-bound men 
to find a simple mountain grace  

   written

at life’s end?

where Yeats ruled a world of words 
his imagination shook fairly from her tongue 
pouring forth to make prayer and fable 
a nation’s tomb?

~

Me me me me me, more than he it was
back when Niamh gobbed off and got on 
with the business of being la la. 

Nuttying it up for medication and a cosmic life 
ticking boxes and flapping wings across forms 
Aoife’s boss Kathleen Ireland - the chief executive -

read: before deciding the only option on offer 
for Niamh, were a few large bolts of energy-jolts 
through her brain.

Now you know

A one woman universe who returns
her tribe to disperse underground 
and travel through air as ether.

~
  
Niamh knew Aoife’s way was the leather restraining belt 
and the  moniker they used  

"Kathleen" 

her daily jacket.

"will be where the morning lit mountain phantasmagoria
and shade, leisure with the ghost of a man
who topped a fella who took draughts
of demands to London."

~

ECT demons came haunting her in the TV room 
until a liquid cosh tipped her mind into overdose 
and she disappeared during the angelus bell

silently faded and was instantly whisked to VIP 
at the afterlife bash in paradise.

"Will Kathleen tell?"

~

Niamh never spoke 
once the initial disolution instantly dissolved 
any questions lingering in her bonce, 
just got stuck underground in a box after Kathleen 

called her to dance her reflection in a grave 
where the well of time will return in wild spring 
flowers.

"An answer blown on ageless dumb stone, tells 
of whose love falls there for you Kathleen, 
who knew what went on as my heart beat alive 

and I breathed being driven through the breeze 
to an ambush that night when the windows blew in 
and a bullet got shot through my skull." 

~

Fictional Style-maestro Julian, the sleight of hand 
in this tale - did not witness the deed that night 
nor see the people who scattered and withdrew 

he just moves through shadows in an author’s mind 
a cipher in Van Shock’s vision:  Niamh, Aoife 

Kathleen

a poetic fable, whose phantom triggered Mick’s 
quick return to her, 

and in the immediate aftermath, two faint ghost- 
trails appeared to flicker on the track 

glowing, they say, for the short time it took 
for his spirit to pass over. 

The light dimmed as it drew in beneath the foot 
of Mouth Flower rock, then paled out and vanished. 

The big fellow's shade vanished to Kate Ireland’s earth.