Does anyone remember the Merseyside group – Rory Storm and the Hurricanes? Could they be related? Robert From: British & Irish poets [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Bircumshaw Sent: 03 October 2014 03:25 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Kate Tempest etc Abstract art: the CIA's favourite, that's how the joke goes, isn't it? I greatly admire some American poets, above all the magnificent Cesar Vallejo. You know I came of a certain age around 1970 and what was interesting and contemporary for me was in Britain then, which promised so much, only to be extinguished in Thatcherdom. A lot of the US American stuff, like the Beats or Frank O'Hara or Olson, seemed as 50s as Larkin and Amis. Or Elvis the Pelvis. Obviously in a different way but already avant-dated, like Marlon on the waterfront. Was slashed about by briar and bramble on a walk today, that's why I'm awake at 3.20 am, tending my wounds, my legs look like chopping boards. Avoid extinct Pre-Cambrian volcanoes in Leicestershire, that's my advice. I would close with opining that real poetry is always contemporary, as well as of its time. Catullus wrote odi et amo only yesterday, as did Shakespeare turn Cordelia and Lear to birds in a cage. On 2 October 2014 18:43, Paul Green <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: Kate Tempest - has to be a stage name, like those invented by the late Larry Parnes for his stable of 50s pop stars - Duffy Power, Vince Eager, Billy Fury, Dickie Pride and co. And there was a band called Tom Tempest and the Tom-Tones. Yes, really. KT is doing radio play for BBC Radio 3 so she’s hot property, marketing serfs twittering away, power lunching behind the scenes. Maybe Sean’s wise old owl was the one who advised, re certain poetry readings, ‘ You can’t always make them pay to come in but you can make them pay to get out…' American poets were the spark plugs for me as an adolescent - the Beats, of course. Up until then I’d read poetry with respect, sometimes shock and awe (Yeats, Dylan Thomas) but the Americans prompted me to find my own bleat. And I always looked towards the West Coast poets, later the LANGPO text generators as energy sources. The way the latter have been institutionalised is interesting. I sometimes wonder if it was all a CIA op. Keep them in the academy and off the street, show Andropov and the Kremlin how to be avant and free. They did it for Encounter, after all. Ignore my paranoid blabbering however. On 2 Oct 2014, at 09:47, Sean Carey <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: As a wise old owl in Dublin once said to me a quick fix way of making easy money is to start a poetry or a short story competition? I would also suggest forming a political party and assuming its leadership is also a way of ensuring a good flow of cash. Perhaps Kate should enter The X Factor? -----Original Message----- From: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> To: BRITISH-IRISH-POETS Sent: Wed, 1 Oct 2014 18:33 Subject: Re: Kate Tempest etc It's a stroke of irony that Cris should send us that Denise Riley link (thanks, Cris) just when we're talking about Kate Tempest, who won the Ted Hughes award last year over the heads of Denise and Roy Fisher. I call that a category error. pr Paul Green 2 Amberley View St Mary’s Terrace Hastings East Sussex TN34 3PW 01424 438855 07583 042 576 -- David Joseph Bircumshaw Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw Tumblr: http://zantikus.tumblr.com/ twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/ Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.com