I didn't read this. This stuff below. Anyone read it?
Tim A.

On 7 Apr 2009, at 22:50, Grade 6 - Anruth wrote:

> My deeepest dearest darling Jeffrey.
>
> First, let me say, i do love you as a fellow human being, as i love  
> all wo/men.
>
> I am only having a larf mate coz really, poetry, yer know, it's all  
> shite
> innit? I mean of course it's incredibly important and vital and  
> really,
> really serious - nay, a vital and central componenet and concern of  
> our
> existence. However, as something that will fill the tank with gas, put
> clothes on the kids backs and help us navigate the seven hour slog  
> down the
> M5 to Newquay, it isn't centre stage.
>
> You see, my thing, has always been the bards, since the days with  
> Bob S in
> Edge Hill when the lore of the filidh was not even a skeleton,  
> merely a mass
> of gloop and funny looking names like Conchobar, Cúchulainn,  
> Partholón,
> Nemed, Fir Bolg and the Tuatha Dé Danann. I was learning of American
> modernist poetry on the official course and had this other learning  
> funning
> extra-curricular, doing 12 hours a day and more, all through love of  
> learning.
>
> And do you know, not unlike yourself, no one is interested in the  
> bardic
> lore now in any serious way, even though they link to the druids and  
> not
> Ezrastotle pooh ah nadz who loved the linguistic invention. This is an
> annonymous bard from 12-14C
>
> Filled with sharp dart-like pens
> Limber tipped and firm, newly trimmed
> Paper cushioned under my hand
> Percolating upon the smooth slope
> The leaf a fine and uniform script
> A book of verse in ennobling Goidelic.
> I learnt the roots of each tale, branch
> Of valour and the fair knowledge,
> That I may recite in learned lays
> Of clear kindred stock and each person's
> Family tree, exploits of wonder
> Travel and musical branch
> Soft voiced, sweet and slumberous
> A lullaby to the heart.
> Grant me the gladsome gyre, loud
> Brilliant, passionate and polished
> Rushing in swift frenzy, like a blue-
> Edged, bright, sharp-pointed spear
> In a sheath tightly corded;
> The cause itself worthy to contain.
>
> S/he *learnt the roots of each tale*
>
> You see Jeff (if you're still awake reading this dreck) my dream  
> when with
> Sheppard, (it's ok, it took me tears to get it right and i was with  
> him
> twice a week) was to be a *real* poet, and wanting to know I to go  
> about
> becoming one.
>
> I thought, what is the way to do it, to set about it in such a way,  
> no one
> can poo poo me. A doctor of poetry say, who didn't like me but who  
> would
> dress it up into dismissal via gobble dee gook.
>
> And it struck me as obvious. There was I the child of irish parents,  
> it was
> staring me in the kisser. If I could learn what the bards did -  
> *really*
> did, then that was me a real poet, in the purely stricest sense of  
> the word
> as that hand, is unbeatable, innit? I mean, if you wanna chat poetry  
> proper,
> Poetry the big one, what have we got for proof?
>
> Poundie? Well Ez was a tip top mental basket with a one man religion  
> who
> ended writing his best stuff in a cage, and he had all the new fangled
> theories, like Megles and the eugenics crowd had perfectly lovely and
> logical theories. But no history, no tradition apart from, well, coz  
> *I* say
> innit? To arrogate that Jeff, to say, no all you are wrong, I am  
> right coz,
> well coz I say so - this is laughable.
>
> Being a bard, learning what they did, when I first started no one  
> knew,
> because the course was lost on the pages time (almost) forgot.  
> Douglas Hyde
> had the most comprehensive guide, but the nits and bolts, the pieces  
> had to
> be retrieved, and luckily, online, now is the first time in history  
> it's
> possible. And that's what i've been doing since day one. Me, the  
> idiot, the
> lunatic, the thick one.
>
> And amidst all this, there is a document I found four year back, first
> translated in 1983, a 7C old irish text attributed to Amergin, the  
> Merlin
> and Taliesin of ireland.
>
> It purports to explain from the pov of a 7C bard, what Poetry is and  
> how it
> works, and is fascinating reading. However it takes a bit of  
> background info
> to fully understand, which amounts to learning the basics of Irish  
> myth,
> which took a bard about 7 years before they had the skeleton  
> working. So you
> might see it as rubbish, say, worthless because it has all this  
> stuff you
> think has no poetic value. However, this text, is the most important  
> text of
> the bardic enterprise and was handed out on day one to the focloc  
> beginner
> at bard school on Samhain, and do you know, not one person from the  
> poetry
> community has engaged with me on this, even though it clearly is the  
> most
> exciting and important text in poetry.
>
> ~
>
> Forgive me, I am rambling. I haven't been taking the tablets for my  
> sex
> addiction and have three Brazillian rent boys here waiting to  
> service me.
> The camera is pointed at me, Monica is rubbing coconut oil into my  
> shoulders
> and I am getting rather excited thinking of how I will respond to  
> the call
> for total nuclear disarmament.
>
> I do love you Jeffrey, very much and just hope you get your good  
> humour
> back. If i have upset you or anyone else reading in any way, i can  
> only
> apologise and plead stupidity. I was born a thicko, and spat as a  
> child,
> dreaming of top trumps and playing out with the other louts in my  
> area ofr
> Ormskirk dearest darling Jeff. Also, i am part way through a  
> transgendering
> process and suffer heavy pmt. Basically Jeff, I am a waste of space  
> and hope
> any unpleasantness, discomfiture and whatnot my writing occassioned  
> within
> your mind, heals and we can go on being fwends.
>
> and litle man Tim Allen Jeff, can you get it, do you see it yet.
>
> Tim it m - Allen litle man, a word game mate, same as Desmond's words.
>
> Swords is my mothers maiden name. Being a transgendered ex-male,  
> mama is the
> most important woman in one's life and I thought up this nom de guerre
> wheeze in Bob's class, and it was only after I got published in a  
> student
> rag adn they left the S of swords, Desmond Words, that i became  
> conscious my
> name is also desmond's words.
>
> This was one of those *moments of satisfaction* H speaks of, a sign  
> the Muse
> is on our side. Poetry you see, is not an exact science, but make  
> believe
> and magic, as you well know my mate.
>
> good luck, at least we are gassing, and as the man said, in the  
> grand scale
> of eternity, this really is nothing. That is why i can say I love you
> jeffrey side, and freely, laughing, because there are a lot worse  
> things ion
> the world than two bores tussling over poetry.