I can't go out in the rain

Now please don’t think I’m disrespecting
those who fought and died in our name
but candy floss hair is a delicate crown...
and I can’t go out in the rain!

I know the fake news will all have a go -
they’ll say I’m self-centred and vain -
but I tell you my hair is a sensitive wisp
and I’m not going out in the rain!

Of course I’ve been caught playing golf -
but I’m an athlete who’s true to his game -
and crying round gravestones isn’t my thing.
Others can look glum in the rain.

And what if a gust caught my hair, blew it off,
left me standing quite bald and ashamed?
Is that how America wants me to look?
No!  I shan’t go out in the rain!

Sure I’m sorry for the poor guys who died,
it was dreadful, dreadful - but I’m not to blame
they chose to enlist (I dodged the draft),
so i won’t risk my weave in the rain.

Now I’ve told you five times, I think it’s quite clear
please don’t insult me by asking again -
you reporters are just a disgrace to your job,
but not me -
I have candy floss, fly away, sensitive hair,
and I’m not going out in the rain!



This little satirical verse rather surprised me when I posted it on Facebook on Armistice Day and it went viral with over 1000 shares and many likes.
Not really my usual type of poem but I'm delighted it connected with so many people!

 

October news - gigs etc

Back from a fortnight writing in California at the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods - an amazing experience and much food for thought. My thanks to Steve and Sarah for inviting me.

I’m pleased to have made the shortlist for The Bridport Poetry Prize (one of the big ones) - although the shortlist is far as I got, but hey, that’ll do - after all there were well over 5,000 entrants!

In other news - two upcoming book launch gigs:

Stanza Extravaganza at Artizan Gallery, St Lucius Street, Torquay on Monday 29th October;

and  Uncut Poets, The Phoenix Arts Centre, Exeter, Thursday 29th November;

News!

 On 21st September Hide Songs had its official launch at the Poetry Café in Betterton Street, London along with Green Bottle Press's two other new releases by Pamela Manche Pearce and Gail McConnell.
It was a lovely evening and we all felt honoured to see so many people there.
My thanks to Jennifer Grigg for organizing it all.

The following day I flew off to San Francisco to take up a two week Writing Residency at The Wellstone Center in the Redwoods, near Santa Cruz - which was a wonderful experience and gave me a chance to work on some editing and come up with first drafts of new poems.

Next up it's the Devon launch of Hide Songs along with my good friend Andy Brown's launch of his new book Blood Lines from Worple Press.

This takes place at the Oystercatcher's Café, in Teignmouth on Tuesday 16th October, 7.30pm for 8pm.
We'll both be reading and also playing a little music together. If you're around Devon please come along!

If you can't make it to any readings and would like a copy of Hide Songs please visit the Green Bottle Press website https://greenbottlepress.com/order-form/our-books/

Cherub

New ekphrastic quick-response poem for an image provided by Jon Tyson published at Visual Verse

https://visualverse.org/submissions/cherub/

'Two Men at Milber Hill Fort' - published on Caught By The River August 18th

 

https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2018/08/two-men-at-milber-hill-fort-a-poem-by-marc-woodward/

NEW BOOK!

So excited to announce my full collection Hide Songs will be available from Green Bottle Press at the beginning of August.

Please visit their website and, er, buy a copy! Thank you

https://greenbottlepress.com/our-books/

 
 

















"Sometimes witty, sometimes dark, often observant of nature and culture...  These are wonderful poems from a new lyric voice to watch and listen out for"  Andy Brown

Summer gigs

Getting out and about this Summer, come along if you can

* 29th June -  The Word Cafe at The Cott Inn Dartington, The Woodward Brothers (performing a mixture of poetry and music with my brother),  7.30 onwards, admission free;

* 7th July- The Woodward Brothers on the Pucker Poets stage at Glas-Denbury Festival in Devon around 2.30pm;

* 8th July - on the Speakers Corner stage at Ways With Words Festival, Dartington, around 2.30pm;

* 25th July - The Woodward Brothers at the Royal Seven Stars, Totnes 7.30pm onwards;

* 27th/28th/29th July The Woodward Brothers at  Port Eliot Festival in The Tiddy Tent;

Check my Facebook page for full up to date listings.

Woodcock

I'm very pleased to have won First Prize in the 2018 Keats' Steps Poetry Competition held by Teignmouth Poetry Festival with this little piece 'Woodcock'.

Warm in my father's palms, the woodcock lay
soft, its short neck lolling, head tilted down,
long beak scribing out a grave on the ground.

The cryptic bars and patchwork of freckles:
perfection, save for where the shot had ripped
through the fine curtain of its plumage.

Pluck downwards so as not to tear the skin
(not up against the grain like tougher fowl)
then draw, clean and truss the little game-bird.

From the top edge of the wing you can pull
the pretty pin feather for a hat band -
though artists like them for detail painting.

Later I went out walking in the scrublands
hoping I would hear a Woodcock whirr up
from the bushes to paint its own detail

across the Winter sunset and perhaps
its haphazard zig-zagging flight would say
It's not over, I'm still here, it's okay.

March 2018 : News!

I’m delighted to announce that Green Bottle Press will be publishing a full collection from me in July 2018. Title still to be decided. If you want to know when it comes out and how to get a copy come and find me on Facebook or Twitter (@marcomando ).

In other news: I’m looking forward to kicking off the Teignmouth Poetry Festival on the 15th March performing a poetry and music show with my brother Andrew playing hammer and Appalachian dulcimers as The Woodward Brothers

On April 26th I’ll be reading at Ocean Gallery in the Royal William yard in Devonport, then jumping onto a boat to sail around Plymouth harbour (reading poetry to a captive audience - well, unless they’re really good swimmers) as we voyage round to the Barbican to continue with a further reading in the B-Bar at the Barbican theatre.
Further details here: http://www.b-bar.co.uk/2018/02/thursday-26th-april-forked.html?m=1

The Woodward Brothers are also performing on the poetry stage at Glas-Denbury Festival in the green fields of Devon (7th July);

....and have just been booked again for Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall (26/27/28/29 July) following last year's successful if rather wet shows!
It’s a tricky thing to get right, the music and poetry combination, but we're getting some lovely feedback so it seems to be working pretty well...

The Strange Death Of Jenny Joseph

Happy to have this ekphrastic response poem for an image by Daniel Frost
published in Visual Verse 2/2018.

Snipe

Another from my sequence of poems loosely related to waterfowl.
Published at Ink Sweat and Tears 11/17



Her wet eyes were green as fenland water.
The twelfth day of August and she could hide
alongside you in her crypsis of hair
until it seemed that you might step on her -
then she'd be gone in a clatter of pans,
a flap of arms, a fluster of car keys.

I recall her whisper though, even now,
when she told me in her own thesaurus
how rain falls, how leaves fall, how there must be
a reckoning and some great final count.
Poor at consolation I took to maths
and numbered all the ways I made her cry.

Herons and Bitterns

I’m pleased to have had these two waterfowl poems up on Caught By The River recently.
Each from a forthcoming book - although two different books! Watch this space...


Herons

Grey as the watery dawn,
wet with the guts of frogs,
the blood of moorhen chicks,

Ardea Cineriae:
ghosts upon the foreshore,
patient for fish and history.

Separate and sentinel,
misplaced milestones, attendants
to the helicoidal flow

which undermines the river bank
(a sliding snake that slowly
eats the water meadow).

Their perfumed legs
are nectar to minnows
who crowd to be speared,

their beaks - the impalers
of stooping falcons.
Crepuscular anglers,

delicate and granite,
timid but constant,
observers and recorders.

Under their plumage
their hollow bones
are etched with runes

- the unreadable toll
of the seasons' cycle,
the pool of the river.



The Bittern

The cows stand dying in the field
sharp hip and shoulder blades revealed.
Who knows from where their sickness comes?
The Drekavac; the Mire-Drum.

Booming from the lonely reed bed
this ghost of the unbaptised dead
looks up toward the rising sun:
the Drekavac; the Mire-Drum.

Some say he drops his dreadful beak
into the marsh before he speaks
to make the stinking fenny ground
an amplifier for his sound.

Bog-Bumper: shy in tan and dun,
the Drekavac; the Mire-Drum.


http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/?s=marc+woodward

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