STUFF IT ALL

I went back to the poetry slam last Sunday. Actually, it was the first time I’d been live and in the room at one of these, so really I was kind of there for the first time.

It was so interesting. It’s held in a sort of community pub - but not a warm, glinty pub; I mean a cold empty room with a high ceiling and flaking paint. Actually, it’s quite perfect for poetry now that I think about it.

That being said, I felt out-of-place. I mean I felt really out-of-place. I think it was because I’d taken poems about cheese, about silly movies and imaginary lands of nonsense and they're incongruous to the depressing venue. And it quickly became clear that most of the poems being performed there were indeed about anger, rage, fury, politics, and Bracknell.

I don’t want to be disrespectful to them. Poetry is passionate expression from the deepest places, and I get that. It’s all art, it was all very well done; it’s just that I’m a cartoonist. I think a lot of people there were a bit more Tate Modern... and I had turned up with the Beano.

Anyway. I came home wondering whether I too could write a poem that was more fitting to that furious, flaky mood. So I did.

It’s still a cartoon, but it’s one that gives you (I hope) a little window into the kind of verse that’s all the rage at these open mic poetry things. I’m satirising the slam, sure, but I really don’t think it’s in a mean way - just observation. And even more obviously, I don’t actually think these things; I just imagine that some of the other poets might.

I’ll go back of course, next year. I might even double-down and wear something brightly coloured to offset the glum paintwork. I quite enjoyed it.

Stuff it All

Urgh! I am so angry

My Mum made me wear a dress

And stuff the stuffing government

For getting us in this mess

And even though I’m seething

I’ll try to be polite

Then read out angry poetry

At the poetry thing tonight

But yes! I’ll still be fuming!

She made me brush my hair!

But now I’m independent, I

Just hope she hears me swear, ‘cos

now I’m furious at the windows;

I’m swearing at the door

I lift my head, and curse aloud

And incantate some more

Of this invective Anglo Saxon

That stirs so deep within.

Then I’ll hurl it at the government

And hope they take it in.

Oh! And stuff the local vicar

Who came that day for tea

Stuff his useless, empty words

And limpid sympathy

And stuff his stupid, stuffing face

That silent pious nod.

‘Cos no-one did much better at

Removing me from God.

Urgh! I am so angry

And this poem is all I can do

To let out all that vented steam

And pour it back to you

And even though I’m furious

And come across as stressed

I’m really only angry

Cos my Mum made me wear a dress