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Introduction To A Two Faced Poet (with video)
A Two Faced Poet was my first solo collection in 2002. Surprising perhaps, given the number of years elapsed since my fist published poem appeared in an underground mag in the 1960s, I gravitated to performing in folk and jazz clubs, anywhere in fact that would let me near a microphone. A change in the political atmosphere over the next decade made radical poets unfashionable...

Introduction to A Two Faced Poet
by Ian R Thorpe
November 2002
CREATIVE COMMONS: Attribute, non commercial, no derivs.
KEYWORDS: music, rock, poetry, poem, poet, verse, rhyme, booze, love, lust, sex, alien, nature, humour, humor comic verse, comedy, work, society, faith, spirituality, relationships

SKIP to menu of poems, audio and video

Click here to se a video in which two arts critics who hate each other discuss the meaning of poetry.

by Ian R Thorpe

A Two Faced Poet is my first solo collection. Given the number of years elapsed since I was first published, this may surprise some readers. I did in fact start to be published in magazines and anthologies during the late 1960s but gravitated to performing in folk and jazz clubs, anywhere in fact that would let me near a microphone. A change in the political atmosphere over the next decade made radical poems unfashionable the demands of family and career curtailed the time available for writing.

There is no money in poetry of course but I carried on for the sheer enjoyment.

Between 1982 and 1997 when life turned upside down for me, many drafts and notes were accumulated but little was completed. People who confuse this with writer's block are wrong. The will and the ability were always there but the time and the conditions were missing.

Ever since I can remember I was fascinated with poetry, its rhythms and the use of languages in a way that seemed to give words an almost magical power. My parents were both great readers and read to me everyday but when I was young we lived with my Grandparents and Grandad, as well as being a wonderful storyteller was a fan of Music Hall or Vaudeville. It was not uncommon for actors "resting between engagements" to earn a crust as Vaudeville acts performing recitations of classic poetry, comic verse and melodramatic pieces written especially for the stage. Grandad was a natural actor and brought all these to life for me. Since then I have been convinced that poetry is best treated as a performance art rather than purely a literary form. There is a place for the kind of poem that is best appreciated when read from the page and also for that which is best delivered from the stage.

Sometimes I am told to take poetry more seriously and promote my work more. The way I see it is having spent many years being very well paid for doing something I did not much enjoy, for the rest of my life I have no intention of climbing back on any kind of treadmill being fortunate enough to do what I enjoy without neding to be paid.

A question often asked now is "why an online e - book and not a conventional publisher?" If this was asked of a novel, memoir or short fiction collection it would be a valid question In the case of poetry however since the option became available an e-book would have been my first choice.

    I have always believed poetry is a performance art and in my early days, before home computers, recordable DVD, camcorders and all the rest I always preferred getting up in front of an audience to seeking the approval of pompous editors whose "highly respected" magazines command circulation figures running into tens... Seeing my work lie dead on the page of some unread publication meant nothing. Critical praise is nice but means nothing compared to somebody in my early days coming up to me in a pub after a show and saying "you made me laugh." If I manage to make a few people think too that is a bonus. Now the equivalent is an e mail from an appreciative reader.

    The demarcation line between humour and invective on this CD is rather blurred at times so if you think you are in the wrong section don't worry, its probably me that is out of step. Despite my early work being praised by critics (I was referred to by one as a Messianic young poet - but when he found out I liked girls he never spoke to me again) A Two Faced Poet shows my humourous and serious side but no messianic tendencied whatsoever.

    I will always argue there is a potential audience for poetry much greater than the literary establishment imagine. As poets we get lost too easily in intellectual mazes and forget our art orginiated in the communal halls of the ancient world. Everything must evolve, poetry included, but in evolution there is a danger of extinction and poets must not forget when pursuing academic goals they are primarily entertainers in

    Almost everybody works for a living now and education has changed. People are taught language in a very functional way and learning to read poetry, which is a skill in itself, is not part of the curriculum. When the received wisdom on poetry publishing was established the class dubbed "idle rich" who had both the education and the time to study the complexities of poetic form and the nuances of verse were numerous enough to provide a ready market for poetry books. Now, although almost everybody in the civilised world has the opportunity of a good standard of education and so is equipped to acquire of their own volition an appreciation of literature, leisure industries have proliferated and compete for our attention.

    So the potential readers are out there. But how do we reach them? Obviously not with intensely personal and introspective work such as has been in favour for many years. Sylvia Plath was a good writer but not the sort of girl many people would invite to dinner.

    In order to find our audience we must reach out to them.

    A former leader of the coal miners union, Joe Gomley, once said "if you've got them by the bollocks their hearts and minds will follow." It is good advice for any performer, especially a poet. Once we have their undivided attention, once we have communicated on an emotional level the audience will follow where we lead. And then comes the one comment that tops "you made me laugh." One day with luck someone will say "you seemed to be speaking about my life."

    Everybody has far more than two faces of course and the contents of A Two Faced Poet reveal various moods from whacky surrealism to romantic reflection and political radicalism.

    The video introduction (see link above) is a spoof discussion between two poetry critics, one arguing that poetry is only for those wealthy elitists who inhabit a world of intellectual snobbery while the other claims it is about the raw emotions experienced by people on the mean streets. I enjoyed playing both of them - its a great excuse for talking to yourself. "No doctor I don't hear voices or see small people with pointy ears, I was rehearsing." Firstly though I will introduce you to a childhood favourite of mine, the kind of doggerel that would not impress many critics but did entertain a lot of people. It was performed in Music Halls and Theatres with support from the audience who would cheer and boo, oooh and aaah in all the right places. This piece was written by a man named J. Milton Hayes and it is great fun. I have searched the internet and checked in the local library to find out if we needed permission to reproduce it but can find neither any indication of a copyright holder nor the date of the writer's death. The text is below the credits.

    The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God by J. Milton Hayes

    This type of work, commonly called a monologue although it is in fact a narrative, was immensely popular in British music hall and I have heard of similar narrative poems being performed in American Vaudeville. The style is noted for the mucicality of its rhythm and the way in which the words engourage the performer (even someone who is not a regular poetry reader) to vary pitch and pace for dramatic effect. The speaker would be accompanied by a pianist who would punctuate the words with power chords, rolls and trills.

    I recall when I was young most adults, farmworkers and their wives around where I lived, relations, friends and colleagues of my parents and the bourgeois neighbours of both sets of Grandparents could all recite some poetry; Macbeth's soliloquy that starts Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow or the Darling Buds of May sonnet from Shakespeare, Rudyard Kipling's "If", "Ozymandias of Egypt" by Shelley and Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" were favourites. But everybody knew and misquoted this piece by J. Milton Heyes. Mr Heyes may not be rank among the greats but his words touched more lives and perhaps encouraged more people to look further into the world of poetry than those of many more highly regarded writers. Although we now read this melodramatic poem with disdainful irony the original target audience would have treated it no more seriously, punctuating the narrative with "ooh" and "aaah" in response to dramatic piano rolls.

    As stated above we could find no record of a copyright holder from whom permission to reproduce could be sought and so with no intention of profiting from another's work I offer you a piece that helped spark my interest in poetry.

    There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
    There's a little marble cross below the town;
    There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
    And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

    He was known as "Mad Carew" by the subs at Khatmandu,
    He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell;
    But for all his foolish pranks, he was worshipped in the ranks,
    And the Colonel's daughter smiled on him as well.

    He had loved her all along, with a passion of the strong,
    The fact that she loved him was plain to all.
    She was nearly twenty-one and arrangements had begun
    To celebrate her birthday with a ball.

    He wrote to ask what present she would like from Mad Carew;
    They met next day as he dismissed a squad;
    And jestingly she told him then that nothing else would do
    But the green eye of the little Yellow God.

    On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance,
    And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars:
    But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,
    Then went out into the night beneath the stars.

    He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,
    And a gash across his temple dripping red;
    He was patched up right away, and he slept through all the day,
    And the Colonel's daughter watched beside his bed.

    He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;
    She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;
    He bade her search the pocket saying "That's from Mad Carew,"
    And she found the little green eye of the god.

    She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do,
    Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;
    But she wouldn't take the stone and Mad Carew was left alone
    With the jewel that he'd chanced his life to get.

    When the ball was at its height, on that still and tropic night,
    She thought of him and hurried to his room;
    As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy air
    Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro' the gloom.

    His door was open wide, with silver moonlight shining through;
    The place was wet and slipp'ry where she trod;
    An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew,
    'Twas the "Vengeance of the Little Yellow God."

    There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
    There's a little marble cross below the town;
    There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
    And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

    [ Two Faced Poet Menu ]

    Boys Games
    Have you ever thought there is something a bit iffy about the super macho male. All the drinking, being crude, treating women like sex dolls etc. And what about the team sports? I've always been suspicious of all that bonhomie in the showers... Audio of Boys Games
    [ Piano - MP3 ] ... [ Piano - Text ]
    [ Alien In My Bed - MP3 ]
    ... [ Alien In My Bed - Text ]
    [ For An American Girl - MP3 ] ... [ For An American Girl n- Text ]
    [ Favourite Boy MP3 ] ... [ Favourite Boy - Text ]
    [ Them - Video ] ... [Them - Text ]
    [ Late Nite Movie - MP3 ] ... [Late Night Movie - Text ]
    [ We Made Love - Video ] .. [. We Made Love - Text ]
    [ Armageddon - mp3 audio ] ... [ Armageddon - text with link to audio]
    [ Casual Sex In New York ] ... [ Casual Sex In New York ]
    [ Beloved Succubus audio ] ... [ Beloved Succubus Text with Audio ]
    Play audio:Late Night Movie
    The poem Late Night Movie takes you ona walk through the mean streets of any city after midnight, an unusual topic for poetry maybe but this verse comes alive in the spoken word performance delivered over a manic music track by British poet Ian R Thorpe.

    Read text version: Late Night Movie Play AudioLove Like Chains
    To many people love is the thing that sets them free but to some it is a prison. This poem by English poet Ian R. Thorpe looks at how some women in particular are slaves to jealousy and wear their love like chains.
    Read text version of Love Like Chains

    More to come 45 titles in total on the album

    If you liked this, please give it a boost

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GO TO Boggart Blog Back Catalogue for links to older posts...

COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDED REA.DING AROUND THE WEB

In this section we do not necessarily support the views expressed in linked articles but try to give a coss section of interesting and well written articles that we think are likely to stir things up a bit.

COMMENT:
(A random and ecletic mix of what we thought was worth reading recently)

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Goodbye Great Britain
Recently, there have been two powerful challenges to the conventional wisdom about the United States. First, Robert Kagan published a lengthy essay in The New Republic, arguing that predictions of America's decline as a global power are woefully premature. .Is it possible, I found myself wondering, to do something similar for Britain? Robert Colvile has a go in this Daily Telegraph article ...

Our rising debt levels are becoming unsustainable – soon we may be talking about wealth confiscation (By Daniel Knowles, Daily Telegraph)
Debt, debt, debt; we’re drowning in it. This morning, the Office for National Statistics published the latest estimates of public sector borrowing. Though borrowing is falling faster than anticipated, thanks to the fact that spending cuts are finally beginning to kick in, the national debt has risen to 64.2 per cent of GDP. More significantly,…

The Obama administration knifes Britain in the back again over the Falklands - By Nile Gardiner World
In yet another display of disdain for the Anglo-American Special Relationship, the Obama administration has weighed in on the mounting tensions between Great Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Just two days after Prime Minister David Cameron issued a robust statement in the House of Commons vowing to defend the sovereignty of the Falklands,…

Drones In The Hands Of The Paparrazi - It's an ethical minefield
America's use of drones for targeted killings is serious enough. But commercial and law enforcement uses are on the horizon. Whether you view them as model aeroplanes for grown-ups or the handmaidens of the killer robot, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are taking off in earnest. ...

The Observer uncritically regurgitates Trotskyist smears against Katharine Birbalsingh- By Toby Young, Daily Telegraph
There’s a disgraceful attempt to smear Katharine Birbalsingh in this morning’s Observer. Under the headline “Katharine Birbalsingh criticised over ‘wasteful’ free school project“, the paper’s policy editor Daniel Boffey tries to create the impression that there’s growing local opposition to the Michaela Community School – Birbalsingh’s free school – which is due to open in…

We’re being sent the bill for the euro crisis again – this time by the IMF - By Daniel Hannan First it was individual banks; then whole industries; then entire countries; now it’s the world. Western leaders have reacted to the failure of each bailout by decreeing a bigger one. Unable to admit their mistake, slaves to the defunct economist whose thinking dominates our economics faculties and central banks, they act like so many Nick Leesons,…

The Three Parent Family More on the progressive left's war on the family and the scientific dictaorship's attempts to dehumanize us all. Babies with three biological parents could be born within three years. Scientists have come up with an IVF technique that uses the undamaged DNA of a third party when couples risk giving their children a genetic conditions such as muscular dystrophy or ataxia. The Wellcome Trust has funded the research (the figures vary between £4 million and six million …

As Obama Positions Himself For A War In Syria We Learn That Like Gadaffi, Assad Is Popular With His People
Most Syrians back President Assad, but you'd never know from western mediaAssad's popularity, Arab League observers, US military involvement: all distorted in the west's propaganda war. Suppose a respectable opinion poll found that most Syrians are in favour of Bashar al-Assad remaining as president, would that not be major news? Well one did and we never heard a word of it in the Obama felching western media ...

Bullshit Sherlock
While other blogs are full of how great the cliff - faller ending of Sherlock Holmes was I felt a bit let down. The fake suicide was telegraphed all through the show. And the coda assured us Sherlock had survived. We should not forget of course it was the habit of ...

Will bringing back grammar schools boost social mobility? by Toby Young Daily Telegraph
The possibility that England may shortly see its first new grammar school in over 50 years has, predictably enough, re-opened the debate about selective education. Yesterday, for instance, Allison Pearson came down firmly in favour, while Fiona Millar shot back with an instant rebuttal. I’ll get into that argument in a moment, but first let’s be…

So Why Read Books Anymore
There is great “truth and beauty” in Homer’s Iliad, but I would not try to make his sale on such platitudes. Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire remains a classic. But I confess it can be hard to get through. Conrad’s Victory or Knut Hamsun’s Growth of the Soil, if authored by writer X this year, would be trashed on Amazon.So what are the reasons, in this age of ...

Eric Holder and the Chicago Way In America Obama's Brownshirts are getting hysterical as they try to make race the major issue in the election campaign.

Dystopian Prophecies Are Coming True - The Government Will Soon Choose Our Wives
Thinking of this entertaining new literary award – “the Hatchet Job of the Year” – it was natural to turn to Macaulay’s Essays, for few reviewers have ever been less reluctant to wound. I had in mind two long review-essays, one on Robert Montgomery’s Poems, the other on The State in its relations with ...
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