"I like the lighting", remarked Adrian Mitchell, standing in front of the huge stone fireplace in Durham Town Hall, its red glow an unintended tribute to Red Sky at Night, the anthology of socialist poetry he had edited with Andy Croft.
But we would come to that later. First he would read from "this strange book" - though he didn't explain whether that description referred to the title, the strokable furry doughnut on the cover, or the fact that he had learned only the previous day that it had won the Poetry Society's 2004 Award for Best Children's Book. Despite a plaintive and hilarious poem about "the worst reading I ever did in my life", Adrian Mitchell is happy to embrace the rôle of children's poet, or, as he was asked by a very cool young audience member in Seattle:
"Are you the author, dude?"His subject matter ranged from reminiscences of his own childhood (Mrs Christmas, about his first cat), by way of riddles on literary themes:
"Yeah, I'm the author-dude!"
to The Muddy Muddy Bog, written with the help of his golden retriever, Daisy, the Dog of Peace, a rhythmic recitation which comes out half dance, half rap.
- Who wrote Big Fat Dorrit?
- Charles Thickens!
- Who wrote Sticky Island?
- Robert Gluey Stevenson!
The middle section of the reading centred on Red Sky at Night, as the two poets each read favourite pieces from the anthology. They had ranged far and wide in search of socialist poems, arguing over the resultant piles of poems in Adrian Mitchell's kitchen, and the result was an extraordinary mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar, the recognised leftist and some (such as Osbert - later fifth Baronet - Sitwell) more unexpected.
Next it was Andy Croft's turn to read from his collection Comrade Laughter. He began with three poems set in the mythical town of Mudfog, explaining that a local journalist had first used this name to refer to Middlesborough, taking it from Dickens (in whose writing it refers to Chatham). While The Elephants of Mudfog weaves a fantasy around a Middlesborough news item, Mudfog declares War on Tourism takes as its starting point the ambiguities of George W. Bush's Texas accent, and Mudfog Goes Bananas starts from Hartlepool's election of a mayoral candidate who stood for office in the costume of the town's football mascot, to conclude with a sharp remark about global politics:
One final joke on which to choke,This was all good, knockabout stuff, using the formal structures of poetry to underline the joke, and so to hammer home its serious point. And there was more, bringing equal passion to bear on the argument that poetry is indivisible (good poetry and bad poetry are not different categories; it's all poetry, though some poems are better than others).
A pretzel-shaped reminder:
We may know who the monkeys are,
But who's the organ-grinder?
Adrian Mitchell had clearly been reflecting during his break on the magnificent surroundings of Durham Town Hall, for he returned with the information that "a strange thing about this room - it's the spitting image of my study. All except that painting there...". This led naturally to the explanation that he had been appointed Shadow Poet Laureate by Red Pepper magazine, and to readings from the new collection, appropriately titled The Shadow Knows. The reference originates in a radio detective series of the 1930s: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!", but Adrian Mitchell, being a music lover, derived it from the Coasters' recording of the Leiber & Stoller song of the same title. The musical theme continued with his Back in the Playground Blues, a powerful piece which really is a blues, and uses the emotional force of that form to talk about children's experience of being bullied at school. The more upbeat Jake and his Amazing Suit was written as a lyric for a jazz opera, and though the music has not yet been written, the poet's performance of it was as close to song as to conventional recitation.
The final poem was neither song nor recitation but incantation, a magic spell to reawaken the heart of those - the poet himself among them - who sometimes feel that they cannot bear to watch one more piece of bad news. Adrian Mitchell's To Whom It May Concern begins:
I was run over by the truth one day.and ends:
Ever since the accident I've walked this way.
So stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.
Tell me lies about AfghanistanForty years old and right up to date, it doesn't end. If only these poets were our unacknowledged legislators.
Tell me lies about Iran
Tell me lies about Iraq...
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