Day Nine; Afterlife
Maureen Almond warms up to warm up for Carol Ann Duffy
Afterlife
Carina’s getting children to write about Vampires,
inspired by Twilight.
One’s invented a Vampire called Nigel who has a comb over.
After Laureate
The poet Prince Charles of suburbia
in Durham’s Town Hall among the coats of arms
and portraits of grumpy old men.
He begins with deaths.
His Mother, his Father.
Hiroshima, Harry Patch,
praising the cadences of Tennyson who keened
in a way few poets can today.
He researched Holy Island on a website,
the ravens, the gospels,
the things
rather than the idea of things,
writers are always looking for.
Fit for a Laureate
After Death
Carol Ann Duffy was driven from Wales after a friend’s funeral,
brought The World’s Wife, Rapture and Prayer to the hall.
“She nursed the phone like an injured bird”
a line I’d read, and loved to hear in her distinctive,
slurring, taking itself back, Scots voice.
I only asked if she was going to Tweet,
(ever)
she said, no nonsense, “No, I’m reading”
and I stayed out of the way.
Being charmed by one Laureate enough for one day.
Women Aloud
Laureates left the hall to five poets who know how to work language
without straining the distinction between public and private.
Women in black, with silver glintings
who can mourn and celebrate
and sensibly rejected my suggestion
they salve hunger by taking bags of crisps into Andrew Motion’s reading.
Linda, Maureen, Pippa, signing.
