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Sharon Harriott's Poetic Works
The Old Man
Cars and busses, feet on wet
pavement,
Swoosh, tap, pace, and rap.
And you, oblivious to time, you lament
At dark windows, docking your cap.
Dapper old man in your battered suit,
Aiming your lighter toward your fag,
A story set in your own head, you salute
All that is familiar to you; a sad,
Weathered building in Muswell Hill.
Lights green, clutch off, and off,
I launch myself into now, and still
Seeing you, rush from all that was silent.
I Was Scared of You
Your lips stop momentum.
Set nondescript, then twisted;
My gut quickly mimics the movement
Yanking my innards and then freezing them fast.
Your eyes have no depth
And thus, my image skims your surface
How your words blow into my face!
Surge, and flow through my damp eyes.
Now, memory juts jagged,
Impressed on slow blinking lids.
A coma vision for when, again,
I am repulsive and obtuse.
My Room: Sharon Harriott
Tree green, dotted with tiny white flowers,
The large roomed imitated a forest glade.
So different to outside, the grey, and the red.
The cars, the shops and the school run.
The bed dominated its vast centre,
Its Barbie pink beckoned comfy nights.
And, where there were bars, only a ‘wet protector’.
No more bruises on elbows and shins.
If I looked left, from the sash window,
I could see the park, and imagine the slides.
Beyond, a hospital chimney spewed soot,
And the leisure centre with D.I.S.C.O at 8pm.
The magic cupboard had a brass-handled door,
I could crouch and hide with Humpty.
Until I realised the dark had crept in,
Then jump the small divide in to mum’s.
(This
one was published in November Issue 2006)
Copyrights @ Sharon Harriott
2007-08
Audio Books Reviews By Sharon Harriott
Published in
November 2006 Issues Translit Section
Also out…
Horror
Stationary Bike
Written by Stephen King
Read by Ron McLarty
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Audio Books
Price: £14.24
Unabridged Audio CD
Classic Stephen King. Junk food addict Richard Sifkitz vows to change his ways
after a visit to his doctor reveals the terrible consequences of being a couch
potato. Buying an exercise bike, he soon becomes addicted to his new health kick
and decides to paint a mural on his wall opposite his bike. This is Stephen King
remember, it turns out that Richard's mural is no ordinary painting, and soon
his stationary bike is taking him places he doesn't want to go…
Non Fiction
Is It Just Me or Is Everything Shit?
Written by Steve Lowe
Time Warner AudioBooks
Price: £12.99
Audio CD
This book is an encyclopaedic attack on modern culture. Designed for anyone who
thinks they may have lost their soul in Starbucks, this book exposes the
cheapness of FCUK and IKEA, even the commercialisation of washed and
ready-to-eat-vegetables. Important topics are discussed in a very funny,
well-informed, cantankerous rant condemning consumer capitalism.
Poetry
Catching Life by the Throat: How to Read Poetry and Why
By Josephine Hart, Various
Publisher: Time Warner AudioBooks
Price: £15.99
Audio CD
This stunning anthology of poems deserves a place on your bedside table. Listen
to WH Auden, TS Eliot, Philip Larkin, Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, Rudyard
Kipling, Sylvia Plath and WB Yeats, introduced by Josephine Hart and read by a
cast of famous actors, including: Ralph Fiennes, Edward Fox, Ian McDiarmid,
Helen McCrory, Sir Roger Moore, Harold Pinter, Elizabeth McGovern, Harriet
Walter, Sir Bob Geldof, Sinead Cusack, Grey Gowrie, Rupert Graves and Juliet
Stevenson. Need I say more?
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Crime
The Naming Of The Dead
Written by Ian Rankin
Read by James MacPherson
Publisher: Orion
Price: £14.99
Audio CD
Ian Rankin’s latest offering, “The Naming Of The Dead” grips from the off, not
only because it’s brilliantly plotted, but because it’s set around one of the
most harrowing weeks of British history with the G8 Summit at Gleneagle’s Hotel
in Scotland, the “Make Poverty History” Live 8 Concerts and London’s 7/7
bombings.
The tented village full of G8 protesters grows; Bob Geldof had demanded that a
million dissenters make themselves known in Edinburgh, stretching the police to
the limit. World leaders are gathering to discuss the World’s poverty, with
Gordon Brown promising to write off African debt; and in contradiction, a
protester streaking with a picture of Tony Blair’s face on the front of his
underpants. A scene that wouldn’t be out of place in today’s political
atmosphere just a year on.
The story starts with Detective Inspector John Rebus swallowing the regret of
his brother Michael’s death and plunging himself into the investigation of a
serial killer who, it’s discovered, has been leaving rotting remnants of
clothing on a tree in spooky Clootie Well. Rebus, the alcoholic, world-weary yet
brilliant detective, and DS Siobhan Clarke, head the investigation, picking up a
series of baffling clues.
The apparent suicide of an MP attending the summit gives a further twist of
tension to the story, especially when it looks like there’s a connection between
that and the serial killer. Rebus is, of course, told to stay away from the
area. The authorities don’t want to overshadow the meeting of global importance.
Rebus, never one to stick to the rules, ignores orders and tension escalates
when Siobhan becomes suspicious of a fellow reveller, Santal, who latches
herself to Siobhan’s parents, Eve and Teddy Clarke who have travelled from
London to join the protest marchers. Siobhan later finds herself hunting down
the identity of a riot cop who assaults her mother.
There’s a lot to follow in this political thriller, and at one point it looks as
though Rebus and Siobhan are up against both the authorities and the underground
gangs running Edinburgh. James MacPherson reads it brilliantly. It’s well worth
a listen.
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Sharon Harriott's Poetic Works
The Address
Number 00 Fortune Raw, Toothing,
London, SW00 OHL,
United Kingdom,
Earth,
The Universe
Tree green, dotted with tiny white flowers,
The large roomed imitated a forest glade.
So different to outside, the grey, and the red.
The cars, the shops and the school run.
The bed dominated its vast centre,
Its Barbie pink beckoned comfy nights.
No more bars, only the rumple of PVC.
And no more bruises on elbows and shins.
If I looked right, from the sash window,
I could see the park, and imagine the slides.
Beyond, a hospital chimney spewed soot,
And the leisure centre with D.I.S.C.O at 8pm.
The magic cupboard had a brass-handled door,
I could crouch and hide with Humpty.
Until I realised the dark had crept in,
Then jump the small divide to mum’s.
Copyrights @ Sharon Harriott 2007-08
Audio Books Reviews By Sharon Harriott
Published in
November 2006 Issues Translit Section
Presenting Audio Listening for November
Sharon Harriott: Audior Book and CD Reviews Editor
The nights are drawing in. As dusk settles,
take time to appreciate the power of sound. Poet’s Letter picks some of the best
of what you should be listening to this month.
Autobiography
John Peel Remembered
Various Artists
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks
Price: £8.99
Audio CD
The Beeb presents a perfect time capsule of John Peel in this audio book: “John
Peel Remembered", which includes the Radio 4 Book of the Week serialisation of
"Margrave of the Marshes", Peel's part-written autobiography completed by his
wife, Sheila Ravenscroft, and the Radio 4 "Home Truths Special".
”Margrave of the Marshes” exudes Peel’s dry wit, his enthusiasm for brutal
honesty and is hilariously funny in places. John reveals a fascinating life – he
takes us back to when he started DJ-ing at a local radio station in the US in
the early sixties. He talks about his love of music, and his fondness of the BBC
is enormously evident in stories that include how often he’d sleep under his
desk at the studio. He gives a hilarious account of how he met Sheila, who would
become his second wife. (His first wife gets a brief mention). Sheila later
tells us her own first impressions, and the resulting first date. (I won’t give
it away – but you’ll laugh!) John Peel was a man completely in love with music
and life, and although he did have his eccentricities, his approach to listening
to demos and the organisation of his shows reveals a bright mind.
”Margrave of the Marshes” is excellently read by Michael Angelis, and later
Carolyn Pickles, and conveys, in the same way as John Peel always did on the
radio, that he was really just an ordinary, if a little eccentric, man.
CD Two is the Radio 4 “Home Truths Special”, which went out on 22 October 2005.
Peel’s show was a notoriously honest programme that showcased his warmth and
wit. It had a large and loyal audience, as it focused on real people’s lives,
from nine-year-old Carers to Pet Sniffers, incorporating anecdotal stories about
his own family and friends with laugh-out-loud vigour. BBC Radio presenter, Tom
Robinson hosts the show with visiting “Peel Acres” to meet John's wife Sheila
and their four children, William, Flossie, Danda and Tom, resulting in funny
insights into the Ravenscroft family. They are an incredibly close-knit family,
and very good-natured. Tom reveals John’s office is just as he left it,
typewriter on the floor (he hated using the laptop) and hardly an inch of space
to stand in. It also features the naming of a railway engine in John's honour,
something fans reveal John would find most amusing.
If you’ve not heard of John Peel, “John Peel Remembered” is a great introduction
to a BBC icon. And if you’re already a fan, you’ll find this Audio CD a
heart-warming recollection.
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Autobiography
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
Written and read by Bill Bryson
Publisher: Corgi Audio
Price: £14.99
Audio CD
Bill Bryson is a prolific purveyor of humorous observation. In this book, a
biographical account of his childhood in a small town in Iowa in the 1950s, he
describes his family and hometown with warmth and affection, and just a hint of
melancholy.
Bryson’s middleclass upbringing unremarkable; to be honest, not much happens at
all in this book. What is interesting is the world he grows up in. Bryson
seamlessly weaves the political geography of America into the story of his
cosseted childhood. It was a time of innovation, with the invention of contact
lenses, ballpoint pens and sandwich toasters. Bryson describes it as the only
time you’d show these gadgets off, inviting the neighbours to dinner to gaze at
the shiny new contraption on the kitchen worktop.
Both his mother and father were journalists, and both worked on the local paper,
the Des Moines Register. His father was a popular sports writer, and a notorious
penny pincher. He would take the family to a specific dentist to save money –
one that didn’t dispense painkillers! Bryson’s mother was a home interiors
writer and terrible cook, (a fact she later disputes). The description of his
father’s reporting on baseball games would, I’m sure, appeal to some people,
especially Americans. But, I admit, it all went over my head and I was tempted
to skip a track or two.
Bryson’s alter ego, The Thunderbolt Kid, was born from his love of comic-book
superheroes and the discovery of a moth-eaten jumper with a gold satin
thunderbolt on the front. The Thunderbolt Kid could vaporize irritating people
with just a stare.
He describes the America of the 1950’s as booming. They didn’t have any debt
from the Second World War, thus the country could afford to propel itself
headlong into the Space Race, (Americans were left with more than a taste of
resentment following Russia’s successful Rocket Launch). I gasped in amazement
as Bryson described America’s Nuclear tests – people used to take picnics and
sit on the boundary to watch the mushroom cloud!
America of the 1950s and 60s was still clinging to racism. Although, Bryson
declares he never saw any form of it whilst growing up. He does, albeit
anecdotally, describe his Grandmother's bigotry. I was reminded of the old lady
in a certain ice cream advert who bangs on the piano as she’s led out of the
room after ranting about her son’s illegitimacy. However, her name for licorice
sweets turned my smile in to a scowl.
This is a book for Bill Bryson fans. His lyrical humour and easygoing manner
keep you bouncing along with dialogue until the very end. His family is
playfully presented, from the infamous “toity jar” to his best, and very gay,
friend Jed.
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