Poetry once defined is dead

Anyone who knows me at all knows what words mean to me. It’s really only those that know me best that know what poetry means to me.

Poetry sprints where mere prose jogs. It’s a direct line into the unstructured mind of a confused mortal with secrets they are bursting to tell, even though deep-down they’d rather you didn’t know.

Poetry is super-condensed emotion, formed under extreme pressure, forcing words out of their earthly role and instead to become something that sings and soars and lives eternal.

The absolutely least important thing about poetry is the format in which it is written.

This is why I was sick to the stomach to read of the “Queen’s English Society” who are declaring war on non-compliant poetry. They believe a “poem” need have rhyme and metre or else it is not a poem.

They sound to me like frustrated poets who want to destroy in revenge for not having the talent to create.

Poetry is looking at the edge experiences of life – to me defined metre and rhyme schemes are only suitable if you’re Pam Ayres and you Wished You’d Looked After Your Teeth.

My favourite poets ran roughshod over convention, and by doing something no-one had done before, they got results that no-one had ever got before.

Many of my favourite poems might fail the pedants’ test. I’m thinking ee cummings, I'm thinking “Howl” by Alan Ginsberg. I’m even thinking Dylan Thomas - it defies belief that his incandescent blank verse might not make the academic grade.

So, nuts to that. I hope poets continue to ignore the empty men such as the “Queen's English Society”

The Next Bigger Thing

Two years ago I was a speaker at the first conference devoted to a promising new technology. Delegates were enthusiastic techies and generally represented smaller quirky companies with a taste for early adoption of risky "bleeding edge" technologies.

There were also, I was told, a smattering of blue-sky thinkers from consultancies and large companies looking for their "Next Big Thing".

On Thursday I went along to the third conference. Five times the number of people and the customers speaking about their experiences were from a major world Stock Exchange, one of the UK's largest retailers and one of the UK's largest banks. I also completely misjudged the dress code - every one had pricey suits and there seemed suddenly to be a lot of tall, confident people with great hair from the leading consulting groups in the room.

I felt greatly ambivalent - on the one hand there's pride in seeing your hunches being proved right, but on the other, there's a feeling of losing "your" little secret.

It was bizarre hearing the senior guys from these huge companies saying exactly the same things I did two years ago, the only differences being the price of their suit and the quality of their hair.

The good news is that there's gold in them there terabytes. The bad news is that tailoring and coiffeur are probably going to be more crucial than technical skill in the next phase of the product's life-cycle.

Plus I have this insane urge to shout out "I've been saying that for years ! Years, I tell you !".

So now I'm on the lookout for the next, next big thing. If you have any ideas, do tell.

Shhh !

The most interesting and bloggable event in my life in the last month was my second interview to become a Magistrate. Unfortunately I was asked to keep it confidential.

Grrr!

So, if you've arrived here in an attempt to prepare for your interview; good luck, but I can't help you. Just keep a cool head and I hope you say what you really think; not what you think they want to hear. The panel that interview you are experienced people who have been lied to by better liars than you on a daily basis for decades.

And if you've arrived here because you're vetting me for the job - see; I can keep a secret.

The Blame Game over the Flame of Shame

If I were any kind of cartoonist, I'd drawn a picture of an athlete surrounded by two thousand police carrying two immense fingers in an "up yours" gesture through the streets of London. This was the message that the Olympic torch relay conveyed to me anyway.

It was reminiscent of a "rolling maul" from Rugby Union - blue Chinese guards and yellow police doing synchronised jogging around someone without the nous to be ashamed of what they were doing.

It was gratifying to see that the police had to crowd in so tight that no-one could recognise the torch-bearer - could be Ellen McArthur, could be Geoff Capes.

Fortunately there were a few principled people who turned-down the chance to carry the torch, and it was obvious from his face that Gordon Brown didn't want to be within a country mile of it. I thought it was a sign of the organiser's desperation that Konnie Huq got her over-exposed hands on it.

And then after a hard day watching the coverage on BBC News 24, we went out for a Chinese meal. Because my grumble isn't with the Chinese people, it's with the fascist head-cases who are currently oppressing them.

I don't believe that the demonstrations will have any effect on the Chinese government and certainly will not directly help the Tibetan people. But it's good that our elected leaders get a taste of the strength of feeling on these issues, and they will hopefully act accordingly.

Oh, and I don't justify any law-breaking in pursuit of even such a good cause. Anyone actually found guilty of a public order offence deserves to be fined. Count me in if anyone's doing a whip-round to pay the fines though.

Update 07/04/2008 : Well, it seems the French ran up more points today despite there being 3,000 police on duty in Paris. I say the Brits scored four points:-

• Touching the flame (Konnie Huq incident)
• Fire Extinguisher near-miss
• Flame forced off the road and into a bus
• General obscuring of the flame
  

Compare that to the French, where the flame actually had to be extinguished three times and a big ten point for the premature cancellation of the relay. Formidable !

The action now moves to San Francisco on Wednesday - can the Americans get close to the French score despite the fact that American police are armed ?

Wherever I Lay My Hat, That's My Hat

‘You look just like me first girlfriend … do you want to be?’

I heard a clip of the very funny performance poet Hovis Presley on the radio a few weeks ago and tonight I finally got round to surfing around for more information. I was very annoyed that the first thing I found was his obituary. Turns out he died of a heart attack aged 44 in June 2005 after turning his back on the not-very-much fame he'd earned.

Watch him in action here. A breathtaking fusion of puns and poetry, and you must go see a doctor if it doesn't at least make you smile.

"It's true what they say about women... it's an irregular plural"