Reading List

Well, I've been letting others do my Tiger Mom-ing tonight - French Club after school, and then Beavers (small Cubs, which in turn are small Boy Scouts) after dinner. Which has given me time to rectify my remissness, and post the term's reading list. Poetry this time, with a strict focus on the collection as a whole.

So we will be looking at:



Except what with me being late in posting this and all, we've already looked at Hughes' Crow and Hill's Mercian Hymns. Adrienne Rich this week, and whilst I had a ball with writing a homage/parody/piece inspired by Hughes and Hill, I'm struggling with the Rich for some reason.
Here's the beginning of my rather opaque take on Mercian Hymns, not aligned quite properly as I can't do that on blogger.

Romford Chants

I

Up the Raiders: down the dogs. Down Le Lion d’Or: up The Liberty. Oi Oi on the market. Double Diamond works wonders: go to Romford to be new-bottomed. Wolf smokestack howls a-whoo-hoo in The King’s Head: ride the sainted rhythms of the midnight train. Then cross Gallows Corner: take your life into your hands. No Dick, not the children.

II

The main via from Camulodunum to the smoke. Rumford: Romfort: Romford, the wide ford. Rise, Rom, rise, back-named from the town that buried you. Beam elsewhere. Rats play in the refuse on the clay cuts where you see the sun; Roneo Corner, the top of Oldchurch.

Church gone, tanneries gone, his slaughterhouse now gone; the hospital, rearranged, renamed, remains.

III

Captain Blood plotting at Oldchurch to place crown jewels on our table every night: and how he did. We waded in gore all week; centuries of sheep, scores of slaughtered kine. But Saturday we could raid London, treasure in our hands, buy Garrard if we chose. Then, Alhamdulillah, we killed Sundays too: halal.

Just another 27 to go...

Any views, opinions or startling insights into any of the above books will, of course, be gratefully received.