[Mark McDonnell]

Thanks folks!

My copy arrived this morning. Annie's poem is bitterly funny. About Boris Johnson's decision to allow horse racing to go ahead early in the pandemic.
I understand the arguments, but I don't really see the objection to 'lockdown poetry', myself, though I haven't written much. Of course, it sounds annoying if you give it a name like that, but it's just poetry acknowledging and responding to the changed circumstances of the world. It can be done well or badly like poetry on any subject matter. There. That's my "dose of reasonable pushback" (I love that, Julie! ha)

Yes, Andrew, it's the one with Elvis in it. And Philip Larkin and the Queen Mother. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post it here...

Edit: I've taken an executive decision that I can. People link to stuff here do they not? I can't do that because it's print and I'm too technically inept to link to a photo of the thing so...here it is. Imagine page 54 at the bottom, if that helps...


First Walk Out Along Caldon Canal

I thought it might look changed, but it's the same
old fallen world out here — the shifting sky
keeps shifting, thick with rain. We play a game
along the bank — that people passing by
are dead celebrities, pale ghosts of fame.
There’s Elvis, see? Off to the shop to buy
essential peanut butter (who could blame
the King for this indulgence now? Not I).

A drone flies by. You shiver, button your coat
and check your watch, anxious about the rules,
the news, the air. Three ducklings weave and float
through scum and leaves, the oily rainbow pools
that gather by the locks. A moored canal boat
creaks and rocks. Queen Mum's inside! Right fools
she thinks we are. The past seems so remote.
She's swigging gin and rattling her jewels.

And look! There's Philip Larkin in his mac!
Swaggering along with a stick, content at last,
no social calls to make, no books to stack.
I take your hand. The sky is overcast
and the world is trying to shake us off its back.
It's time we went. And suddenly the past
is clamouring with countless dead, and black
and empty space ahead — still and vast.