[Jerome Betts]

Leafing through the Peter Sansom book (Writing Poems: Bloodaxe 1994) mentioned in the 'Best Textbooks' thread I came across some some piquant points (pps 35-37) about modish 'poetry' words, past and present, like myriad, gossamer and pensive, or, in the 1980s and 1990s presumably, shard.

" If I am hard on 'shard' I might equally have had a go at the dozens of more sophisticated and up-to-date poetry cliches such as stippled, lozenge, light (often a lozenge of - or stippled with - light), lambent, patina, and for some reason seagull. Why we have so many gulls in poetry these days is a matter for reflection. When you come across a seagull in someone's poem try substituting the word teapot. It is an instructive exercise."

He also alludes to the frequency of foxes in earlier verse-decades, and the rarity of words like vest and settee.

This all sounds like the germ of a competition, either to incorporate in verse as many of the worn-out or neglected words as possible, or depatinate cliche-encrusted seagulls and foxes.

I tried the first of these possibilities, but got hi-jacked by the Spirit of Stoke Poges. I'm sure a myriad of other Erastopherians must be made of sterner stuff than gossamer and can rise to the challenge.


The seagull wails the loss of lambent light,
The stippled leaf hangs shard-like from a tree,
The well-sucked lozenge yields me one last bite,
Here, pensive in a vest, on my settee . . .

[John Whitworth]

I haven't worn a vest since I was a child when I had those aertex ones. We are speaking here of a British vest and not an American one which is, I think, what we call a waistcoat, the sort of thing members of the Bullingdon club like Boris and Boy Dave wear. Pronounced weskit, I do believe. Settee is a dead giveaway. Only non-U people (that is, lower class people) have settees. WE have a couch, or even a sofa. As for seagulls, I am in full agreement, the horrid things should be banned from all poetry. I THINK you can shoot a seagull in these parts. If you had a gun, which of course is not allowed. You could shoot it with a crossbow however. But DON'T confuse it with an albatross, which looks just like a VERY BIG seagull.

Does seagull rhyme with eagle? Ogden Nash thought so.

[Susan McLean]

I'll confess to having used stippled once and light quite a few times, but I am relieved to see that I have avoided the others.

Susan

[Holly Martins]

I remember 'plash' instead of 'splash' was popular a while ago. And I also remember one poetry seminar where a smug poet - no, it wasn't you, John - made fun of poets for writing about foxes and hedgehogs run over by cars. I thought, well why shouldn't you write about that?

[John Whitworth]

No OF COURSE it wasn't me. Larkin wrote a very touching poem about a hedgehog he had kiled with his own lawnmower. I think we should all try to run over the poet in question. I have written poems about my cats. Alas, now my cat.

[Julie Steiner]

And suddenly I understand Gertrude Stein!

Pigeons on the grass alas.
.....Pigeons on the grass alas.
.....Short longer grass short longer longer shorter yellow grass. Pigeons
large pigeons on the shorter longer yellow grass alas pigeons on the
grass.

[Jerome Betts]

Whoa, careful, John. It's against the law to shoot seagulls even if you had a gun. I think you would have to get a licence if they were a real nuisance. They can be a nuisance in seaside towns, but, after all, we 've taken most of the fish they would normally eat. Bit like the Somali fishermen turned 'pirate' in a way.

Odd word, 'gull'. From Cornish, it seems, replacing OE 'sea-mew' (as in the Patrick Spens ballad 'from inch and rock the sea-mews fly'). Literal translation of the Cornish is 'wailer'.

[Janet Kenny]

In shards of shells a footless seagull mopes
beside an infinite sea of well known tropes.
Above it myriad clouds in radiant light
bring pure epiphany and radiant flight,
as streams of snowy herons , wings unfurled.
show why Walt Disney sells around the world.

(Actually, I meant to write something worse. Add "epiphany" to the weasel words.)