Overheard Conversation #17

Location: Foyer of a Police Station. A pale wood counter with a bell.
Characters: Woman, middle-aged (though it pains me to say it). Police Officer (even older - ha!)

Woman: Hello? Hello? (SEES NOTICE: RING BELL. SHE RINGS THE BELL.)
A UNIFORMED POLICE OFFICER APPEARS VIA A SIDE DOOR.
PC: Can I help you?
Woman (THINKING THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO CORRECT HIS USE OF ENGLISH): Yes. I hope so.
PC: How can I help you?
Woman: I've been receiving nasty emails -
PC:Yes?
Woman: I have them here. (SHE WAVES A SHEAF OF PAPER.)
PC: Do you know who is sending these emails?
Woman: A poet.
PC: A poet?
Woman: A disgruntled one.
PC: And he's sending you emails - Why?
Woman: Because's he's very cross.
PC: No, why's he sending them to you?
Woman: I run a poetry group -
PC: You're a poet, too?
Woman: Well, yes, I suppose I am. But I'm not writing very much at the moment.
PC: Hmm... So a very cross poet is sending you, another poet, emails? Do they - ahem - rhyme?
Woman: Officer, I am very well that this sounds like a plotline from Midsommer Murders - perhaps you could read the emails? (SHE HANDS THEM OVER.)
PC (SCANNING ONE): He is cross, isn't it? More than cross -
Woman: Furious?
PC: He likes the eff word -
Woman: And the C word. (SHE LEANS OVER AND POINTS AT THE PAPER.) He uses it six times in one sentence there.
PC: Is his spelling always this bad?
Woman: Yes. (SHE POINTS AGAIN.) See, just there he says I'll wake up in hospital with my kneecaps missing.
PC: Does he now?
Woman: And no teeth.
PC: Pleasant chap. Why you?
Woman: Why me what?
PC: Why's he sending 'em to you?
Woman: Because I asked him not to send me any more emails about hanging Tony Blair.
PC: He wants to hang Tony Blair?
Woman: Amongst others.
PC: Others?
Woman: He's not overly keen on the Dalai Lama either. (BEAT.) And the Pope makes him apoplectic
PC: That was quite poetic, Madam.
Woman: Thank you.
PC (SELF-CONSCIOUSLY): I write a bit of poetry myself.
Woman: Really?
PC: Nothing fancy. (BEAT.) Humour mostly. (BEAT.) Would you like to come through? I'll need to take some details. (SHOUTS) Bob! Bring a tea through for Sylvia Plath here!

Roll credits

The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But ...

Oi! Poets! This post is for your benefit. Dedicate your next book to me, chuck a percentage of the royalties my way (cash only), place laurels on my brow, scatter rose petals where'er I walk - the usual poetic shenanigans. You'll be begging to do all this and more in an attempt to convey your deepest, most sincere gratitude.

Why? Because I've found out where you've all been going wrong.

There is simply no point in sending off poems to competitions, sealing the envelopes with a hopeful kiss, and waiting for your genius to be discovered. Or submitting poems to magazines, pestering editors with manuscripts, trawling round the literary festivals or (shudder) networking.

Only a dunderhead plays that game.

The real Poetic Genius invents competitions and poetic crowns, then awards them to himself. He claims to have appeared on the same platform as the Big Name Poets. (He was moving the furniture but that's by the by). He says he has been given the keys to New York and the padlock to Birkenhead. He has taught poetry to the brightest of young minds.

And it's all true ... because he says so.

With this in mind, I should like to draw your attention to my ALL NEW! Poetic CV.

(CLEARS THROAT)

Moptop is a well-regarded poet who has gigged extensively throughout the known universe.

And Wirral.

She was poet-in-residence at the Sydney Opera House where she became a personal favourite of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. She has been given the Freedom of Bootle, Walton Vale Shopping Centre, several engraved pens and umpteen blessings by The Pope. She is well known down The Docks.

Seamus Heaney is a meany unless Moptop opens for him.

Carol Ann Duffy gets huffy when Moptop's name is mentioned.
(Moptop turned down the job of Poet Laureate).

Kanye West and Eminemineminem have both said (separately), "She taught me how to rhyme, bro, ya dig?"

Roger McGough and Brian Patten say (in well-practised unison), "There's only one Liverpool poet: Moptop. We've been living a lie all these years."

Moptop has taught poetry at all of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and was visiting Prof. of Poe. at Harvard, Yale and Cal Tech in 2006, 2007 and 2008 respectively. In 2010, she will be made Temptress of India - a new role created in her honour for her series of mind-altering poetic essays, Lay Me on a Poppadum and Lick Me.

Winner of the Frowst Award for Poetry in 2009, she was awarded a Caithness Glass rosebowl and a cheque for $100,000 (Canadian) in a ceremony organised by the Liverpool Couture Company and the Deadwood Poetry Society.

Her other poetic triumphs include:
1st ~ National Pottery Competition, 2001
1st ~ Carduff Academi, 2002
1st ~ S.T. Elliott Prize, 2003
1st ~ Foreword Prize for Best Ever Poem in Britain, 2004
1st ~ Foreword Prize for Best Ever Poem of the 20th Century, 2005
1st ~ Foreword International Prize for Best Ever Poem in The Known Universe, 2006

And others far too numerous and tedious to mention.

Her most recent book, The Girl Who Tried to Shag Cumulonimbus, (Fabre & Fabre) was chosen as a Poetry Book Society Book of the Month - for sixteen months running - and is now in its 24th edition. It has sold (in hardback) 1.8 million copies, is a set text on the GCSE syllabus in Kent and is studied extensively in Albanian schools.

She has written 37 books in total, many of them published.

Moptop turned down the offer of permanent residence in Dove Cottage, Grasmere, as she (generous to a fault) wanted to give other poets a chance.

Currently Poet-in-Residence at Costa Coffee (Bold St.), Moptop is working on her next book, the climax of which will be her epic 1400 stanza poem (title as yet to be decided) on the subject of Afternoon Tea.

The Banned List #4

Disgruntled Poets

I'm going off piste with this one, but I really do think that Disgruntled Poets (sp. Disgruntatum Poeticum) should be on the Banned List.

Only today, via carrier pigeon (email is so last year, dear) I received the following missive:

I'll beat the bleeping bleep out of you, you slimy, illiterate, talentless bleep... be warned; I've done time and been birched for sorting out bleeps like you who got under my skin ...

Five minutes later, another exhausted-looking pigeon arrived.

You think you are so bleeping witty but believe me when you are picking your bleeping teeth off the floor or lying on a hospital bed wondering were (sic) your bleeping kneecaps went to you wont (sic) be bleeping laughing...

And so on.

So far, so predictable. But I have a question that needs answering. In all my years of writing, performing and teaching, and having met hundreds of truly gorgeous, delicious, kind, funny, unusual, inspiring, modest, anxious, confident, sweet, talented, clever, boringly normal, barking mad poets of all genders, I have only ever met four (count 'em, four) Disgruntled Poets.

And all four of them have been men of a certain age.

I wonder if we could devise an equation to identify them? After all, they do not immediately appear Disgruntled. You are fooled by perfectly normal behaviour then suddenly - YIKES! - you are drowning in pigeon shit, parchment and feathers ...