http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
[Update) March 25, 2017: Not everyone who visits the blog also visits my Google Plus page where I have been posting links to posts/poems from both blogs on a daily basis. A reader has emailed to say he had heard about the poetry reading but had no details. Sorry about that! He also said he would still like to make a donation to Prostate Cancer UK as his late father had prostate cancer, and he is having tests for it himself. Sadly, cancer does not discriminate! Good luck, Ian, and stay positive!
If there is anyone else out there who enjoys my poems on the blog/s, please help if you possibly can. My page will remain a while longer; every little helps its team in supporting men with prostate cancer, gay and straight alike - and their families - across the UK
Well, the poetry evening is well done and dusted. Only about a dozen people came, but we enjoyed ourselves. (There's nothing quite like live poetry.) Everyone seemed to appreciate my choice of poems and we all got on well during a 30 mins refreshment break which was really nice as some people had only just met for the first time. If the arts are meant firstly to entertain and secondly to offer food for thought, feedback suggests the evening was a success on both counts.
For me, personally, it was hard work involving weeks of preparation but a labour of love so I'm glad I went ahead with it despite being a bag of nerves...which, thankfully, steadied once I got started. This year marks sixty years of getting my poetry into print, given that my first published poem appeared in my school magazine summer 1957. I have also been living with prostate cancer for six years (treated with hormone therapy).
I've recorded the poetry reading although I daresay some editing of the resulting voice file will be necessary. (I hate the sound of my own voice so will leave that to my friend Graham who shoots and edits the videos on my You Tube channel.) Hopefully, blog readers will (eventually) be able to link to it.]
I did not have the confidence to read in public for years. However, after a few years of occasionally performing Open Mics at Farrago Poetry evenings in London, I found the self-confidence to accept invitations to give readings around the UK (2003-2014). Only weeks after a reading in 2014, I had a bad fall and have spent much of the last two years learning to walk again. I can get out and about quite well now with the aid of a walking stick, for which I am truly thankful as my left ankle had sustained a complicated fracture and I was warned I might never walk again. Oh, but I love walking and am stubborn enough to defy any harbingers of doom. Even so, I did not expect to give another poetry reading.
Now, this first poem appeared in Visions of the Mind, Spotlight Poets (Forward Press) in 1998 and subsequently in my first collection, Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001. It is an early piece, written in the summer of 1976 during which I gave an impromptu reading of it in Trafalgar Square to a friend (and several appreciative passers-by who paused to listen.)
POETRY LIVE
Words
Words
out of choc-smeared mouths
in Bank Holiday sunshine;
kids in glad rags spilling
on the streets like bin bags;
shirtsleeves copper seems anxious
to get chatty
Poetry
Copyright R. N. Taber 1998; 2017
I never dreamt that 30+ years on I would be reading a selection of my poems in Trafalgar Square, this time to a global audience via web stream as my contribution to Sir Antony Gormley’s ‘live’ sculpture project, One and Other (2009) sponsored by Sky Arts. To view, click on:
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T [NB: Sept 19, 2019: Today, the British Library confirmed that the link blow to the 4th plinth reading in 1999 is no longer available as the video is incompatible with an updated IT system. However, I am assured that the video still exists, and B L hope to make it available to the public again one day. Fingers crossed, and watch this space.] RNT
[Update) March 25, 2017: Not everyone who visits the blog also visits my Google Plus page where I have been posting links to posts/poems from both blogs on a daily basis. A reader has emailed to say he had heard about the poetry reading but had no details. Sorry about that! He also said he would still like to make a donation to Prostate Cancer UK as his late father had prostate cancer, and he is having tests for it himself. Sadly, cancer does not discriminate! Good luck, Ian, and stay positive!
Well, the poetry evening is well done and dusted. Only about a dozen people came, but we enjoyed ourselves. (There's nothing quite like live poetry.) Everyone seemed to appreciate my choice of poems and we all got on well during a 30 mins refreshment break which was really nice as some people had only just met for the first time. If the arts are meant firstly to entertain and secondly to offer food for thought, feedback suggests the evening was a success on both counts.
For me, personally, it was hard work involving weeks of preparation but a labour of love so I'm glad I went ahead with it despite being a bag of nerves...which, thankfully, steadied once I got started. This year marks sixty years of getting my poetry into print, given that my first published poem appeared in my school magazine summer 1957. I have also been living with prostate cancer for six years (treated with hormone therapy).
I've recorded the poetry reading although I daresay some editing of the resulting voice file will be necessary. (I hate the sound of my own voice so will leave that to my friend Graham who shoots and edits the videos on my You Tube channel.) Hopefully, blog readers will (eventually) be able to link to it.]
.....................................................
Now, this first poem appeared in Visions of the Mind, Spotlight Poets (Forward Press) in 1998 and subsequently in my first collection, Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001. It is an early piece, written in the summer of 1976 during which I gave an impromptu reading of it in Trafalgar Square to a friend (and several appreciative passers-by who paused to listen.)
POETRY LIVE
Words
to music, out of words on
sun rising in the eyes
of that ragged-eared mongrel
at George’s door
tongue lolling, nostrils a-smoke,
tongue lolling, nostrils a-smoke,
smelling us out
Words
to music, out of words on
letting carnival hot dogs
substitute for garden scents,
make easier the stink
Words
to music, out of words on
letting carnival hot dogs
substitute for garden scents,
make easier the stink
of various matter-of-fact slop-outs
in the gutter
Words
out of choc-smeared mouths
in Bank Holiday sunshine;
kids in glad rags spilling
on the streets like bin bags;
shirtsleeves copper seems anxious
to get chatty
Poetry
Copyright R. N. Taber 1998; 2017
I never dreamt that 30+ years on I would be reading a selection of my poems in Trafalgar Square, this time to a global audience via web stream as my contribution to Sir Antony Gormley’s ‘live’ sculpture project, One and Other (2009) sponsored by Sky Arts. To view, click on:
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T [NB: Sept 19, 2019: Today, the British Library confirmed that the link blow to the 4th plinth reading in 1999 is no longer available as the video is incompatible with an updated IT system. However, I am assured that the video still exists, and B L hope to make it available to the public again one day. Fingers crossed, and watch this space.] RNT
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