My Childhood in Contemporary Verse
August 13, 2007 at 11:00 AM
by Ashleigh
When I was a teenager I happened across Contemporary British & North American Verse, an anthology edited by Martin Booth, nestling amongst the crime and romances on my aunt's bookshelf.
Surprising, this was, because in the wilds of Africa poetry isn't exactly encouraged as an outlet for expressing oneself.
Yeah, sure, we did poetry in school. Lots of Shakespeare, some Christina Rossetti, classics. Nothing contemporary. I think there was too much sex in contemporary verse for it to be allowed...
When I found this book I was surprised at the intensity of the language. I was astonished that contemporary song lyrics could be considered poetry.
I still have the book and I'm re-reading it now.
Old favourites still jump out at me.
Richard Brautigan's On the Elevator Going Down and Douglas Dunn's Young Women in Rollers. Ted Hughes' Bedtime Story and The Tractor. Brian Patten's A Blade of Grass, which I've included below. Of course, Stevie Smith's Not Waving but Drowning is in there, and some Sylvia Plath, which I hurriedly skip over now, just as I did then.
I even found some pressed rose petals in my book from my very first love affair. They've faded to a deep brown, like a blood stain, and the colour has dissipated murkily into the surrounding pages.
A Blade of Grass
You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.
I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.
You say it is not a poem.
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.
You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,
And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.
- Brian Patten