MONKEY MEMORY NO 4

1000 Monkeys Memory No 4: February 2018 in the The Keep, Guildford 

We were very glad to welcome as featured guests at the February 2018 edition of The 1000 Monkeys two experienced poets, Eamonn Lynskey from Dublin and Belinda Singleton, from Guildford itself. The evening was crowded with audience and readers from the floor and we did have to close the list of open mic spots at 7.15, as by then we’d reached the maximum of 15 poets that were all that we could fit into our time.

Isabelle Kenyon asked us “Please hear what I am” in a poem about the problems that Facebook and Instagram can cause young people who see the fantasy world of “having a good time” and believe they’re missing out. Her poem about a homeless man suffering an epileptic episode but ignored by passers-by was very moving.

​Lovely to see Rochelle reading again – “One Teaspoon” had received her attention, and the closing of a historic pub dating back to 1683 inspired her poem in memoriam: “I am the Angel of the past, the present and the future”.

​Dónall, starting off the evening, paid tribute to his childhood friend, Gerry Sweeney, and Gerry’s mother, whose name is the title of Dónall’s recent collection. 

Eamonn Lynskey read from his new collection, It’s Time, published by Salmon Poetry last year. The book reflects his interest in Irish history and in archaeology, with a gentle reminiscent tone. The landscape of Ireland, and its specific places, are a source of lyrical description and of metaphor and scientific and theological musings,  as in “Concerning the Concept of the Universe as an Accident Waiting to Happen.” 

In “This Photograph” the picture has “trapped a blur / of revellers at a New Year’s party” and time is a fluid element in which to drift “towards /the ocean of what might have been.”

Eamonn is very conscious of the separate identities of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland and the Troubles that are a part of the history of both countries as a result. In his poems “Deposition” and “This is my Body” he makes explicit the history of sectarian murder that haunts the island of Ireland. He also speaks and writes of the abuses of human rights in other countries torn by internal conflict and war, for example in “Civilian Executions in Minsk, 1941”. His grief over the loss of young lives in war is a frequent theme, for example in “Two Soldiers”.

Belinda Singleton also muses on time and history. She began with a poem to “Edward Thomas Past and Present”, inspired by the installation of ceramic poppies at the Tower of London last year, and told a little about Thomas’s life and his death in 1917 at Arras.
 
Belinda read beautifully crafted, thoughtful poems on a variety of subjects from her collection, Foxes Don’t Wear Watches (Lapwing, 2017) and also a number of new poems. In a new poem on the future of our automated society she playfully speculates, whether the work of poets will be taken on by robots in an automated future. Belinda isn’t sure it’s desirable!

Belinda’s humour, literary skill and rich imagery make her work a delight. Her topics ranged from the scientific (not all as fanciful as the robotic poet!), astronomy (“The Moon is Leaving us”) to the nature of time, and personal memories of her mother, a painter in St Ives. We very much enjoyed her imaginative “Open Days of the Mind” and her thoughtful poem “Water”, about the burdens, physical and otherwise, carried by women in many parts of the world.
Belinda also edits an anthology of the work of the Wey poets, the Guildford group of which she’s the organiser, this year entitled Ripples.

​In the open mic, Ray Pool gave us a foretaste of Jeremy Loynes – not quite a lookalike but a fair pastiche of Jeremy’s lyric style. Jeremy himself described a hot afternoon in the 60’s, a personal memory, and gave an account of that urge to write down a poem when it comes “thumping” in your head. Here is Ray being himself...

A new reader, whom we hope to see again next time he visits Guildford, was Martin Grey. He had poems about friendship and a rather long list of what we might be and why – my favourite line was “If you were a 4B pencil”. (I don’t recall his follow-up reason – did he want someone soft and dark and creative?)

Bob Milton, after missing out on chances to read for the last two months, described aurora borealis and “After the Storm” and with Valentine’s Day coming up soon, had a love poem too.

Gareth Toms read a sad “Scarecrows in Chairs” and had two different takes on love – here is his wistful “Wish You Were Here”, written two weeks before he met the girl who became his wife.

Billy Jo read “Soulmates”, a bitter-sweet love poem and Alex de Suys read a rant about a number of things that were bothering him. 

​Joanna Dez was another new face at the Keep. She delivered a long and impassioned poem on the subject of sexual harassment, a very live topic right now.

​Michael Cutchey read The Duck Poem, to great effect – his funniest rendering to date!

​Kyle McHale read his reflective poems: “Night on a Train Window”, a sad observation; “To Be” and “Playful”, both encouragements to be creative and unafraid to be oneself. Here is his childhood memory of "The Red Cedar"

​Owen Osler and Martin Jones, both members of the Wey Poets and occasional readers with The 1000 Monkeys, are both observers of people and moments. Owen can always raise a smile – going to collect his false teeth was the subject that did it this time. Martin read from his book of ekphrastic poems, illustrated with his own drawings. “Sunflowers” was an interpretation of Vincent Van Gogh’s letter to his brother Theo about the painting.