...can be found over on Malcolm Redfellow's site (with a tip of the cap to Slugger).
Here, a third, is my favourite:
Shipping Forecast
The Fisherman and His Wife in Donegal
They have shared still late October,
but salt stones and a broken tree,
the peeled paint on the lifeboat house
chime with places where the glass falls,
prime sources encountering night’s bald predictions.
Everywhere winter edges in,
and now the time is ten to six...
Lightness and weight, air’s potentials
pressed into words, implication;
here – on all coasts – listening grows passionately tense.
Fair Isle, Faeroes, South East Iceland,
North Utsire, South Utsire,
Fisher, German Bight, Tyne, Dogger... This pattern of names on the sea –
Weather’s unlistening geography – paves water.
Beyond the music, the singing
of sounds – this minimal chanting,
this ritual pared to the bone
becomes the cold poetry of information.
The litany edges closer –
Lundy, Fastnet and Irish Sea...
Routine enough, all just routine,
Always his eyes guessing beyond
the headland, she perhaps sleeping, no words spoken.
He stretches forward to grasp it,
claims his radio place – and now
the weather reports from coastal stations and then: Malin Head – such routine
that she barely glances up, but hears now falling.
By Sean Street.
Update: Malcolm gives the poem some thoughtful consideration here.
Thanks, Ciarán: that's a
Thanks, Ciarán: that's a new one to me. I'm studying it now. It has a quite remarkable tension to it. And the suppressed emotion grabs me. Sean Street: I know of him mainly through his radio stuff, but am also aware he has several collections of poems out. I shall follow him up. Again, I am grateful for the tip-off.
Not to detract from the
Not to detract from the poetry, Ciarán, but I always find the shipping forecast is a good cure for insomnia. There's something calm and soothing about it (though it possibly the opposite effect for fishermen and sailors), which I suppose stems from the fact that the listener is invariably tucked up in bed and not out at sea! And just where the hell is Channel Light Vessel Automatic?
By the way, I believe you were speaking with Phil Larkin lately - he's been quite prolific of late with his writing! His latest piece on the future of the SDLP and the possible merger with FF is on my blog if you're interested.
PS - Congratulations to yourself and Isabel on tying the knot.
Thanks for posting the other
Thanks for posting the other two poems Malcom! I think I heard Street's poem being read back in 1998 on National Poetry Day, just before the Shipping Forecast - it's lovely.
And CW: Phil's post is in my feed reader - I'll read it when I have a moment. Thanks for the heads-up!
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