Mike Jenkins - Welsh Poet & Author
  • Mike's Blog
  • New Book!
  • About Mike
  • Contact
  • What's the point?
  • The Climbing Tree
  • The Fugitive Three
  • Publications
  • Red Poets

ONE SECOND OF FAME

8/18/2010

1 Comment

 
   Imagine my pride when my 10 year-old daughter had her story published in last Friday's G2 Kids section of the Guardian and her main character, Goby the Alien, was actually featured on the front of the newspaper! I've never even made the letters' page and only once had a mention in dispatches by Owen Sheers saying how much he liked my work.

   My wife was gobsmacked and shouted 'Bloody hell!' in the foyer of our holiday hotel, so uncharacteristic my daughter was more interested initially
in her expletive - 'You said a naughty word!' she kept repeating.

   Maybe there'll be another writer in the family, who knows? My son was always destined to become a cellist, but ended up as a TV journalist and my elder daughter loved drama but became disillusioned when she was picked for bit parts like a chicken in the stage version of 'Animal Farm' and is now a politician. So who can tell?

   Nobody in my family was particularly interested in writing, though my father did once acquire a pseudonym and try to publish various things. He even changed his real name to that nomme de plume at one stage, so it must have been serious for a while. But I also recall him being into painting, photography, gliding, judo, sailing, horse-riding......... My mother was the poetry fan in the family, first Dylan Thomas and then Gerard Manley Hopkins and she did encourage my interest, giving me a paperback of 'New Poetry' which included Lowell and Berryman.

   My young daughter enjoys reading and writing funny poetry especially and had a recent Limerick phase, which she found was ideal for insults and crudity.

   It's hard to predict which way she'll develop and certainly there's no point pushing her, but she could well be inspired by seeing her story in print. For me, the moment of truth came when I won a school poetry competition and was later published regularly in the school magazine. It was recognition for a solitary pursuit. I'd hide my poems away in drawers till, in the 6th form, I remember showing some to my sister, who was at uni.

   She was suitably baffled by their obscurity and I relished it when she responded - ' I can't believe it, my little brother writing poetry which I can't understand!' A follower of James Joyce, I took this as a compliment.

   My young daughter reads as avidly as my wife. I only wish I could devour books with their appetite ; I tend to nibble at them like a mouse on a diet. It stands her in good stead when writing no doubt, yet she's the antithesis of a studious person, preferring instead to be playing with her mates on the streets.

   Up until the 6th form (when I became immersed with T.S. Eliot, Joyce, Ted Hughes and Thom Gunn and the music of Soft Machine) I was exactly the same. Homework was my last priority, sport and friends my first. I was a gregarious roamer, enjoying the kind of independence it's hard to envisage for kids today.

   This is a poem about that first flash of fame : - 


                                   ONE SECOND OF FAME

A poetry competition run by Flash Harry, our English teacher
(nicknamed 'Flash' because of 'E-Type' reading
not looking up as we chatted at the back,
saying 'Jenkins out!' without a full-stop).

The theme was 'First man on the moon' :
it was topical, it was Neil Armstrong,
it was my chance to take one giant step
in the airless craters of free verse.

I popped my entry into the box in Flash's room
one breaktime, making sure no-one was following
and it was take-off till results time,
my mind zooming with possibilities.

Then I recalled Flash's love of animals
and the story I'd written when I'd 'kicked the cat';
it was fiction but Flash didn't see it like that,
wrote an appalled comment at the end.

To be fair to Flash, he'd played us a tape
called 'Modern Poetry', read us Owen and Sassoon:
with my mother's tattered Penguins
it showed us whole new species of verse.

Amazed, I triumphed, landing on Planet Poem
with my cynical warning - 'And trees still stood...'
published in the school mag.,my mate Lart
complimenting so profusely I thought it was mockery.

Learnt afterwards there were only two entries
and the other one was by 'Anonymous'
with the title 'Flash Harry Loves Sheep'.
I was a poet: one second of fame, years of disappointment.
1 Comment
Isaac link
10/3/2013 02:23:10 pm

Interesting read.

Reply



Leave a Reply.



    Archives

    November 2019
    September 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from johnharveypegg, Dai Lygad, joncandy, victoriapeckham, David Holt London, aeneastudio, fromthevalleys-, Metro Centric, andymag, David Bergin Photography, villunderlondon, @markheybo, joncandy, Martin Pettitt, Between the Shadows, joncandy, johnkell, olivia.barrie, villunderlondon, Lake Worth, MittenStatePhototog, frankieleon, robynejay, joncandy, mcaretaker, Thomas Leuthard, Knight Foundation, joncandy, Joybot, brownpau, Iburiedpaul, villunderlondon, amit_gaur, abegum, simonw92, beeveephoto, Aislinn Ritchie, Shannon Green Photography, joncandy, Nick J Webb, Vish Menon, AberCJ, gcoldironjr2003, joncandy, World Can't Wait, jonl1973, Watt_Dabney, petejam70, Kerndav, MJ Klaver, joncandy, Daquella manera, spratt504, joncandy, ashleigh290, Glyn Lowe Photoworks., afanatochka, r.nial.bradshaw, themendingnews, rikkis_refuge, Matthew Straubmuller, joncandy, onnola, final gather, funktionhouse, marioanima, joncandy, Dai Lygad, joncandy, Guttorm Flatabø, brittreints, garryknight, villunderlondon, wonker, Martin Pettitt, joncandy, tnarik, AJC1, simonw92, wardyboy400, joncandy, Bombardier, joncandy, Cargo Cult, joncandy, joncandy, SeanOConnor2010, Feral78, comedy_nose, Abode of Chaos, mkairishstudies, joncandy, avail, Jörg Weingrill, Gwydion M. Williams, Leshaines123, KiltBear, eisenbahner, Capt' Gorgeous, Francis Storr, New Chemical History, Matthew Black, jc.winkler, Gwenael Kere, Karen Roe