A pressie from Auntie

It was National Poetry Day yesterday – don't run away; I'm not going to foist any of my own efforts on you! The attentive might recall that I had Keats for 'O' and 'A' level at school and, Ode to Autumn apart, rather hated it.

I have no concrete memories of any other poets that we studied, although it can't just have been Keats in the course of eight years.

It was some years later that I found my way to poetry when I was introduced to the Mersey poets – Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten. I loved their work – particularly Henri.

More recently, I've expanded my poetry reading: I tried a collection of John Betjeman, which I found enjoyable, if full of snobbery and with an idea of a chocolate box England that existed for only a few people; it's no surprise that his poems are so popular.

Among my recent 'discoveries' have been Wendy Cope and Thom Gunn, both of whom I like for different reasons.

Tonight, though, I've been introduced to a 'new' poet, Christopher Reid, by the BBC.

Good old Auntie: after so much dross for so long, kowtowing to the market god, trying to feed us on a diet of 'reality TV' and the exploits of Z list celebrities, they gave us something of actual quality. The Song of Lunch is a dramatisation of Reid's poem of the same name, which was screened for National Poetry Day.

It tells the apparently simple tale of a middle-aged, failed writer who leaves work at a publishing company one afternoon for lunch with an old flame that he hasn't seen in 15 years. Needless to say, the reunion doesn't go quite the way he had hoped.

It's almost entirely told in his words, as an internal dialogue, in voluptuous language. But language is part of the man's problem: his fetishisation of it is one of the causes of his own emotional immaturity, as we discover, while all the time taking pleasure in the language ourselves.

Brilliantly performed by Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson, it's funny and moving and rather tragic and as delicious as the lunch the reunited lovers are served, with a plethora of ideas and themes to feed the viewer's mind.

As director Greg Wise says on a BBC blog about the film: "I know Auntie gets a kicking a lot of the time, but all I can say is God bless public service broadcasting. I know no other broadcaster would have the vision, the bravery and the commitment to undertake a piece of work such as this, and for that the BBC should be praised."

I'm going to allow myself a 'Hear, hear!" at this juncture.

And thanks to The Other Half who pointed out that it was on. I love Rickman. I first saw him in the 1980s as Jacques in As You Like It at Stratford: in a rather muted production, when I was half ready to doze, he arrived on stage to give us the "All the world's a stage" speech. An unknown actor at the time, you could feel the entire audience sit up and pay attention. He's got such a wonderful voice, like dripping velvet.

One night some years ago, after attending a first night in London's West End (it might have been a production of Waiting for Godot with Ade Edmondson and Rik Mayall), a friend and I were taken by fellow critics who had expenses accounts (and decent pay packets) to Joe Allen's restaurant in Covent Garden. Shortly after we'd been seated, Rickman came in with friends and sat at the table next to us, his back almost directly to mine.

I can't remember what he said, but listening to his voice was almost enough to induce an orgasm. And for some reason or other, I can't remember a thing about what I ate.

Anyway, catch The Song of Lunch on iPlayer if you haven't seen it thus far – although I'm sure it'll be repeated. And personally, I'm going to get hold of Reid's poem to read it too.

In the meantime, the theme of this year's National Poetry Day was apparently 'home'. Now I really can't think, off the top of my head, of any poem on that subject that I like (or even know).

So in the spirit of poetry in general, here's one that I do love – although its idea of home isn't what most people would first think of.

It's epic and romantic and it still gives me goosebumps every time I read it.



Ballade von den Seeräubern (Ballad of the Pirates)

Frantic with brandy from their plunder
Drenched in the blackness of the gale
Splintered by frost and stunned by thunder
Hemmed in the crows-nest, ghostly pale
Scorched by the sun through tattered shirt
(The winter sun kept them alive)
Amid starvation, sickness, dirt
So sang the remnant that survived:
Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!
Enormous wind, the sails blow free!
Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh
Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

No waving fields with gentle breezes
Or dockside bar with raucous band
No dance hall warm with gin and kisses
No gambling hall kept them on land.
They very quickly tired of fighting
By midnight girls began to pall:
Their rotten hulk seemed more inviting
That ship without a flag at all.
Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!
Enormous wind, the sails blow free!
Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh
Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

Riddled with rats, its bilges oozing
With pestilence and puke and piss
They swear by her when they're out boozing
And cherish her just as she is.
In storms they'll reckon their position
Lashed to the halyards by their hair:
They'd go to heaven on one condition -
That she can find a mooring there.
Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!
Enormous wind, the sails blow free!
Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh
Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

They loot their wine and belch with pleasure
While bales of silk and bars of gold
And precious stones and other treasure
Weigh down the rat-infested hold.
To grace their limbs, all hard and shrunken
Sacked junks yield vari-coloured stuffs
Till out their knives come in some drunken
Quarrel about a pair of cuffs.
Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!
Enormous wind, the sails blow free!
Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh
Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

They murder coldly and detachedly
Whatever comes across their path
They throttle gullets as relaxedly
As fling a rope up to the mast.
At wakes they fall upon the liquor
Then stagger overboard and drown
While the remainder give a snigger
And wave a toe as they go down.
Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!
Enormous wind, the sails blow free!
Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh
Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

Across a violet horizon
Caught in the ice by pale moonlight
On pitch-black nights when mist is rising
And half the ship is lost from sight
They lurk like wolves between the hatches
And murder for the fun of it
And sing to keep warm in their watches
Like children drumming as they sh1t.
Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!
Enormous wind, the sails blow free!
Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh
Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

They take their hairy bellies with them
To stuff with food on foreign ships
Then stretch them out in sweet oblivion
Athwart the foreign women's hips.
In gentle winds, in blue unbounded
Like noble beasts they graze and play
And often seven bulls have mounted
Some foreign girl they've made their prey.
Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!
Enormous wind, the sails blow free!
Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh
Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

Once you have danced till you're exhausted
And boozed until your belly sags
Though sun and moon unite their forces -
Your appetite for fighting flags.
Brilliant with stars, the night will shake them
While music plays in gentle ease
And wind will fill their sails and take them
To other undiscovered seas.
Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!
Enormous wind, the sails blow free!
Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh
Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

But then upon an April evening
Without a star by which to steer
The placid ocean, softly heaving
Decides that they must disappear.
The boundless sky they love is hiding
The stars in smoke that shrouds their sight
While their beloved winds are sliding
The clouds towards the gentle light.
Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!
Enormous wind, the sails blow free!
Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh
Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

At first they're fanned by playful breezes
Into the night they mustn't miss
The velvet sky smiles once, then closes
Its hatches on the black abyss.
Once more they feel the kindly ocean
Watching beside them on their way
The wind then lulls them with its motion
And kills them all by break of day.
Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!
Enormous wind, the sails blow free!
Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh
Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

Once more the final wave is tossing
The cursed vessel to the sky
When suddenly it clears, disclosing
The mighty reef on which they lie.
And, at last, a strange impression
While rigging screams and storm winds howl
Of voices hurtling to perdition
Yet once more singing, louder still:
Oh heavenly sky of streaming blue!
Enormous wind, the sails blow free!
Let wind and heavens go hang! But oh
Sweet Mary, let us keep the sea!

Bertolt Brecht, 1919