The Leader -- Roger McGough

(Poem #1788) The Leader I wanna be the leader I wanna be the leader Can I be the leader? Can I? I can? Promise? Promise? Yippee I'm the leader I'm the leader OK what shall we do? -- Roger McGough

This skirts perilously close to my "why is this even a poem?" line, but for
all that, I enjoyed it. McGough has a fine feel for the rhythms and patterns
of colloquial speech, which makes his poetry a delight to read. Also, he has
perfectly captured a common behaviour pattern in a few well-chosen lines -
the image made me laugh, and I can imagine several of my famous cartoonists
doing a great job illustrating the verse.

This is the sort of poem that, while not precisely epigrammatic, I
nonetheless find myself quoting when events or discussions take a
predictable turn. If nothing else, poems like this provide an entertaining
way of recognising and commenting (even if only to myself) upon life's
little, commonplace absurdities.

martin

Let Me Die a Youngman's Death -- Roger McGough

(Poem #1627) Let Me Die a Youngman's Death Let me die a youngman's death not a clean and inbetween the sheets holywater death not a famous-last-words peaceful out of breath death When I'm 73 and in constant good tumour may I be mown down at dawn by a bright red sports car on my way home from an allnight party Or when I'm 91 with silver hair and sitting in a barber's chair may rival gangsters with hamfisted tommyguns burst in and give me a short back and insides Or when I'm 104 and banned from the Cavern may my mistress catching me in bed with her daughter and fearing for her son cut me up into little pieces and throw away every piece but one Let me die a youngman's death not a free from sin tiptoe in candle wax and waning death not a curtains drawn by angels borne 'what a nice way to go' death -- Roger McGough

We've run a couple of McGough's more humorous poems in the past, but we were
long overdue for a serious one. And, despite the superficially light tone,
this is indeed a serious poem, comparable in spirit if not in tone to Dylan
Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle".

Which is not to say it doesn't have its absurdist side - this may be a
serious poem, but it is not a solemn one, and the way the humour plays off
against the darker tone is one of its particular strengths. (Who but McGough
could have come up with the phrase 'in constant good tumour'?) It's a
refreshing change from the "unconquerable soul" tone of most poems I've read
on the topic - it is easy to picture the narrator as a living, breathing
reprobate who fears a sanitised death far more than he fears death itself.

The poem also delivers a somewhat bitter commentary on the roles into which
society slots the old - another topic which McGough's gritty narrative voice
makes a perfect medium to convey. (I suspect Bert Baxter, from the Adrian
Mole books, would have loved it, for instance).

martin

Balloon Fight -- Roger McGough

(Poem #1335) Balloon Fight 'This morning, the American, Steve Fossett, ended his Round-The-World balloon fight...I'm sorry, balloon "flight"...in northern India.' - The Today Programme, Radio 4, 20 January 1997 It ended in Uttar Pradesh. It had to. You can't go around the world attacking people with balloons and expect to get away with it. What may be mildly amusing at children's parties in Upper Manhattan will not seem so funny ha ha on the Falls Road. How Fossett fought his way across the former Yugoslavia I'll never know. Some folk never grow up. Hang on to their childhood. Believing in the Tooth Fairy, watched over by the Man in the Moon. Thank you, Mr Newsreader, for bringing him down to earth. For bursting his balloon. -- Roger McGough

I had to laugh out loud when I read this poem, at the sheer *image* of our
intrepid hero working his way around the world and hitting unsuspecting
people with balloons.

As a child, McGough came as something of a revelation - I had always loved
poetry, but only if it rhymed and scanned. McGough was the first poet to
show me that modern poetry could be pleasurable, and here, watching him turn
a simple slip of the tongue into a wonderful piece of whimsy, I'm glad to
say that the magic hasn't faded.

martin

A Good Poem -- Roger McGough

Guest poem sent in by Zubaer Mahboob

(Poem #1100) A Good Poem I like a good poem one with lots of fighting in it. Blood, and the clanging of armour. Poems against Scotland are good, and poems that defeat the French with crossbows. I don't like poems that aren't about anything. Sonnets are wet and a waste of time. Also poems that don't know how to rhyme. If I was a poem I'd play football and get picked for England. -- Roger McGough

This poem brought a wide, knowing grin to my face when I first read it. I
suspect that it will resonate with many other readers who were frustrated at
an early age by poetry that appeared wilfully obscure and who, even now,
shudder at some of the more inscrutable stuff that escapes all efforts at
analysis and understanding.

The charm of the poem lies in its directness and honesty.  Through the
poet's empathetic voice, the adolescent reader tells us just what he thinks
of poetry, and how he would like his cuppa. Who would deny him the sweet
irresistible pleasures of narrative verse, of poetry that rhymes and
rollicks and rolls off the tongue? Many of us, I'm sure, can still rattle
off from memory reams and reams of our favorite poems - think Browning's
"The Pied Piper" or Scott's "Young Lochinvar". (I especially like the
tongue-in-cheek "Also poems that don't/ know how to rhyme", given that the
poem itself doesn't rhyme either!) [It's even more tongue-in-cheek than that
- the one rhyme in the poem is "sonnets are wet and/ a waste of time/ also
poems that don't/ know how to rhyme" - martin]

McGough comes from Liverpool and rose to prominence in the 1960's. He has
been described by Betjeman as "long, tall, thin, and with drooping
moustaches."

-Zubaer

[Martin adds]

We were way overdue for a McGough poem - he used to be my favourite modern
poet (indeed, practically the only one I really liked) when I was a kid, and
it's poems like this that explain why. "If I was a poem/ I'd play football/
and get picked for England" is an utterly original, and utterly brilliant
perspective on poetry, one that cuts through the reams of deconstruction and
analysis and speaks of the universal pleasure of a good poem.

-martin

Links:

  Biography, and a sadly moustacheless picture
    http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth202&state=index%3Dm

  An interview with McGough:
    http://www.mystworld.com/youngwriter/authors/roger_mcgough.html