John Hegley, the much loved comic poet/muso, is another artist featured in all of the Poetry Olympics anthologies.   His latest work, Uncut Confetti, was reviewed by M H in the Telegraph Arts & Books supplement on May 13 under the headline –

"I promise to spink before I theak"

John Hegley's substantial poetic output is consistently plain-speaking yet metaphysical, mordant yet mellifluous, wildly experimental yet deeply traditional.   Like Gavin Ewart, Wendy Cope, Roger McGough and others oft-captioned light versifiers, he speaks many a true word in jest on page and on stage to children of all ages.   His books, like those of Blake, Edward Lear, Thurber, Stevie Smith and John Lennon, come festooned with witty drawings that complement and reinforce the verbals. And like those of John Agard, Valerie Bloom, Adrian Mitchell and other authentic pop/ular poets of our time, Hegley's performances (self-accompanied on mandolin, with and without fellow troubadours) abound in telling improvisations and invent new possibilities for call-and-response, word-riff chorales and spontaneous audience participation every time.

His other-people oriented work experience as both Social Security counter clerk and stand-up comic has rubbed off on many of the verse and prose pieces in Uncut Confetti , his tenth volume. So has his tender family man's dedication to the entire human family.   Here and there he lets habitual recourse to rhyme, wordplay and jokery get the better of him, but for the most part this collection of recent reminiscences and reflections consolidates his position as one of our most reliably entertaining and generously communicative contemporary bards.

      What is more (and not the case with quite a lot of would-be satirical chappies), his own aspirations and achievements are treated just as sharply as everything else. In "On Paper", for instance: "She's sat with me here at the table/she isn't yet able to speak,/she's throttling into her bottle/she's only a month and a week./I mixed her milk yesterday evening/to make up her milk from the breast,/it's twenty past three in the morning,/she's wearing her sleep-suit and vest./I'm writing this poem one handed/the other is feeding the muse,/she's just had a wee bit of winding/and over my poem she spews."

      What Ted Hughes wrote forty years ago about Adrian Mitchell's work applies equally, in every respect, to Hegley's: "He is no more naïve than Stevie Smith, but like her he has the innocence of his own experience, inner freedom, and the courage of his own music. Among all the voices of the Court, a voice as welcome as Lear's fool. Humour that can stick deep and stay funny."

      "On Paper" quoted above observes Hegley's daughter from the poet's point of view. "Baby at Work" looks more closely at the more distinct purposes and palpable realities of life for the child - albeit with "the innocence of his own experience" organically inbred: "She is one./She is having fun./Everything's a skittle/or in the wrong place./Surfaces are to be cleared./Milk is to be spilt/not cried about. /Crying is for getting stuff:/attention, biscuits, the pencil full of poem./The soil in the houseplants/is there to be spread/around the carpet./Glasses don't belong on tables, or the face,/and parents do not belong in the bed."

John with Fran Landesman (Jackie de Stefano)

      John Hegley is a singing dancing 56 year-old rainbow treasury of luminous wordsounds. Long may he go on formulating his agreements and quarrels with himself and others, as in "Beliefs and Promises": "I believe that Buddha would have been a good goalie./I believe there is a greater whole which I am part of./I believe in not ending sentences with prepositions./I believe that rules are there to suggest the possibility of breaking them,/but I don't believe that rules are made to be broken/because that's just another rule.// . . . . I promise to think before I speak./I promise to speak before I think./I promise to spink before I theak./I promise to know when to stop." 

---

Fran Landesman (pictured above with John) is an even longer-standing Olympian & Jazz Poetry SuperJammer, much loved for her uniquely telling song lyrics (whether performed a capella, or with star accompanists such as Simon Wallace on piano, and her son, guitarist-singer Miles Landesman); for her straight – and not-so-straight – poetry; and also her unfailingly sparky jokes and good humour.

Although she sometimes claims to suffer from an oldie's CRAFT syndrome (of her own invention: "Can't Remember A Fucking Thing") she always recalls the hard stuff of her essential scripts – plus, invariably further enlivens it with pointedly ebullient ad libs on each successive gig.

Here is one of her recent reflections (first draft published in the POM! Anthology):

---

Mahmood Jamal

Mahmood Jamal was born in Lucknow, India, in 1948.    He came to Britain from Pakistan in 1967.    His poems have been published in the London Magazine and broadcast on BBC Radio and he has performed at leading poetry venues in London and around the UK.

He has also featured in several anthologies including New British Poetry, Grandchildren Of Albion, and the POW! and POP! Anthologies.

In 1984 Mahmood Jamal was the recipient of the Minority Rights Group Award for his poetry, translations and critical writings.    In the same year he published his first volume of poetry, Silence Inside a Gun's Mouth.    Mahmood Jamal works as an independent producer and writer and has produced several documentary series, notably a series on Islam entitled Islamic Conversations.    He was also a lead writer on Britain’s first Asian soap, Family Pride, and wrote and produced the groundbreaking drama TURNING WORLD for Channel4 television.

Mahmood Jamal has a degree in South Asian Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.   

His published works include:

Coins For Charon – Courtfield Press 1976

Silence Inside A Gun’s Mouth – Kala Press London 1984

Penguin Book Of Modern Urdu Poetry – Penguin Books, London 1986

Modern Urdu Poetry – Farida Jamal/Translit Kuala Lumpur 1995

Song Of The Flute – Culture House, London 2000

He will be appearing on National Poetry Day, Thursday 5 October, to perform his poetry alongside other Olympians at the 100 Club Jazz Poetry Superjam.

This Autumn sees the publication of Sugar-Coated Pill: Selected Poems, one of the first poetry publications from the Edinburgh-based Word Power Books.    This volume has a number of remarkable features and has already attracted wide spread acclaim –

• "...very powerful and moving." Tony Benn

• "I have long been a fan of Mahmood's poetry – since his first book 'Silence Inside A Gun's Mouth'. His new collection, 'Sugar-Coated Pill', will no doubt consolidate his reputation as a special voice." – Linton Kwesi Johnson

• "It's just the book we need today. Burning bright, as Mr Blake would say, with wit and bite and beauty – a tyger of a book – as my dear friend Andrew Salkey used to say – keep on keeping on..." Adrian Mitchell

• "This collection moves one in its voyage across worlds torn with political strife yet creates a new world of the imagination that enables our hearts still to sing..." Susheila Nasta

• "I think he achieves what is very rare in the world – it tempers anger with both compassion and wisdom to make very fine poems. Well done Mr Jamal!" Gerry Loose, Survivors' Press

• "Mahmood Jamal's poetry speaks of division and its consequences. From the divided self to the divided world his lines traverse the actualities of separation and intimate the possibilities of reconciliation. We live in an age when poetry needs its politics; though we should never forget that politics always needs its poetry. Jamal supplies both in full measure". Ian Syson, publisher at the Vulgar Press and contributing editor to Overland magazine, Australia

• "Mahmood Jamal is an outstanding political poet because he is actually a very fine poet... a master of words possessed of something which we can call wisdom". Angus Calder

Sugar-Coated Pill is commended alongside four other new titles in Michael Horovitz's article Bookends (Time Out London, July 12 2006).

---