Tuesday 30 March 2010

A published poet!

Way back in the mists of hippy time I had a poem published. I still have the faded booklet it appeared in. A couple of years later, I had some accepted by the Camden Festival and was invited to read them, but wimped out at the last moment, though they did appear in print in the festival literature. Now I am to be published again, in South Bank Poetry Issue 6. They turned down all the serious, heartfelt poems I sent in and accepted the funny one. Typical! Odd thing is, it has a title that's almost identical to one my friend wrote, that appeared on the previous issue. Hers is called Love on the Underground and mine is called Underground Love. Talk about great minds thinking alike!

To stay with the poetic mood, here is a 'shortie' of mine. No, they didn't accept this one!

THE HOUSE HUSBAND'S CONFESSION

They ask if I'm missing the office.
I tell them I don't give a f***.
Just give me that soft feather duster
And a hoover on maximum suck!

3 comments:

Jackie Sayle said...

That poem makes me think of the time I wrote a short ditty that was really about my ex-hubby. It was published and not paid for in a small press poetry mag., as is normal. However, all the publicity about AIDS was going on at the time and the editor of a gay mag read it and intepreted in a totally different way. He wrote to me asking if he could use my poem and paid for it as well. Paart of the head-spinning fee he offered for a few words I'd written off the cuff, went to the Aids Foundation.

It's odd. I've often been sought out and paid well for a few well-chosen words from the heart, than for crafted poems or short stories.

hydra said...

I'd be interested to see that poem, Jacula.

Jackie Sayle said...

I'll have to dig it out for you.