Street Poetry
The poems that littered the streets of Lympstone this summer were random droppings. They had to be short, and instantly understood – nobody would loiter for long. Some were grouped in themes. Wimbledon provoked some tennis poems, the coming of June some summer poems, three breakfast poems were accompanied by a teatime lyric. On the 65th anniversary of D Day we posted Seamus Heaney’s powerful, unsettling Anahorish 1944. Some of you suggested poems (including Ted Hughes’s Amulet, chosen by Grace Packman, whom we neglected to credit in our last Drumbeat). Rodney Dingle posted his own selection in his ever-informative window. We had two poems from Lympstone poets: Ralph Rochester’s Cormorant and, to round things off, Nick Shirley’s Slurping peaches in the bow.
Several of you have asked for an anthology. Here is one on line. It raises issues of copyright. Before using any poems that are still in copyright, we consulted The Poetry Society. They assured us that there was no problem in displaying one poster of one poem for one week in one village. But as soon as that poem was printed in a multiple form, we would be liable to pay copyright. And so the anthology that follows does not print the poems still in copyright - those printed in red in the table below. Instead, at the end, we suggest where you can find them, if you care to look; and there’s always Google.
Some of you have said how much you enjoyed just coming upon the poems, unexpectedly. Unexpect some more. Here they are more regimented, like Andrew Marvell’s flowers. But perhaps they will remind you of a random summer in Lympstone.
Harland
The poems when and where they appeared
| Saturday | At the top of the village | At the bottom of school hill | Outside the Post Office | Opposite the Surgery |
| 9th May | Youth & Age S. T. Coleridge |
It is not growing Ben Jonson |
Mrs Darwin Carol Ann Duffy |
A bit averse Jonathon Treyer |
| 16th May | Gather ye rosebuds Robert Herrick | Their Lonely Betters W. H. Auden |
Cormorant RalphRochester |
We’ll go no more a-roving Lord Byron |
| 30th May | When June is Come Robert Bridges | Apples Margaret Toms |
Sumer is icumen in Anon |
Shall I compare thee William Shakespeare |
| 6th June | They are not long Ernest Dowson | Anahorish 1944 Seamus Heaney |
Rose thou art sick William Blake |
My luve is like a red red Rose Robert Burns |
| 13th June | Good Appetite Mark van Doren |
Breakfast Wilfrid Gibson |
Bacon & Eggs Paul Farley |
In a Bath teashop John Betjeman |
| 20th June | Golden Slumbers Thomas Dekker | Western Wind Anon |
A Celtic Riddle Exeter Book of Riddles |
The Night has 1000 eyes Francis Bourdillon |
| 27th June | It matters not J. B. Downie |
A Subaltern’s Love Song John Betjeman | 40 – Love Roger McGough |
At Lord’s Francis Thompson |
| 4th July | Bad Report Spike Milligan |
Bare Back Riding Mike Jubb |
The Swallows are here! Alcaeus | Spring is Sprung Anon |
| 11th July | The Garden Vita Sackville-West |
from Paradise Lost John Milton |
Glory of the Garden Rudyard Kipling |
The Garden Andrew Marvell |
| 18th July | Amulet Ted Hughes |
Appearances Humphrey Clucas |
The Plain Facts Ruth Pitter |
Lyonnesse Thomas Hardy |
| 25th July | Considering the Snail Thom Gunn | Tall Nettles Edward Thomas |
Pied Beauty G M Hopkins |
Slurping peaches Nick Shirley |
