“He started writing poetry on an emailing machine and sending poetic hand grenades to each of his five children… It started a poetry war!”
Peter: “About 20 years ago, I took a small chapbook of poetry home. It was the first book of poems I’d ever done. Sent it to my father and he said, “I can write poetry.” And so he did. He started writing poetry on an emailing machine and sending poetic hand grenades to each of his five children in the hope that it might start something. And apparently it did.
It started a poetry war.”
David: “I was known as Dyslexic Dave because I am dyslexic, and that wasn't discovered until I was in my 20s. I often refer to it and say it hadn't been invented when I was a child, because it was really misunderstood back in the day….
I wrote poetry and I wrote short stories in secret… spelling was a big issue then and it wasn't accommodated within the education process at that time so I hid my writing from family and friends…
And the Poetry Wars, or War of the Words as Peter refers to it, were a kick up the backside, is perhaps one way of putting it. It allowed me to start releasing this and sharing it with other members of the family. So that was sort of a springboard, shall we say, for my poetry journey.”
Peter: “After you'd done the Zulu poem for me I said, ‘David, if I could kill you and steal that poem and say it's mine, I'd do it.’ Actually that became a theme, because then we would say, ‘Yeah, that's one... I'd shove you down the stairs and steal that poem.’ …I think that drove us both forward.”
David: “What would happen if poetry was removed from us? I think we probably already experienced that with COVID, when COVID came along, being a performance and teaching poet, my poetry world was whipped out from under my feet in an instant and disappeared for nearly two years.
However, the joy of poetry is that you don't need to be somewhere else to write it. You can go out into nature and write, and I did an awful lot of writing in my local environment and stuff like that.”
David: “We do tend to live in a very fake world. You look at anybody's Instagram, Facebook, things like that, and they are portraying an image they wish the world to see as to this is who I am, which isn't necessarily the truth.
Certainly when we get dressed up to go out for a night out, we are like chameleons. We put on a cloak of clothes, we put on make-up, we turn into who we wish to be to enjoy the escapism of an evening out, to go and escape from the reality of our lives.
…You tend to find a lot of poets are very real people. They're not adding designer labels or Ray-Ban sunglasses and things like that to try and portray who they are. And if you want to find a real person, listen to the poems.”
The War of The Words When two brothers argued and insults went forth They agreed to separate to the South and the North They had no more contact for years at a time And when they did speak it was only in rhyme For they both had discovered a talent for verse And as hobbies go it could have been worse Pete was in the south... a technology junkie He fixed computers, a kind of network monkey Dave he went North he was the manual type An ‘Unexpected Poet’ if you believe all the hype And between his gigs what he did for a job Was sweeping of chimneys or carrying a hod But there was no love lost between Dave and his brother Despite an intervention from their sister and their mother Fate had brought the brothers to the same destination It was a Poetry Competition with a ladder elimination Poet would play Poet and the names were drawn out With names preselected to sort the matched bout Pete looked at the board and by the luck of the draw He was matched against someone he’d not met before The rounds they went quickly and each poet passed led up to the final… where they might meet at last The chances were slim that they would fight one another But it finally happened… it was brother on brother The air was spread thick with a cacophony of rhyme Sonnets, Limericks and odes but I don’t have the time To read you the Wakas, the Tankas or the Canto the Paradelle, the Madrigal or lilting Rispetto There was Assonance and Dissonance, Meter and Verse Strophes and Antistrophes, Allusion and much worse… The words spilled out going backwards and forth But neither gave way not The South or The North Pete used a Villanelle and caught David off guard Then followed with enjambment that is reputedly hard to use it quite well in a poem and in a believable way but he seemed to pull it off on this momentous day! Dave winced and cringed… “you damned fool you!” and he opened his book and read a quick Haiku And the words that flowed in his mellifluous voice Had Pete weeping in shame but it left him no choice He dredged through his memory for dirty Poetastery and whipped out his Doggerel both pointed and nasty He caught his brother off guard hit him hard in the seat with a Dactyl… and with a Dimeter two Metrical Feet But his moment of victory was fleeting and Pyrrhic As the rapid riposte was both magic and mythic Dave’s iambic Pentameter walked all over his brother and left him in pieces shouting out for his mother But Pete he bounced back… like a piece of elastic Knowing his next one would be something quite drastic He called up a hexameter, thats the one with six feet An Allegorical Anachronism it was really quite sweet But Dave saw it coming and with a duck of the head He dodged the hexameter, firing a heptameter instead It was an epigram from a Ballad of Epic proportion For use in an emergency… and only with caution! Pete was hit by the heptameter it caught him full force He knew that he was cornered but he had no recourse So he rifled his memory for Abstract or Found Verse Because he knew in his heart this would only get worse But Dave stepped back and took a short breath For he knew that this slam was a duel to the death His conscience was pricked and he didn't quite dare So he fired two Quatrains, straight up in the air And Pete had been preparing a Didactic Epitaph Instead he shrugged it off with a wave and a laugh Both brothers had realised this poetry convention Could only end in Mutually Assured Collaboration So the brothers they stood, shoulder to shoulder To try something new, much brighter, much bolder Their Two Voice Poem got the audience to their feet And the Poetry Slam? …was declared a Dead Heat. Peter Roe - June 2017 Published in “Technology Bytes Back” - Wessex Media - September 2017 Long-listed 2017 Yeovil Literary Prize - category: writing without limits Winner of Western Gazette - Best Local Author - £100 "This was the poem and collection that started me on my journey to becoming a performance poet and publisher. Since then I have gone on to found The Jawbone Collective CIC. An arts collective with 18 creative members who are poets and writers. We have published 11 authors so far with 12 books through the collective. Additionally we have published 6 other collections under the labels of Wessex Media and Lexical Ninjas."
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