Sonnet 16. Insipid, Lamentable Jeremy, Odour Issues, and Helix Folt the Conservative

Here's a Petrarchan sonnet which I wrote a good 18 months ago, but which seems a little bit more relevant than in those halcyon days before the Red Menace became quite so immanent.

Sonnet 16

Insipid, lamentable Jeremy

gird thou thy loins in shell suit of a beige

appropriate for this heroic age,

and thus accoutred smite the Pharisees.

Compassed was Sir de Montfort all about

with lounging scribes, makers of likenesses,

and gentlemen from the Daily Express,

and Watson: spectacles, disposed to shout.

Insipid, lamentable Jeremiah,

Milne’s glove puppet, who fists you as you flail.

Your praises shall be warbled by no choir,

instead your epitaph’s “utter betrayal”.

Who protest’s luxuries has long enjoyed,

is by burdens of duty soon annoyed.

I'm also delighted and relieved to be able to say that I've finished Odour Issues. I'm spending the next couple of weeks giving it a final read-through before publishing the first Kindle edition. This could probably happen within the next few days, were I not simultaneously engaged in some fairly extensive landscaping and wall rebuilding at home. I'm also looking forward to starting work on my next project, my George Eliot-parodying Rees-Mogg satire Helix Folt the Conservative.

Sonnet 74, Commended in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Competition November 2016

I don't know what if any embargo the people at SLQ impose on the subsequent publication of their poetry competition's winning entries. However, at least as a courtesy, I thought I'd leave a year or so before republishing my Sonnet 74, which was commended in the SLQ's November 2016 competition. The year in question being up, I think it's probably in order to go ahead with the republication of 74. It's a conventional Shakespearean sonnet - iambic pentameter, ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme - in the form of a parody of the opening lines of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, and is intended as an anatomisation of nihilistic Bristolian sleaziness and pessimism, with topical references e.g. the Trump Presidency locating it as the product of Autumn last year. 

Sonnet 74

Whan that Novembre wyth hys soddynge leaves

of Yndyc Summer hys layt standde hath drownn’d,

and raynnes yternal blyte ye mowldy glebe

and clerkes skulck yn thayr cells yn studye brownne;

whan erly nyt and drearye mornyngge greyye

array ye darklyngge slummes yn damppe drabbenesse,

and laytest tydyngges fromme ye U.S.A.

extyngwyssh’d havve alle howpe and happynesse,

than longen knayves to gowe onne herowynne.

Nowwe sleezye marchaunts bearyngge Chyna Wyte,

and hypsters wyth a thyngge for Bombayye jynne

and Wyte Ace drynkers, these forsaykyngge Spryte,

converge lyk starvyngge dogges onne queynt Stowkes Crofft,

and daunce Saynt Vytus jyv wyth armes alofft.

Helix Folt: the Conservative - an idea for a novel

I live in Bristol. Political discourse in my city is dominated by the hard left. I never fail to be disgusted by this. Whenever the hard left gets control of the levers of power, the inevitable result is tyranny, terror, torture, famine, and mass murder. I simply do not understand why the hard left are excused for their wickedness which, judged in terms of body count, dwarfs that of the Nazis and fascists whom we quite rightly excoriate for their crimes against humanity.

This is why, having just finished reading George Eliot's Felix Holt: the Radical, I have conceived the idea of writing a novel about a socially awkward Tory getting caught up in an episode which is a sort of fusion of the Tesco riots of April 2011 and last year's EU Referendum.

A Short Excerpt From Odour Issues

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My First Foreign Language Publication

My Sonnet 141, which is my first and to date only French composition, has just been published by Barbara Dordi, to whom my thanks, in Issue 28 of the French Literary Review.

My understanding is that at present there is only a paper and no online edition, and as I doubt that Barbara would be entirely happy if I upstaged the online edition which she may be planning, I had better hold off reproducing Sonnet 141 for a few months at least. I will meanwhile leave this link to the Poetry Magazines entry for the Review.

Latest issue of the Sentinel Literary Quarterly, featuring my Sonnet 142

The latest issue of the SLQ has hit the stands. Its Sentinel Champions section features the winning entries for the SPM Publications May poetry competition, including my Sonnet 142, which won 2nd Prize.

The Sentinel is a high quality literary journal. I regard my award as a great honour, and offer my  congratulations to my fellow prize/commendation winners.

Here's a link to the new edition.

2nd Prize in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly May Poetry Competition

Opening my email about twenty minutes ago, I was delighted to discover that my Sonnet 142 has been awarded 2nd Prize in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly quarterly poetry competition. This is the second time Sentinel have seen fit to garland me - my Sonnet 74 was Commended in their February issue - and I am pleased and honoured. I don't think they're due to publish their latest issue until 31 July. When they do, I shall provide thereunto a link. Here, meanwhile, is a link to Sentinel's announcement.

Overall, this means that three of my sonnets have been or are shortly to be published in reputable journals: Sonnets 74 and 142 as per above, and Sonnet 141 is due for publication in the October edition of the French Literary Review. I think that another three or four individual publications will probably suffice for me to release the entire collection.