Poetry is just about the most environmentally positive art-form around, especially when viewed on the internet or listened to on the radio. It’s also one of the oldest. No one quite knows how human communication developed, but as a prehistorian I’d put my money on song and dance – it’s memorable and effective, and the idea that Singing in The Rain goes back to neanderthal times has a certain zing to it.

Poetry comes from song. If there isn’t a lyrical quality, something of a voice when you read a poem as text, then there is something seriously missing. Without that voice, however fine, noble, witty and otherwise cultured the words, to my mind it isn’t poetry, and you might as well

Ditch
the line
br
eaks

and treat as prose, good or bad, but not poetry.

Rhymes, rhythm, alliteration (all an a or otherwise o-s, likewise lots of linked up letters by sound) assonance (internal rhymes happen all the time) …. all these poetical tools can help the writer and reader share the poem’s song.

The simplest way to appreciate a poem to its fullest extent is to read it out aloud. You’ll soon find its voice, or discover it hasn’t one. This is why traditional poetry rhymes or is alliterative (Beowulf and other scandinavian stuff) It comes from an oral tradition, so how else do you remember something which isn’t written down?

I’m a greedy sort of poet. I’ll use any sort of device or form which will help get what I want to say in my head across to you as a voice inside yours – sonnets, rhymes, hexameter, pentameters, rhymes, half-rhymes, metaphors, allusions, similes – like a batsman or bowler with all sorts of strokes or balls for differing occasions, you don’t have to use them all at once. Indeed their greatest effect is by surprise, or building up.

By inclination I write free verse – no fixed rhythmic pattern and/or rhyming scheme. Robert Frost, the great Americn poet, and perhaps their most elegant, said ‘Writing free verse is like playing tennis without a net.’ True, but to use free verse well you still need to attend to rhythm and rhymes to give that voice, that sense of arrested by song, which means it’s actually harder to do than using a standard form – to use Frost’s simile, you need to erect your own net by the shots you play.

On this gig – a poem a day, and I’m off now to the WACA for the first day of the third test, ready to chronicle England’s great fightback (ho, ho)
 
Here’s my notes of what’s to follow on, (as in Australia, after Freddie wins the toss – more ho, ho)

Aussie more traditional. Both sounds and meaning., Patterson vs the Queen.

Traditional forms
Paul Cameraman
Peter Parry

 

A Kwik Guide How to Write A Half-Way Decent Ashes Song

The Barmy Army don’t just support England at Test Matches. They play cricket – including thrashing their Aussie equivalents The Fanatics on the eve of the First Test at Brisbane – support Chance To Shine to enable more youngsters to join in and learn the game, charities, and now the opportunity of a lifetime …

Do you want to win a trip of a lifetime for two, all flights and acccomodation thrown in with tickets for the last two Tests? Smack http://www.barmyarmy.com/chance2rhyme.cfm for details of this fantastic opportunity sponsored by Phones4U – closing date 30 November

Do Some Research

Before you start singing in the bath or scribbling on back of envelopes, look at the Barmy Harmonies on www.barmyarmy.com , and search under appropriate key words for Australian retorts to see how others do it.

Keys

Apart from those you sing in, there are four keys:-

WIT
REPEATABILITY
ACCESSIBILITY
PATHOS

WIT is what makes it stand out – like ‘Let’s Twist Again, Like Shahid Afridi’ a wry reference to Shahid’s illegal pitch scuffing in Faisalabad.

REPEATABILITY covers two things. Firstly, no offence but it must not be offensive. Rude, vulgar, if you want, but nothing racist, homophoebic or otherwise offensive. It’ll be binned. Second, it has to be sung on the terraces. This means it needs a relatively simple and strong structure, if not words, with a degree of repeated lines or choruses so it’s easy to remember without looking at a hymn sheet, and still join in if the memory fails – as it does with plenty of beer and sun

ACCESSIBILITY Repeatability means almost all terrace anthems are adaptations of earlier songs. You can try to write your own tune too but it’s easier to use someone else’s. This is because if people already know the tune, it’s easier for them too – they just have to remember your words. It’s easier all round. Choosing the tune is where the je ne sais quoi comes in. It needs to be memorable – from hymns to charts, catchy classics is the best catch-all. And it needs to be easily singable – a reworking of Mozart’s Requiem Mass, still in Latin, however witty, is unlikely to succeed. As Gary Taylor, who wrote ‘Show Me The Way To Shane Warne’s villa?’, http://www.barmyarmy.com/baharm_lyrics_aplayers.cfm put it, the tune comes first. It might arise from a phrase which brings to mind the melody but you then need to fit the words to the music, not vice-versa.

PATHOS – could be a clincher. This is the tingle-factor. Anfield’s ‘Walk On.’ Wales’ ‘Bread of Heaven’ – it’s respecting something other than your team, even the opposition….

Here’s one based on the modification of the lyrics of When This Lousy War is Over, from “Oh What A Lovely War”; Joan Littlewood, based on the original hymn ‘What a Friend we have in Jesus’; Joseph Scriven.

When this Ashes Tour is Over

When this Ashes tour is over
No more cricketing for me,
I shall put my commentator’s mike on
To give expert summary on tv.

No more gloving Stevie Harmison,
No more edging Hoggie to the slips,
I shall kiss the gold of my green baggie,
God, I’ll miss this whence it leaves my lips.

This has elements of all four keys – not much repeatability except the rhyme. Might be outside the singing range of the Barmy Army, still less the Fanatics (the Aussie’s equivalent) but the BA belt out Jerusalem…….

Other hints:-

• Make sure your words fit.
• Know the tune inside out – hum it, whistle it, eat it, and then check your words fit the tune. The tune is all, so again, don’t try to scrunch or stretch the tune to the words.
• Too often people, including me, try to fit too many words in.
• Work with a pal, partner, pet or other animate object – most songs are written by pairs from Gilbert & Sullivan “I am the model of a Pom watching cricket in Australia…”
• Finally, sing it out loud before sending it anywhere else.

How else can you make sure it works?

Here are a three starters for ten

Hoggard, Hoggard, Hoggard,
Keep it up and swinging, Hoggard
….
to the tune of Rawhide (Remember The Blues Brothers Good Ol’ Boys club scene?)

Flintoff, Flintoff, Freddie Flintoff
….
to the tune of Noel, (the carol, not Edmonds)

And for you Aussie Blokes

Grimmett, Mailey, O’Reilly, Ring and Benaud
Fine leggies all, outshone by Shane Warne
….
to the tune of Waltzing Matilda

Play!