Library Corner

Hello Friends,
Hope you're well. I've been getting into the habit recently of quoting a poem by Norman MacCaig at our live shows and so many people have asked about it that I thought I'd do a quick blog. It always gets everyone into the right mood to hear our song "This is a War" - which it inspired - and is called "A Man in My Position"...

Hear my words carefully.
Some are spoken
not by me, but
by a man in my position.

What right has he
to use my mouth? I hate him
when he touches you
the wrong way.

Yet he loves you also,
This appalling stranger
Who makes windows of my eyes.
You see him looking out.

Until he dies
of my love for you
hear my words carefully -
for who is talking now?

Hope you enjoy it. Here's a few words from the great Scotsman himself...

"I feel like writing a poem the way you feel hungry or thirsty. And if it's possible, I sit down always in this particular chair, and with a particular size of blank paper, no lines on it. And I have not an idea what's coming. Not a clue. And very quickly into my head comes a memory of a place or an event or a person or all three. But far more often it's a short line, a short phrase – four or five words, nothing extraordinary about them. Down it goes, and the poem trickles down the page until it's finished. They come very quickly, very easily. I'm asked "how long does it take you to write a poem, Norman?" And I say "two fags". Sometimes it's only one."

Best,
Tom