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    Writing Out of Earshot
    Writing Out of Earshot
    Writing Out of Earshot
    Ebook120 pages1 hour

    Writing Out of Earshot

    By Ian D. Hall

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    About this ebook

    “Never talk in front of Dylan Thomas,” they said as they consumed their pints and spoke of their woes and tribulations, and of the weird relative coming to stay awhile, “for the Welsh Bard will somehow weave his mercurial magic for others to consume, just as he consumes life with heart, spirit and desire flowing through him.”

    I have very little in common with Dylan Thomas, except for a once fondness for whisky, a love of poetry—of which he is one of the masters of the twentieth century, alongside Allen Ginsberg, W.H. Auden, Maya Angelou, Adrienne Rich and Liverpool’s very own Roger McGough—and that we both at one time performed our work in New York.

    It is, however, to Dylan Thomas that Writing Out of Earshot is dedicated, along with Ginsberg. The book of poetry you hold in your hand is a response to my long-lasting adoration of these two men.

    Writing Out of Earshot is also a confirmation that writing, for me at least, encompasses several aspects of life, of struggling with illness and the feeling of being invisible in a crowd, when people will say anything in front of you because they cannot see you. The life of a poet is not all drinks at The White Horse Hotel surrounded by hundreds of people; it is one that captures a moment when you are hidden away in your room, remembering, recalling certain words and worlds and transforming them as you give birth to the next poem.

    “Do not go gentle into that good night,” for the moon outside your window is full, and the passing months have yet to tell their story.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBeaten Track Publishing
    Release dateJun 3, 2021
    ISBN9781786454911
    Writing Out of Earshot
    Author

    Ian D. Hall

    Having been found on a 'Co-op' shelf in Stirchley, Birmingham by a Cornish woman and a man of dubious footballing taste, Ian grew up in neighbouring Selly Park and Bicester in Oxfordshire. After travelling far and wide, he now considers Liverpool to be his home.Ian was educated at Moor Green School, Bicester Senior School, and the University of Liverpool, where he gained a 2:1 (BA Hons) in English Literature.He now reviews and publishes daily on the music, theatre and culture within Merseyside.

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      Book preview

      Writing Out of Earshot - Ian D. Hall

      Writing Out of Earshot

      Writing Out of Earshot

      by

      Ian D. Hall

      Beaten Track Logo

      Beaten Track

      www.beatentrackpublishing.com

      Writing Out of Earshot

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      First Published 2021 by Beaten Track Publishing

      Copyright © 2021 Ian D. Hall at Smashwords

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

      The moral right of the author has been asserted.

      Paperback ISBN: 978 1 78645 490 4

      eBook ISBN: 978 1 78645 491 1

      Beaten Track Publishing,

      Burscough, Lancashire.

      www.beatentrackpublishing.com

      Never talk in front of Dylan Thomas, they said as they consumed their pints and spoke of their woes and tribulations, and of the weird relative coming to stay awhile, for the Welsh Bard will somehow weave his mercurial magic for others to consume, just as he consumes life with heart, spirit and desire flowing through him.

      I have very little in common with Dylan Thomas, except for a once fondness for whisky, a love of poetry—of which he is one of the masters of the twentieth century, alongside Allen Ginsberg, W.H. Auden, Maya Angelou, Adrienne Rich and Liverpool’s very own Roger McGough—and that we both at one time performed our work in New York.

      It is, however, to Dylan Thomas that Writing Out of Earshot is dedicated, along with Ginsberg. The book of poetry you hold in your hand is a response to my long-lasting adoration of these two men.

      Writing Out of Earshot is also a confirmation that writing, for me at least, encompasses several aspects of life, of struggling with illness and the feeling of being invisible in a crowd, when people will say anything in front of you because they cannot see you. The life of a poet is not all drinks at The White Horse Hotel surrounded by hundreds of people; it is one that captures a moment when you are hidden away in your room, remembering, recalling certain words and worlds and transforming them as you give birth to the next poem.

      "Do not go gentle into that good night," for the moon outside your window is full, and the passing months have yet to tell their story.

      Ian D. Hall, 2021

      Contents

      Scramble!

      The Birthday

      The Anxiety of Influence (The half-century anger and former loves)

      Writing Out of Earshot

      Early November Snow, Inspiration in Central Park

      The Puppet Off Her Strings

      A Final Discarding of Faith

      Somewhere on Dartmoor, Will Lay Eternal

      A New Arrival

      The Mediaeval Child

      Solmanath’s Revenge on the Psyche of July

      Solmanath’s Extra Day

      The Madness of King March

      Mad King March Sees the Folly of His Ways

      The King is Dead, Long Live the Queen

      The May Queen

      Selfless Junius

      Weodmonath’s Harvest

      Halig’s September Song

      A Widow’s Last Day

      Stairway to Heaven, Express Lift Down to Hell

      From Foolish February to the Divinity of May

      The Old Witch of Searesbyrig

      A Ballad of a Gunslinger

      About the Author

      By the Author

      Beaten Track Publishing

      Scramble!

      The roar from the crowd inside Wembley was one that sent down chills to those of us gathered on the grey concrete, standing out against the backdrop of colour, discarded flags, dropped and spilled amber beer. We were desperate to be part of something that we thought would never happen again: England in a semi-final of a major tournament. The opposition: The Old Enemy, as my dad once delighted in shouting at the television whenever an international match came on, with his absurd way of shuffling forward in his chair and then standing erect with his head bowed for ‘God Save The Queen’, a man of the old school, good, forthright, obedient.

      We had all travelled down from Oxford on the afternoon of the game, a group of us who had gone through school together and who now, by determined design, good fortune and the willingness to blag a day off work, had all met up to be part of the story unfolding inside the venue of legends.

      A group of lads and one girl stood on the concourse drinking in the atmosphere, following every audible burst of applause, every scream and imagined rude gesture as Germany and England battled it out on the pitch. Inside my head was another war, one that had been brewing since we all came together in the last years of junior school—one in which I knew today, outside the home of English football, I would finally be crowned the victor.

      This battle started in 1980. Around me, young boys got in line and volunteered to be part of something that would consume their lives every spring for the next sixteen years—twice a year when there was an international set of games going on.

      Our great-grandfathers had fought in France; Shelley’s had fought at Gallipoli; mine had been an ardent pacifist, refusing to take part, dying in agony in a later, more brutal war, as the munitions factory he was ordered to work in crumbled around him and shook to the sound of hundreds of bombs wiping Birmingham from the Luftwaffe map. Our war had no casualties—the odd bruised and scuffed knee, trousers torn, hair pulled, fists thrown in desperation—and for what? The chance to compete and to complete.

      It all started, for me anyway, as I watched from the sidelines, the substitute who would never be picked to play with the boys in their games—marbles, conkers, tag, British Bulldog. I would never be allowed to climb to the top of the apparatus or the metal beams that stood in

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