Monday 11 May 2009

Dogs aloud

Sorry. Couldn't resist that title. No insult to Girls Aloud (the pop band) intended. In fact I barely know who they are and probably couldn't pick any one of them out of a line-up. Does that mean that (finally!) I'm too old for new pop music? Hurray! (Luckily our Lovely Girl prefers oldie music like Fleetwood Mac just now.)

So anyway, some of you wanted the 'We are dogs' poem from the last post read aloud. Here it is. I hope you like it.

While I'm here there's a couple of blog things I wanted to say....

Any more recorded versions of other people's poems? Keep them coming please! Here's Sorlil's, here's Titus', here's mine (still with pause!). All women so far...girls aloud indeed...

Also thanks Kat for the award recently. I do appreciate these things even if I don't always follow the chain with them or anything. I pretty much always appreciate anyone saying they like a poem (or anything I write really) and Kat calls me 'established' (which shows how far away she lives from here!). Over here I'm still fairly obscure and overlooked (as a poet anyway). Sniff. No really, I'm fine with it. Sniff. No really. Attention-seeking is so last year.

I wanted to say something about the blog following thing too...I don't really use that system. Maybe it's the name that puts me off, maybe it's the mug shots...but I use the blog list instead. Of course you should feel free to follow me if you like using that feature...as long as, you know, you don't follow me anywhere...uninvited...

And now...let's end on a song...it's always the best way and hark, the girls aloud theme continues...because they started out on talent show TV, didn't they? Anyway, we (the three women in this house – Mark to be excluded from all the following) don't watch any of the X Factor/Pop Idols/Got Talents or any of that but we do watch some of the BBC family entertainment shows in a similar vein (no ads, no Cowells, no Piers bloody Morgan). In the spirit of family unity we sit together and watch the ballroom dancing silliness in the autumn (it's about the only thing we can watch across the generations) and also some of the singing competition shows (the search for Joseph, Nancy from 'Oliver' etc.). OK, I tend to be doing something else at the time (sometimes blocking my ears) but I am in the room when they are on and I like odd moments here and there. In the Nancy one (last year) a young woman from Ireland (Jessie Buckley) sang like a total dream. She didn't win the show but listen to the following clip and imagine what it must be like to be able to sing a Judy Garland song like that in your teens! Man alive (as Sorlil might say). And even if you don't like Andrew Lloyd-Webber (I'm more or less indifferent...probably should hate him...don't really) it is well worth watching for his oh-look-I've-laid-an-egg moment near the end.



Karaoke TV? Maybe... but she's still a fantastic singer. And look she has a wikipedia page already. Stars are born and all that.

x

9 comments:

Marion McCready said...

nicely read!

Rachel Fox said...

You're very kind. I think it's a bit too fast...which is interesting because the one I read by heart (the Hopkins) was not. Maybe I should learn all mine by heart...if only to slow my voice down!
x

Titus said...

Rachel, top hole! It was such a good idea to start this sound and vision thing, and hearing you read your own poem gives it additional resonance to someone coming new to your work. It is interesting hearing an author's stresses and pauses, often different to those you "hear" when reading the poem yourself.

And I'm with you on the Saturday night family viewing experience thing, my youngest have excellent Salsa hips and Tango faces after the last "Strictly" season. We did like "Merlin" too (dragons, swords, wizards, what's not to love?). Jessie was truly outstanding but I think the reason why people chose the Nancy that won (and shamefully, I can't remember her name) was because she had the better Cockney accent and she was a more convincing - how to put this? - tart with a heart. Nancy loomed so large in the public conciousness that a majority did not see her as a younger Irish girl, being more influenced by the stage show itself than Dicken's book.
Goodness, I've waffled on, sorry!

deemikay said...

I've told you before that I hate my voice... I almost certainly shan't be recording the poem I haven't actually memori___ oops. Let the cat (dog) out the bag there.

And I love the doggy recitation! It just comes so much to life. (And I love your voice as well... and Sorlil's, but haven't managed to download Titus' yet.) Thanks for putting it up. (Do you do the doggy bounce to it?

I'm also occasionally guilty of BBC1 on a Saturday night... and I will almost certainly be watching the Eurovision. Pleasures have never been more guilty. :)

Regina said...

Oh, I've just had a chance to listen in and I loved the way you read this! It really opened it up for me and I could really imagine myself in each "doggie" scenario!
Well done!

Rachel Fox said...

The singer who won the Nancy part was called Jodie Prenger and we quite liked her too (well, Lovely Girl did...they kept showing pictures of Jodie with her beloved dogs and that was enough to nearly sway her). I also think it was probably good for Jessie that she didn't win - too much success too soon is not necessarily a good thing. A girl can get big-headed. I think she has real talent though...look at her face in that clip as she sings - so relaxed, so knowing how well she is singing and loving it. She didn't perform brilliantly every week (pop songs and her didn't mix very well) but she could be a big star in the Judy/Liza tradition I'm sure (one day).

Glad you all enjoyed the reading. I didn't read this one at the folk club last night but I did read 'Inversnaid' (for a change from my own poems) and I got it word perfect! I was so excited to manage it...felt like I'd won an olympic medal or something. Then I read my poem called 'Just like the dinosaurs' (about the end of the human species). That brought things back down to earth...

x

Rachel Fox said...

And I've just remembered that I did a recording of 'Dinosaurs' too a while back. It's on my website (www.crowd-pleasers.net) under 'poems', under 'circle of life'. Just in case anyone's interested.
x

Rachel Fox said...

As for that doggy bounce, D, I think it would have been better with actual dancing dogs. And who are the guys? Are they from the series...couldn't get into that (though I like their stage show stuff).
x

deemikay said...

It would take far too long to explain who they are... and I notice I didn't finish writing the comment... there's a bracket waiting to be closed! I'll do it here ---> )