Poetry Worth Hearing: Episode 36
- kathleenmcphilemy8
- Oct 25
- 13 min read
The theme for this episode was 'games people play' and I received poems about all sorts of games, from chess to football to Monopoly. Many writers went back to the past and childhood to find their games. Rather surprisingly, I didn't get anything about online or video gaming although Lizzie Ballagher does take us into the digital world with her 'Cyber Pirates' . Of course, there were also many poems about the games, not always benevolent, that people play with each other.
The feature for this month is an exhilarating and playful presentation by Elvire Roberts and Rachel Goodman of their collaborative poetry collection, Knee to Knee. I met these two poets at the Tears in the Fence Festival in September and as well as being excited by their performance on stage, I realised how well it would work on Poetry Worth Hearing. I asked them if they would do a recording and, very kindly, they agreed. As well as taking liberties with language and how it sounds, their poems are also notable for how they look on the page and include some innovative punctuation which it is well worth seeing for yourself. Publication details are given below.
Other poets in the episode are Maureen Jivani, Helen Overell, Paul Stephenson, Kate Young, Richard Lister, Sara Stegen, Dorothy Yamamoto, Trish Broomfield, Sarah Mason and Lizzie Ballagher.
You can access the podcast on this link: or go to Audible, Spotify podcasts, or You Tube.
Maureen Jivani
Alma Makes a Home for Ghost Children
All the children
are fully fleshed
pyjama-dressed
and smiling
in their dormitories
for in-between
the midnight sherbets
and the knickerbocker-glories
they leap-frog
through the night
by candlelight,
play snakes and ladders
up
and
down
they
go
and never watch
the sour-faced clock
and never know a moment’s loss.
In the Mouth of the Mersey Tunnel
Snug on the living-room couch you’d drag the dark
blanket over our heads, play Lost in Space
and space was always The Tunnel
and the mouth of The Tunnel was swallowing cars,
motorbikes, red lorries, yellow lorries, caravans,
charabancs to cheer us on, realise our dreams
of seaside trips, candyfloss, ice-cream.
And space was always The Tunnel
swallowing stars,
lining its throat with blind cat’s eyes
as traffic purred, roared, snarled,
then we’d crawl out from beneath our cover,
curious moles blinking
into the light and on we’d go,
never looking back, dashing feverishly
past the space-occupying lesions in your brain,
Clatterbridge with its Disney-covered walls.
Helen Overell
Way back in Liverpool
Overnight Kippers cured in Lourdes
appeared — strung aloft along lines
on either side of Union Street,
the entire catch turned from flattened
salt-sweet flags to bloated bunting —
Something rotten in the House of ...
cue the drum-thump Orange brigade —
bowler-hatted, banner-bearing —
poker faces shifted to snarls.
Likely lads — butter wouldn't melt ... —
kept well clear, heard how drummers gagged,
marchers retched, followers broke rank,
while mothers — ignorance is bliss —
prayed double-overtime on beads
hidden deep in apron pockets.
Paul Stephenson
Rehabilitation
After the war, the officers were sent to university
to help with their insertion back into society.
My grandfather propped himself up at the bar
of The Eagle pub on Bene’t Street, Cambridge.
He got chatting to a college don, confessed
he was toying with coming up to read for a degree.
I was thinking of mechanical engineering, he said.
Man, what on God’s earth for!?, asked the don,
when you’re already a practiced army engineer.
He said, Come to my rooms, we’ll talk further,
so my grandfather went, spent three years juggling
Shakespeare, Chaucer, Keats and Shelley instead.
Treasure Hunt
after Meg Cox
When I remember Mantova,
it’s not Romeo banished
or the Palazzo Ducale – it’s you
in t-shirt and shorts
disappearing round corners,
leaving me hand-written clues.
Passing GO
We played this game where I appeared nonchalant
but was dying inside. We played it for several years
and the rules of the game were such: I’d hope for this
moment, this feeling, this declaration, this realisation
after all this time, and keep moving round the board
in a clockwise direction, hopping forwards, onwards,
throwing dice, moving my small hat, iron, vintage car,
as we both went about buying hotels, taking it in turns
to pocket the community chest, round and round until
one day I got to play my Get Out of Jail for Free card.
Kate Young
Checkmate
It is 4 years 6 months since he had his last fix,
since he took his last drink and, in that time
he has fathered two beautiful girls.
He has taught the eldest to play chess,
to guide her hand the way he guided mine
across the lacquered, chequered board.
How I loved the black horse, its carved mane
with a knight’s ability to hop and jump
over danger in triangular configuration.
It is a typical Sunday afternoon until we hear
ghost-knuckles rap the glass of the door,
and standing there is the same old dealer
wearing the smirk of an undefeated King
and bearing a gift – the white powder
smiling with promise in late June sunshine.
It exchanges hands, slips into a pocket
and the game recalibrates, his daughter
bolting over the board, hot on my hooves.
Richard Lister
What if, as Venice sweeps
into Polesden Lacey
- with the purr of a Morgan,
not the dip and slide
of a gondola’s pole -
one mask conceals
an uninvited guest?
Papier maché layers
warmed by her skin
mould to enfold
just enough of her face
to confuse the gaze
of doorman, hostess
and the man in her sights.
She enters the ballroom,
her Columbina mask
a swish of lustrous
black feathers.
He’s dancing a quickstep
with a wasp-waisted
brunette she’s never seen.
In this crowded room,
where couples touch
as they turn on the beat
he never feels the paper
slide into his pocket.
So it’s later, on the lawn
for a smoke, he reads
‘I know’.
Fate shuffles, we play
[Boy enters]
I am caught.
Brilliant light marks my face,
dust burns on the footlights.
Vladimir: You have a message from Mr Godot?
Vladimir and Estragon, battered bowler hats
like down at heel Laurel and Hardys,
cavort through the loops of their lines.
One day they miss two pages, press on seamlessly.
Boy: I was afraid, sir
that I'd fail to give your cue,
that you'd yank my arm even rougher than scripted.
I try to be the boy, stop acting,
yet it’s still me on stage,
fourteen, upper lip with tufts of moustache.
The director had chosen me for the part,
no audition, seen something in me:
a stillness perhaps, or innocence.
Drunk with this, I could reel onto stage.
Boy: What am I to say to Mr Godot, sir?
In the dressing room, I try out signatures
in green biro on the back of a flyer,
opt for italics with bold sweeping capitals.
Mirrors blaze from unshaded bulbs.
We move from a studio theatre to St Georges,
Tufnell Park - 4 km north of the West End -
play into cavernous space. They could’ve
said yes, the smattering could’ve
become fulsome applause but
[Silence]
Estragon: Well shall we go?
Vladimir: Yes, let’s go.
[They do not move]
'Fate shuffles' is an Arthur Schopenhauer quote
Sara Stegen
Do for play today
Kids play whenever wherever
even if we tell them to ‘Stop!’
Because it is dangerous
or bothers us – still they still play
they do it anyway
As babies they play with their feet
the most natural way of play
shake rattles chew on cuddly toys
we sing them songs
tickle them or hide behind our hands
they high scream with delight
when we reappear
Kids play for years and years
growing up there is so so much play
we never run out of things to play with any way
We turn serious later in life
a little dull perhaps
we play at being grown-up
serious – you know
life boobytraps and handicaps – us, you know
our playing tendencies collapse
and we relapse
often play is watching sports
or going to the gym
life traps us
we don’t go out and play
we don’t play and play collapses
But tell me when was the last time
you sat on a swing
or swung a stick or threw a pebble
plucked a flower’s petals or
rolled around in stinging nettles
when was the last time
you swung and kicked
out your legs
as high you could go?
Promise me
will you go out – today
and tell me – later
what you did do for play today?
Dorothy Yamamoto
Playing table tennis at 104 Woodfield Drive
My sister and I
shunt the chairs into corners,
tighten the butterfly screws
each end of the net, scratching the table’s varnish.
There’s a moment of pure calm
when I hold the little white ball
between finger and thumb
then we’re off, whooping, yodelling,
tripping over the fireside rug, chair legs,
rolling ourselves in curtains,
while the ball does its dotted dance
off pebbledashed walls and ceiling,
zinging along a picture rail
sometimes hitting the cat (ten points),
or leaping into the mouth
of the open stove (game over),
and all the time we’re thinking, breathless,
yes, yes,
we’re better than this, we’re bigger.
That night I dream the perfect shot—
a cannon off all the cushions—
which flings the windows open, soars
above the swings, the neighbours’ gardens
to print itself on sky—
a daytime moon, the blue air of the future.
Trish Broomfield
Double Blank
There’s a hush in the snug, Jim’s laid double six
Frank’s in trouble, eyes fixed on his domino pips.
Behind the bar Sal hugs a rum and black
Jim, leaning back, clasps his Red Barrel pint
Frank lays six to six, a five the other side, ‘Your shout.’
‘Easy,’ Jim lays five and three.
Knowing that Frank will cheat if he leaves his seat
he shouts, ‘Same again Sal, love.’
Sal’s kicked off a shoe,
rasps her heel on ragged flagstones,
her Embassy smoke blown to the rafters,
Jim’s eyes return to the table
Frank’s butcher’s fingers pick from the pile
Jim gives a lopsided smile
Sal wiggle-walks, one shoe off,
giggles, slops beer, steers her way
through farmers talking sheep.
By the fire Andy’s feigning sleep.
Frank peeks at his remaining pips,
all fours and twos, no way he’s prepared to lose
Jim’s counting the stones in the pile
he’ll win by a mile.
Frank levers up, heads for the gents
Jim winks, from his pocket pulls a double blank.
On his return Frank trips, lands on Andy, who
into his outstretched palm slips a double blank.
Wrestling
Wire-cut cheddar came from Mrs Bale’s store
where bacon rested ready to be sliced, newspapers spread unread.
A haze of coffee and Glade was over laid with the waft of
burnt breakfasts, Mr Bale fed his to the dog
before taking twenty Silk Cut from the shelf behind the till
sucking his fill by the back door.
We bought Mother’s Pride,
watched our cheese rolled in greaseproof, ends tucked in.
Saturday At 4.00 p.m. the ritual begins;
Mum spreads Flora over each white slice
cuts cheese, reaches for Branston.
Boiling water dances in the pot with Typhoo leaves
Dad switches on the TV
sits in his swivel chair, Mum settles on the floor,
Billy and I slump on the sofa,
share a Pryex plate of cheese and pickle.
Grunts from Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks fill the room
the Royal Brothers bounce in black and white
Jackie Pallow prances blondly
before giving his oppo the third degree.
Soon it is obvious we that we need more tea
but none of us want to take on the task
in case we miss the spectacle
of Kendo Nagasaki losing his mask.
Sarah Mason
The Games People Play
What can I say
About the games people play?
We are kind, we are mean,
Friends become foes
Social interactions keep us on our toes;
In love we fall,
Some stay in love
Others continue the game
Break ups and pain,
Family relations
Jubilees, jubilations,
For the unlucky few
A seat at the back of the queue;
To win a primary goal,
Come out on top
Be the cream of the crop,
Raise successful mini me’s,
Teaching ways and means
For a winning move
So much for them to prove,
In the games people play.
Lizzie Ballagher
In the Scrabble Box
The cardboard tray in this old fifties’ box reveals
my parents’ troubled marriage somehow still intact,
epitomised in endless late-night games of Scrabble.
I check my mathematician father’s neat black numbering,
his flawless, quick-fire computation in column after column
but notice too his almost daily straight defeat:
my mother beat him,
high score after high score.
And, now and then, it seems,
he must have flung the board aside;
the sums are broken off, the game abruptly halted
after only three plays each.
They parted company after a score
of years, seven thousand games,
their words unscrambled later in divorce courts.
But now I remember my mother’s merry laughter,
my father’s head-shaking frustration
at all the bitter calculations.
And, buried under wooden tiles, under the cardboard tray,
I find that I’ve inherited some ancient tallies tucked
inside this Scrabble box and titled Jo vs Ji.
I loved them both:
the man of skilful numbers
and the woman of the winning words.
Cyber Pirates
No cutlass-carrying here.
No haul & splice the mainsail
eye-patch-wearing here.
No Blackbeard swearing
spit & swagger devil-may-caring
swashing & buckling here.
No gaudy parrot screeching here.
No cannonball balking,
no victim plank-walking,
no peg-leg tapping,
skull & crossbones flapping here.
But broadsides I’m firing every day
to drive the pirates far away
from this frail ship of words I sail.
Millennial pirates & AI bots hack
through consoles & decks, into the backs
of words & images never made for them.
Navigating safe channels & deep locks with ease,
they surf in, slice & splice in—disregarding
all the nuanced riggings of the writing—
no courtesy but cunning cut & paste...
and steal the treasure just the same.
These pirates have no name,
no tame landlubber nationality;
they have no face or comic fame,
nor any place to dwell but cyberspace.
They’re sneering, jeering, buccaneering:
beware them @ their game.
That's everything for this episode. Just to remind you. It can be found at https://open.spotify.com/episode/6R8PXnk1CJ4cXMkogb9hOz?si=ktdGLj_zQbq2ydvdVP1Nig or on You Tube, or Spotify and Audible podcasts.
Next month's episode will have the prompt of 'hiding and/or seeking'. Submissions should be up to 4 minutes of unpublished poems with texts and a brief bio. They should be sent to poetryworthhearing@gmail.com by November 18th.
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