Sunday 28 November 2010

Sunday Night is... Andrews Sisters x 2 Boogie



Rhum Boogie (1940) from Argentine Nights

and...


Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (1941) from In the Navy

I have a fondness for the Andrews Sisters brand of high gloss optimism. It's wartime and the people they are singing to will not all come back. But there they are, boosted on Buicks and Boogie and Rhum and Coca-Cola. And they are very good, full of fun and animation, somehow unbroken.

*

It has been a time for writing - seven poems in the new series now, all different forms, all experiments, all the product of three days intense concentration, delight, and language gymnastics. They are touching something sufficiently deep to work, I think, but it's too early to tell. I had more or less run out of poems to send out when people asked. The very last have now gone to The Spectator which will print four. My review of Krúdy appears in the latest TLS. And 7-1! to go with the seven poems. But for all kinds of other things - colds, sadnesses, arrangements, exhaustions - it would be a perfect run of days. Poetry has always been stolen time for me. Even now I feel faintly criminal to have concentrated so much on writing it. It does make it sweeter of course, with just that undertone of bitterness at it being so rare. I'd like to make the seven up to a round dozen and I think it is possible. Perhaps within seven days.



3 comments:

Dafydd John said...

Whenever I hear mention of the Andrew Sisters, the first thing that comes to mind is Michael Donaghy's wonderful poem, Shibboleth.

George S said...

That's what it takes. Remember LaVerne, Maxine and Patty and you're accepted. It is a very fine poem. There is one by Deryn Rees-Jones too, I think, mentioning their names,

Mark Granier said...

Great stuff. I have a fondness for Bette Midler's mermaid version too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUxUbYUHExs