John Hegley is the Man

25 Mar 12: John Hegley is a favourite person. The Laureate of Luton, his poems are amusing, diverting, delightful, and seeing him perform live is an inspiration. I dislike poets who go in for a lot of inFLECtionnn while reading their stuff – poets who speak super-quick-to-get-across-a-jumpy-line and then slloooowwwwwwwwwllllyyyyy slllooooowwwwwwwllyyy in order to be DRAMATIC! It really makes my teeth grind. John always hits the right feel when he reads though: irony is the most that comes across, unless he’s asking the crowd to join. Then, with humor and a large amount of self-deprecation he gets everyone going, forgetting themselves.  Not unlike how I imagine the theatre company 7/84 was, or a great production of Kneehigh: smart, knowing, enlightening, fun. His cabaret show ‘Beyond our Kennel’ is on the last Monday of every month at the Betsey Trotwood in Clerkenwell: words, music, poems, comedy. I play there every so often. Go and see, you’ll have a good night. Below is a poem from his book The Sound of Paint Drying, an eclectic collection I got as second place prize in my friend Leslie's annual "Guess the Most Oscar Winners" competition...

Australia, Christmas 2001

Me, Simon and the farm lorry go

down the mountain road from Dorrego,

rattling through rainforest

in the Ute,

en route to Lennox Head

and its Christmas spread of surf.

Simon is at the steering wheel,

our eyes, similarly imperfect.

At the beach under the sun,

I slip my glasses into my swimwear pocket

and dip into the frothing lip of ocean,

but the tide slips inside

and whips away my glasses.

Keen-eyed Janet is good enough

to dive into the sea's heaving haystack,

but they're good and gone.

So, maybe I've made some myopic mermaid better looking.

With no spare pair available

and no optician seeing customers on Christmas Day,

Simon is open to a timeshare with his own pair.

Hooray.

My co-wearer's prescription is of different description

but if I tip them at an angle

and don't pull them full on,

the wool over my eyes unstitches;

we're a bit like Shakespeare's witches

who had just one eye between them,

but there's only two of us,

and we're not in Scotland,

we're in Australia,

sharing optical regalia.

      -- John Hegley