PASSING PLACE by Helen Mort
read by Frances Uku

✇

Stall here and let the world
go past, the way

the world well might
on heather-coloured days like this,

an Assynt autumn crawling
from the West.

Let unfamiliar crofts
approach too fast,

their windows headlamps
trained at you,

then Suilven, prehistoric,
speeding down the one-track road

until that road’s a living stream
of marshland, swamp,

the whole damn sea, then
every town you've ever driven through,

thought less of than you should.
Look, here's your house

your room, your matchbox parents
clinging to the door.

Sit still and grip the wheel,
just don't look back -

behind, in the next layby,
all you left waits

with the engine running,
still in gear.

[HELEN MORT] was born in Sheffield in 1985, and grew up in nearby Chesterfield. Five-times-winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award, her poems have appeared in the Spectator, Poetry Review and The Manhattan Review. She lives in Derbyshire.

Passing Place appears in Granta 124: Travel, published in Summer 2013. | http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/Passing-Place

Passing Place by Helen Mort - read by Frances Uku

From the series Folks Who Knock at Madam's Door
by Langston Hughes
read by Frances Uku

MADAM'S CALLING CARDS
I had some cards printed 
The other day.
They cost me more 
Than I wanted to pay.

I told the man
I wasn't no mint,
But I hankered to see
My name in print.

MADAM JOHNSON,
ALBERTA K.
He said, Your name looks good
Madam'd that way.

Shall I use a English
Or a Roman letter?
I said, Use American.
American's better.

There's nothing foreign
To my pedigree:
Alberta K. Johnson--
Madam, that's me.

LANGSTON HUGHES [February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967] was first recognized as an important literary figure during the 1920s, a period known as the "Harlem Renaissance" because of the number of emerging black writers.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/62/6#!/20583560

Madam's Calling Cards by Langston Hughes - read by Frances Uku

By Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
*
Read by Frances Uku 
*
A collaboration of the Poetry Foundation and the Brooklyn Academy of Music :  Record-Your-Rime! Follow along on Twitter :)
*
From Part II of 
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
*
All in a hot and copper sky, 
The bloody Sun, at noon, 
Right up above the mast did stand, 
No bigger than the Moon. 

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion; 
As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere, 
And all the boards did shrink; 
Water, water, everywhere, 
Nor any drop to drink. 

The very deep did rot: O Christ! 
That ever this should be! 
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 
Upon the slimy sea. 

About, about, in reel and rout 
The death-fires danced at night; 
The water, like a witch's oils, 
Burnt green, and blue, and white.

And some in dreams assured were 
Of the Spirit that plagued us so; 
Nine fathom deep he had followed us 
From the land of mist and snow. 

And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was wither'd at the root; 
We could not speak, no more than if 
We had been choked with soot.

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks 
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross 
About my neck was hung.

***

Samuel Taylor Coleridge [21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834] was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. Despite not enjoying the name recognition or popular acclaim that his friend Wordsworth or Shelley have had, Coleridge is one of the most important figures in English poetry. His Shakespeare criticism was highly influential, and he coined many familiar words and phrases, including the "suspension of disbelief". He was a major influence on Emerson, and American transcendentalism.

Throughout his adult life, Coleridge suffered from crippling bouts of anxiety and depression; some say he suffered from bipolar disorder, a condition not identified during his lifetime.

**
http://bam150years.blogspot.com/2013/11/record-your-rime-bam-poetry-project.html

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge - read by Frances Uku

A poem by Chinua Achebe. 
Read by Frances Uku.
As published in the May 22, 1969 issue of The New York Review of Books. 

MANGO SEEDLING
Through glass window pane
Up a modern office block
I saw, two floors below, on wide-jutting
Concrete canopy a mango seedling newly sprouted
Purple, two-leafed, standing on its burst
Black yolk. It waved brightly to sun and wind
Between rains—daily regaling itself
On seed-yams, prodigally.

For how long?
How long the happy waving
From precipice of rainswept sarcophagus?
How long the feast on remnant flour
At pot bottom?
   Perhaps like the widow
Of infinite faith it stood in wait
For the holy man of the forest, shaggy-haired
Powered for eternal replenishment.
Or else it hoped for Old Tortoise’s miraculous feast
On one ever recurring dot of cocoyam
Set in a large bowl of green vegetables—
   These days beyond fable, beyond faith?
   Then I saw it
Poised in courageous impartiality
Between the primordial quarrel of Earth
And Sky striving bravely to sink roots
Into objectivity, mid-air in stone.

I thought the rain, prime mover
To this enterprise, someday would rise in power
And deliver its ward in delirious waterfall
Toward earth below. But every rainy day
Little playful floods assembled on the slab,
Danced, parted round its feet,
United again, and passed.

It went from purple to sickly green
Before it died,
   Today I see it still—
Dry, wire-thin in sun and dust of the dry months—
Headstone on tiny debris of passionate courage.
[To the memory of Christopher Okigbo May 1968]

Chinua Achebe (born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, 16 Nov 1930 – 22 March 2013) was a novelist, poet, professor, and critic.

Mango Seedling by Chinua Achebe - read by Frances Uku

Read by Frances Uku

Emily Dickinson [1830–1886] was a challenger; a poet who experimented with expression in order to free it from conventional restraints. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/emily-dickinson

I STEPPED from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch —
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience.	

I Stepped From Plank To Plank by Emily Dickinson - read by Frances Uku

Read by Frances Uku
'Seed' by Paula Meehan
|

The first warm day of spring 
and I step out into the garden from the gloom
of a house where hope had died
 to tally the storm damage, to seek what may
have survived. And finding some forgotten
lupins I’d sown from seed last autumn
holding in their fingers a raindrop each 
like a peace offering, or a promise,
 I am suddenly grateful and would
 offer a prayer if I believed in God. 
But not believing, I bless the power of seed,
its casual, useful persistence, 
and bless the power of sun,
 its conspiracy with the underground, 
and thank my stars the winter’s ended.
|

Paula Meehan [b. 1955, Dublin] is an Irish poet and playwright. 

'Meehan has what many poets lack: a sense of humour' 
http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?showdoc=1473;doctype=review

Seed by Paula Meehan - read by Frances Uku

read by Frances Uku for National Poetry Month.

Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet and art critic. He was also roommates with Edward Gorey at Harvard.

 ANIMALS                         
       Have you forgotten what we were like then
       when we were still first rate
       and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
      
       it's no use worrying about Time
       but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
       and turned some sharp corners
      
       the whole pasture looked like our meal
       we didn't need speedometers
       we could manage cocktails out of ice and water
      
       I wouldn't want to be faster
       or greener than now if you were with me O you
       were the best of all my days
       
>> www.frankohara.org/writing.html

[I first heard this poem read by Zadie Smith. Well worth a Google to hear her ♥]
twitter.com/missuku

Animals by Frank O'Hara - read by Frances Uku

Overvision by David J. Bauman
Read by Frances Uku

OVERVISION

I wrote a poem once 
about my neighbors and the moon.
Each brief line dropped 
into place as I let them break
at their will. The syntax
arranged itself just comfortably
so.            Years later
I came back with more 
education and a better sense
of rhythm.         I thought
I could improve
it; make the lines
more powerful,
the innuendos more profound.
            But the new ink
was too dark for the old page,
and my good intentions ....
(cont. @ http://dadpoet.wordpress.com/poet/)

David Bauman is a father, poet, and nature-lover in Central Pennsylvania. He's also a fellow SoundClouder (https://soundcloud.com/david-j-bauman)

Overvision by David Bauman - read by Frances Uku

Sonnet XXIX by William Shakespeare*
Read by Frances Uku


When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
       For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
       That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174357
* We celebrate The Bard's birth every April 23rd.

Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare - read by Frances Uku

Lines from ENDYMION by John Keats. 
Read by Frances Uku.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.

[PS. there's more, much more...]

John Keats [31 Oct 1795 – 23 Feb 1821] was an English Romantic poet. This poem was panned in its time for its diffuse and unappealing style. Keats is reported to have said in response, "I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest."

Fun fact: Frances was the name borne by Keats' mother, sister, and lover (Fanny Brawne).

He is portrayed in the film Bright Star by actor Ben Whishaw.

Endymion by John Keats - read by Frances Uku

Read by Frances Uku
Annabelle Despard (b. July 10, 1943) is a Norwegian poet and author, born and raised in England.

SHOULD YOU DIE FIRST 
Let me at least collect your smells
as specimens: your armpits, woollen
sweater,
fingers yellow from smoke. I’d need
to take an imprint of your foot
and make recordings of your laugh.
These archives I shall carry into exile;
my body a St Helena where ships no
longer dock,
a rock in the ocean, an outpost where the
wind howls
and polar bears beat down the door.

From the collection WORLD Poems on the Underground, Transport for London
http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/publications/World_Poems_v7.pdf
Despard lives in Kristiansand and is Associate Professor at the University of Agder. She was educated in English, French and Comparative Literature.

Should You Die First by Annabelle Despard - read by Frances Uku

:: actor. writer. coquette for hire.
putting the noir back in film noir ::
frances.uku @ post.harvard.edu

IMDb.me/francesuku

FrancesUku

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