Beauty & the Beast Video

Just noticed Mr Gee posted a video of his Beauty and the Beast performance in Hollywood. Its the poem I read out in July's meeting. Thought you may like to 'see' it as well as hear it. Like the way he describes himself as a 'Stand Up Poet'...

Birmingham for Tariq Jahan

Tariq Jahan lost his son, Haroon, in a hit and run incident during the riots in Winson Green, Birmingham on Wednesday

After the evening prayers at the mosque,

came the looters in masks,

and you three stood,

beloved in your neighbourhood,

brave, bright, brothers,

to be who you were –

a hafiz is one who has memorised

the entire Koran;

a devout man –

then the man in the speeding car

who purposefully mounted the kerb …

I think we all should kneel

on that English street,

where he widowed your pregnant wife, Shazad,

tossed your soul to the air, Abdul,

and brought your father, Haroon, to his knees,

his face masked in only your blood

on the rolling news

where nobody's children riot and burn.

CAROL ANN DUFFY

guardian.co.uk, Friday 12 August 2011 23.28 BST

Please find the original Guardian Article here

© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved

If I Was Your Girl Friend

If I was your girl friend

Would you remember

To tell me all the things you forgot when I was your man?

Hey, when I was your man

If I was your best friend

Would you let me

Take care of you?

Do all the things that only a best friend can

Only best friends can

If I was your girl friend

If I was your girl friend

If I was your girl friend

Would you let me dress you?

Let me help pick out your clothes

Before we go out?

Not that you’re helpless

But sometime, sometime those are the things that being in love’s about

If I was your one and only friend

Would you run to me, if somebody hurt you?

Even if that somebody was me?

Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be

Please

If I was your girl friend

If I was your girl friend

Would you let me wash your hair?

Could I make you breakfast sometime?

Oh, can we just hang out?

I mean, could we go to a movie….

Could we, together?

Coz to me baby

That would be so fine

If I was your girl friend

Baby can I dress you

I mean help you pick out your clothes

Before we go out (if I was your girl friend)

Listen girl, I ain’t saying you’re helpless

But sometime, sometime those are the things that being in love’s about

Listen girl,

Sugar you know what I’m saying to you this evening

Maybe you think I’m being a little sexy tonight

I say I wanna be

All of the things, you are to me

Surely, surely you can see

Is it really necessary for me to go out of the room just because you want to undress?

We don’t have to make children to make love?

You know, we don’t have to make love to have an orgasm…

PRINCE

If I Was Your Girlfriend Video

August 2011

1. The Ted Williams Villanelle

"Don't let anybody mess with your swing."

For Ted Williams, baseball player - Wendy Cope. Michael

2. To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674). Michael

3. Independent Excerpt - Jane Cordell. Michael

4. Two Headed Boy - Neutral Milk Hotel (lyrics). Lloyd

5. The Life That I Have - Leo Marx. Lorraine

6. If I was Your Girlfriend - Prince (lyrics). Juliette

7. Pastoral - Harry Webb. Michael

8. The Fist - Derek Walcott. Lloyd

9. Birmingham for Tariq Jahan - Carol Ann Duffy (12.08.11.www.guardian.co.uk). Juliette

July 2011

1. Silver - Walter De La Mare. Lorraine

2. When You Are Old - WB Yeats. Claire

3. An Appearance of Success - David Wright. Juliette

Poems On The Underground

4. Nothing To Save - DH Lawrence. Hannah

5. Blackbird - Leslie Saunders. Leona

6. Severn Song - Philip Gross. Steve

7. Fruit Tree - Nick Drake (lyrics). Lloyd

8. Year of The Cat - Al Stewart (lyrics). Lloyd

May 2011

To be put up

April 2011

1. Mrs Faust - Carol Ann Duffy. Juliette

The Worlds Wife WBN Edition

2. My Literary Party - Lorraine Gray. Lorraine

Published in South Wales Echo

3. Skyman - Jane Draycott. Leona

4. The London Underground - Anon. Juliette

5. I Shall Wear Purple - Jenny Joseph. Lorraine

Beauty and the Beast

You can listen here to the poem I read in June:

Beauty and the Beast by Mr Gee

It was recorded for the BBC & made available on a limited edition CD.

Now it is available free to download on Soundcloud

Mr Gee on Soundcloud

Mr Gee on Twitter

June 2011

1. Apologiea - Anon. Claire
2. Beauty and the Beast - Mr. Gee. Juliette
3. Whatever would Robert have said? - Peter Hammil. Lloyd
4. Stop all the clocks - W.H. Auden. Lorraine
5. The False Heart - Hilaire Eelloc. Lorraine
6. How to read poetry (an article from theRadio Times) - Sheila Hancock. Juliette

March 2011

1. Peninsular - Seamus Heaney. Juliette

2. Strange Fruit - Seamus Heaney. Michael

3. The Stone Verdict - Seamus Heaney. Jen

4. Relic of Memory - Seamus Heaney. Phill

5. The Baiter - Seamus Heaney. Leona

6. The Butts - Seamus Heaney. Steve

February 2011

1. Progress - Alan Guiness. Michael

2. Poem of Bliss - Rumi. Monica

3. Hijab Score no. 7 - Anon. Michael.

4. The Last Hello - Les Murrary. Steve

5. The Guest House - Rumi. Michael

6. Two Kings of Intelligence - Anon. Michael

Januray 2011

1. One of St. Agnes - John Keats. Michael

2. To Sleep - John Keats. Michael.

3. A Parental Order - Thomas Hood. Steve

4. Check the meaning - Richard Ashcroft. Juliette (lyrics)

December 2010

1. Love songs in the key of Y - Philip Gross. Michael

2. Ancestors - Anthony Thwaite. Michael

3. Canada - Billy Collins. Juliette

4. Big Muddy Blues - Philip Gross. Michael

November 2010

1. Docker - Seamus Heaney. Michael

2. The Journey - Edward Field. Juliette

3. Scholer 2 - Seamus Dean. Michael

October 2010

1. September 12th, 2001 - X. S. Kennedy. Juliette

2. One World - Anon. Michael

3. Oliver Singing - Anon. Steve

July 2010

1. Skies - Marion Jordan. Juliette

2. Grammar - Sinead Morrisey. Michael

3. The 7th Elegy - Rilke. Leona

4. Pipstrele - Mark Doty. Steve

5. Rushoulter Bay - Claire Fienstein. Juliette

The Bright Field - R. S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through

to illuminate a small field 

for a while, and gone my way 

and forgotten it. But that was the pearl

of great price, the one field that had

the treasure in it. I realize now

that I must give all that I have

to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after

an imagined past. It is the turning

aside like Moses to the miracle

of the lit bush, to a brightness

that seemed as transitory as your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

Postscript - Seamus Heaney

And some time make the time to drive out west

Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,

In September or October, when the wind

And the light are working off each other

So that the ocean on one side is wild

With foam and glitter, and inland among stones

The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit

By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,

Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,

Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads

Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.

Useless to think you'll park and capture it

More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,

A hurry through which known and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open. 

Breakfast - Jaques Prevert

He put the coffee

In his cup

He put the milk

In the cup of coffee

He put the sugar

In the cup of coffee

He stirred it

With the little spoon

He drank the coffee

And he put the cup down

Without speaking to me

He lit

A cigarette

He blew rings

With the smoke

He put the ash

In the ash-tray

Without speaking to me

Without looking at me

He got up

He put

His hat on

He put his raincoat on

Because it was raining

And he went out

Into the rain

Without a word

Without looking at me

And I put

My head in my hands

And I cried

Incandescent May 2010

1. Jacques Prevert 'Breakfast' Juliette

2. U. A. Fanthorpe 'Rising Damp' Steve

3. R. S. Thomas 'The Bright Field' Hannah

4. Seamus Heaney 'Postscript' Juliette

5. Cecil Day-Lewis 'Walking Away' Steve