{"id":6288,"date":"2018-01-11T13:19:16","date_gmt":"2018-01-11T13:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=6288"},"modified":"2025-12-26T23:19:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T23:19:59","slug":"jiggery-pokery-thing-called-life-poem-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2018\/01\/jiggery-pokery-thing-called-life-poem-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"That jiggery-pokery thing called life: a poem for new year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At first I find it hard to choose a poem from Judi Benson\u2019s Hole in the Wall.  She became Writer in Residence at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary just a year after the death of her husband, Ken Smith, and there are lines in this book which I find painful to read.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘If I didn\u2019t dream I\u2019d never see you’, she writes in Waking Thought<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Threads<\/i>, she holds close the clothes her husband wore:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Not the shirt so much that I want to preserve<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

but the way he wore it through to thread<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

bold and bare with it, every piece a story to be told.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Yet the words are also full of light and life<\/strong>,<\/span> written with the often humorous energy you might expect of an enthusiastic Green Gym volunteer at the East Ham Nature Reserve. She writes with vigour about getting stuck into taming nettles and rooting out brambles among gravestones and other allotments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born in California,  living in London, Judi Benson was Writer in Residence in the oncology and palliative care unit of the infirmary from 2004 to 2007, and her poems reflect the life and death reality of hospital wards her as well as the wild joy of the landscape around her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are all common<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Revisiting the collection now, it carries a comforting message in a winter of rampaging flu, overcrowded hospitals, and political uncertainty about how to heal the health service. Love, life, birth and death \u2013 the great levellers.  We are all ‘common, one of the flock’. (Happy new year!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let’s settle on this one which seems to convey a characteristic tone of voice echoing through the book:   \u201cthe voice always clear in the ear \u2013 reveals a warm confiding humanity\u2026\u201d as Carol Ann Duffy commented on an earlier Judi Benson collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Birds Eye<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

My day begins with copulation,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

lying on my back studying clouds,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

watching gulls on the rooftop across the way<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh they\u2019ve got their foreplay<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

as close as beak-ed things come to kissing.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peck-pecking, doing a dainty dance around<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

each other in that almost-touching flamenco way.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As close as they get to hugging, and so and so.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tap tap, slap slap on the tiles awhile<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

then enough of that, as he takes off, graceful lands atop her,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

a showy span of white wing,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

doing the jiggery-pokery thing.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s uninvolved, looking down at her feet,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking she needs to see a podiatrist, psychiatrist.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s all too much<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

all this fuss and feathers<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

just to end up sitting on a nest<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

like all the rest. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Common, one of the flock<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

 <\/address>\n\n\n\n

Hole in the Wall is published by Rockingham Press, \u00a39.99<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Hole<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First published on the author’s website<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Revisiting the collection now, it carries a comforting message in a winter of rampaging flu, overcrowded hospitals, and political uncertainty about how to heal the health service. Love, life, birth and death \u2013 the great levellers.\u00a0 We are all ‘common, one of the flock’. (Happy new year!).’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":6289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[55],"class_list":["post-6288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17729,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6288\/revisions\/17729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}