IN PRAISE OF MONARCHS
He dug ditches in obscurity
Raised ten children to maturity
When pushed he said;
‘I do the best I can. Life’s hard
On the working man, but I mustn’t complain
I’ve got my health, while there’s others
Who can’t stop dying for all their wealth.
All that stuff in China…I wouldn’t give it
If they changed my lot for Royalty I wouldn’t live it.
There’s more to life than being famous you know’.
Here’s what some publishers said about books they rejected. THERE’S HOPE FOR US ALL YET!
ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
‘His frenetic and scrambled prose perfectly express the feverish travels of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don’t think so.’
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence
‘for your own sake do not publish this book.’
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
‘an irresponsible holiday story’
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
‘an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.’
Watership Down by Richard Adams
‘older children wouldn’t like it because its language was too difficult.’
Crash by J G Ballard
‘The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.’
The Deer Park by Norman Mailer
‘This will set publishing back 25 years.’
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
‘Do you realize, young woman, that you’re the first American writer ever to poke fun at sex.’
The Diary of Anne Frank
‘The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level.’
Lust for Life by Irving Stone
(which was rejected 16 times, but found a publisher and went on to sell about 25 million copies)
‘ A long, dull novel about an artist.’
The Spy who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré
‘You’re welcome to le Carré – he hasn’t got any future.’
Animal Farm by George Orwell
‘It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA’
Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde
‘My dear sir,
I have read your manuscript. Oh, my dear sir.’
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
‘… overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian … I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.’
see all my books here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tom-OBrien/e/B0034OIGOQ/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1388083522&sr=1-2-ent
PARTING
The sun also rises over concrete
Over this puff-adder sky
And the pricked-up chimneys
Looking like piss-horns in the stark morning
There are no shadows yet
On this marbled plain
So tender in years
But so sparing with love
I shiver at the bus stop
Admiring this proliferation of granite;
So cold, so hard,
So like you….
BRENDAN BEHAN, seen here with Harpo Marx, often said ‘ I’m not a writer with a drinking problem, I’m a drinker with a writing problem’. His brother, Brian, saw it slightly differently; ‘What Brendan really was was a painter with a writing problem. No matter in what country of the globe he resided, or how many luminaries he met, the would always be a painter in his soul . If he had remained one for his livelihood, he could still be alive today’. In other words it was the fame that killed him just as much as the drink.
This is a poem that Dominic O’Riordan wrote about Brendan
I remember him riding the air
A mixture of Puck and the goban Saor
With ruffled shirt and hair astray
In Grafton Street on a gusty day
Respectable gents and maiden aunts
Held tightly in their briefs and pants
Lest their bowels might be disturbed
Hearing genius roaring by
Language of love and obscenity
The words he uttered were very simple
“Your mind is as small as a knacker’s thimble,
Scarperer,joxer, fluther, brother
Hold your hour and have another”
SILENCE AT THE BAR
The old man grimaced and silently imbibed his pint
His withered wife glared her whole life at him
And pointedly moved to a seat
At the far end of the joint
Two sons, forty and finicky,
Silently contemplated the following day’s races
While the daughter and son-in-law,
Long run out of things to say,
Blew smoke in each other’s faces.
Only the children were living;
The girl was chandelier-swinging
And the boy was table-top walking.
“Shhh!” said the mother,
“be quiet you two rascals,
We can’t seem to hear ourselves talking”
from my new book of poetry – http://www.tinhuttalespublishers.co.uk/67/
‘Only a fool writes for anything but money’. So said Samuel Johnson way back in the late 18th C.
Samuel Johnson
I would venture to say that not a lot of writers have taken his advice, for there are a lot of fools writing today! Millions I would imagine. Mind you old Sam had a lot to say for most of his life. He never stopped spouting if the truth be told. Here are some more gems; The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it. How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes? I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read. A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.
Of course he had a distinct advantage over today’s scribblers; he had his own ‘gofor’, James Boswell, who followed him round jotting down every utterance, all of which were subsequently publisheed in Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson. As a young man Boswell had moved from Scotland to London and met Johnson for the first time in 1763. The pair became friends almost immediately. Johnson eventually nicknamed him “Bozzy”.The first conversation between Johnson and Boswell is quoted in Life of Samuel Johnson as follows:
[Boswell:] “Mr. Johnson, I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.”
[Johnson:] “That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help”
Over the years, they met frequently, Boswell diligently keeping notes of their conversations in his journals, which were not published until 1791, when Johnson was already dead and Boswell himself nearing the end of his life. Life of Samuel Johnson has often been described as the greatest biography ever written.
James Boswell
Final quote by Johnson: ‘Paradise Lost’ is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is’
PUT ANOTHER LOG ON THE TV
Talking gets harder each day:
Smokeless zones and telephones
Have killed the conversation
Now our lies, laughs, truth and tears
Have all been swallowed whole
By another monster
In another shiny console
Rocking-horse to rocking-chair
And somewhere in between
The fireplace has become a flickering screen
Glowering at the world
Insisting on silence as it reward
Granddad spat in the fire;
I spit in your face;
Old lies die hard.
from my new collection of poetry ’67’. http://www.tinhuttalespublishers.co.uk/67/
ENTRANCE B
Why are they so nice to us
Those denizens of the DHSS?
Oops! – wrong image,
It’s now the Employment Service…more or less
Raymond sported a badge which identified him
As ‘a member of the clerical support team’
I wanted to ask him what position,
But he was already away
With his ‘back-to-work’ scheme
I had to have a plan you see
That got me ‘gainful’ again;
What occupations could I list?
How much, where, when?
Well, let me see now;
I was a brain surgeon till times got tough
Then I tried circus strongman
Till my back cried enough;
Later, it was alligator-taming
Till I lost my bottle
Now I fancy Formula One driving
At full throttle
Raymond scribbled; the audience had ended
‘No inclination – benefit suspended’
What has happened to the barricades;
The litter-strewn floors,
The ‘them-and-us’ confrontations,
The glass partitions, the bolted-down chairs?
Open-plan dole-queues and carpeted floors?
I think I will get myself a job
There’s no soul in this place anymore.
The first chapter of a book I am working on.
BIGMAC RIDES AGAIN
Chapter 1
The minister for fun was angry. His cheeks had gone bright red he was so angry. Someone had stolen the games book. Now all the fun would have to be cancelled. No more four-legged races, no more snail marathons, no more trampoline highs, no more egg-and-spoon skating handicaps – in fact no more nothing. Without the book it was out of the question. He did the one thing he didn’t want to do. He sent for BIGMAC.
…………..
‘Size fifty four, sir, is…unusual.’ The little man in the Large Bodies department of Harrison and Tweed looked up worriedly. ‘You are very big’
‘Of course I am’ snapped BIGMAC. ‘It is my job to be big. It would look very silly if I was called BIGMAC and was only your size now, wouldn’t it’
‘Yes sir’
‘Then get on with it man. I won’t bite you’
Although it looked as if he might. He pulled out a large turnip-shaped watch and shook it. ‘I sincerely hope this won’t take long. I have an appointment with the Minister for fun at precisely’… he shook the watch vigorously…’very soon’
‘I shall be finished in four shakes of a cat’s tail’
‘Lamb’s tail. The expression is five shakes of a lamb’s tail’ He continued to shake the watch.
‘Perhaps sir should invest in a new time-piece. I understand that the new ones give you not only the time, but also the weather forecast and the football scores’
‘Yes. I’ve seen them. Scattered rain and scoury showers. Arsenal 4, Leicester 1. I can’t be doing with all that nonsense’ He held up the watch.
‘Anyway, this isn’t really a watch. Oh, it tells the time – sometimes – and it is correct at least twice a day, but it’s not what you call a watch, as such’.
‘What would sir call it?’
‘It’s a…’ He looked at the little man suspiciously. ‘You mean you have never seen one of these…objects before?’.
The little man shook his head, and continued his walk around BIGMAC, watching the reading on his digital tape measure. Satisfied, he punched the reading into the tailoring machine. Continue reading
HISTORY LESSONS
See the walking dead
And the carcasses piled high
Like wood on bonfire night;
Clothes, shoes, hair and jewellery
Neatly stacked in separate heaps
Gaunt history staring us in the face
Confetti droning overhead
Gently napalming young bodies
Flesh peeling
Delta-Mekong dots on the map
Where’s Daddy?
Gone to fight the yellow man
Burning deserts erupting
Below technology-laden skies
Push-button warfare
Timed for peak viewing.
Blind killing-fields
Scorched earth, scorched body;
What’s the difference?
taken from my new collection of poetry ’67’ http://www.tinhuttalespublishers.co.uk/67/
My Writing Life 