Poems

The Grotlyn – Benji Davies

jadetheobscure Light reading , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I am a little late to the party with this one – but I love it all the same!

It was the cover that first drew me to this book. Some might call it clichéd, a sparse bedroom, complete with gas lamp, lit only by the pale glow of the moon, a wrought iron bed, a tiny, pale figure peeking above the heavy sheets. I think it’s timeless. This is exactly the kind of cover, and theme I would like to have for my children’s book – if I ever get around to finishing it…

9780008212759

I know when the Grotlyn’s been
Slipping through your house unseen…

The Grotlyn is a new(ish) rhyming picture book by lyrical genius and acclaimed children’s author Benji Davies. This is more than a book about things that go bump in the night though, it’s beautifully illustrated, playfully constructed and comes complete with an important life lesson for all children afraid of the dark.

As much as parents might like to try to stop their little ones watching scary movies or frightening YouTube videos, some ghostly goings on in story books is almost like a rite of passage. You know as soon as you see the cover of a creepy children’s book that it’s not going to be ~that~ scary, but I’m willing to bet that the majority of children who own this book were hoping it would be…

The story itself, though short and sweet, is loaded with suspense created by Davies atmospheric Victorian-esque illustrations, and simple, almost creeping, rhyming style. The two combine to create a spooky yet playful scene – a mysterious shadow slinking through the smog slicked city streets, slipping from page to page, raising the neck hairs of all it passes.

The Grotlyn.

This mysterious creature is causing quite a stir among the townsfolk, and has even stolen a pair of PC Vickers’ knickers.

So what could it be?

Don’t worry, the Grotlyn isn’t some horrific Babadook type – and this book is not going to make any little Klaus’s dance with the likes of Freddie Krueger.  As the, equally magnificent, trailer for this tale so cleanly alludes:

But what at first we think to be
The eye does blindly make us see.
So don’t be scared to sleep – to dream!
For things are not quite what they seem.

Rest easy with the knowledge that the creeping, crawling, knicker-stealing culprit in the story poses no harm, and will be easily, and perhaps hilariously, revealed to be something much less scary than the name ‘Grotlyn’ conjures up.

I can say no more.

I don’t like to judge a book by its cover – but I 100 per cent did with this one and it completely paid off. I won’t be gifting my copy of this book to any little people, quite simply because I want to keep it for myself. That said, I think that ‘The Grotlyn’ is the perfect book for sharing with little ones who like a thrill.

“I like books whose virtue is all drawn together in a page or two. I like sentences that don’t budge though armies cross them.” ― Virginia Woolf

jadetheobscure Obscure poetry , , , , , , , , ,

Obscure poetry round two – Final sentence poetry.

I was recommended this method of constructing poetry by a friend of a friend, and I instantly loved it! The idea is to choose a book, and construct a poem by taking the final sentence from each chapter, starting at the back and working forwards

I took a while browsing through the books at home and in the office before I chose two to use that I liked the look of, and then used a long train journey to London to construct my poetry. The main issue I encountered was with overly long sentences, I took each of these as they came, cutting some of them down, or running them across two lines, depending on what I thought sounded better.

The following are the end result:

1134855Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree – Albert Wendt

Forgive dear reader please confession
Of Humble man who is man got religion.
All is well in Lava,
So spake the Flying-Fox.
She visits her husband’s grave at Magiagi every Saturday afternoon,
We crucified him.
It is only a saint they are burying,
The only one you’ve got down is only a pampered nag.
If mine father mother brother and captain see me now;
He held up his hand proudly.
Mauga stood crowned by the last rays of the setting sun.

Billy Liar – Keith WaterhouseImage

I began the slow walk home,
I did not have the courage to turn around and look at my mother.
I put out the light.
The idea of ever seeing Stamp again,
Filled me with horror.
I beckoned to Liz.
I did not stop running until I was clear of Clogiron Lane,
And whistled all the way down the Arcade,
Getting the Ambrosian repeater gun into position.
And even while I was burying the calenders the feeling was still with me.
Why don’t you tell the boring little man to stick the job up his jacksy?
I watched her down Market Street until the swinging of her skirt was out of sight,
And went into the office.
Get stuffed.
I wondered what I was going to do about everything.

Again I had a lot of fun playing around with these and decided to spread the word a little further, this time to a friend who’s currently living over in Australia. His taste in books is a little unusual, but I really liked what he came up with:

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John Dies at the End – David Wong

Your ball.
I knew, of course, that it never, ever would.
I turned to John to tell him to find something sharp.
What’s in it?
I can’t believe you just said that,
One way or another,
This is gonna be the end.
I would have put a bullet in my own skull one minute later.
I snapped the padlock shut,
Then trudged inside the house.
Now, this is going to sound crazy…
Then in the fall, everything went to hell,
He then stabbed Xorox in the belly with her own hand.
Vegas was just the beginning.
Wanna play hockey?
And then came the voices.
I got nothing else out of her the rest of the night.
Do you have your ATM card?
Please come with me, sir.
I locked up and went to bed.

I’d recommend any of you creative types out there to give this a go, the method doesn’t really require a lot of effort at all, and I found some of the sentences worked together really well.

I’ve been given some great suggestions so far for other methods to include on my obscure poetry journey, so please feel free to send me any other ideas you might have.