{"id":7692,"date":"2014-11-09T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2014-11-09T09:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=7692"},"modified":"2014-11-07T10:29:15","modified_gmt":"2014-11-07T10:29:15","slug":"jonny-fluffypunk-on-poetry-disobedience-for-aldeburgh-poetry-festival-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/jonny-fluffypunk-on-poetry-disobedience-for-aldeburgh-poetry-festival-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonny Fluffypunk on ‘Poetry & Disobedience’ for Aldeburgh Poetry Festival 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2014 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival runs for the 7th-9th November and this weekend Ink Sweat & Tears is featuring poems on the theme of \u2018Poetry & Disobedience’ which is the subject of the IS&T-supported Short Takes this year.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

War On The Home Front<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This was war
\non the home front
\n& I was a squaddie
\narmed with a body of political opinion
\ngleaned from the sleeves
\nof punk rock records<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You\u2019re all lackeys
\nof a fascist state<\/em>
\nI would cry<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, dear<\/em> mum would sigh
\nNow why don\u2019t you
\nget out of my kitchen
\n& put the world to rights
\nwhile<\/em> you still bloody well
\nknow everything?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

& we argued across
\nthe political divide
\n& across the kitchen table
\n& I called for an end
\nto the arms race
\n& I said if I were able
\nI\u2019d smash up all
\nthe guns and tanks
\n& burn down all
\nthe theiving banks
\n& we\u2019d all live
\nhappily ever after, thanks,
\nin small, self-sufficient
\neco-centric village communes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

& mum said yes, dear.
\nA trifle simplistic.
\nNow clear off<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

& she shoo\u2019d me
\nfrom my stool
\nit was autocratic rule
\n& it\u2019s all a little foolish now,
\nbut back then I saw red.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why why why WHY WHY
\ndon\u2019t you respect me
\nas a pacifist<\/em>?
\nI said,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

as I slammed her head<\/em>
\nin the kitchen door.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For 12 years I was a ranting political poet; something I blame squarely on my then girlfriend\u2019s cat, Captain Marmalade. He was a Leo and suffered appalling catnip comedowns. On one of these he scratched my copy of the first Clash album so severely that the needle jumped seven times a second, and acted like an aural stroboscope. I had a spontaneous involuntary altered state of consciousness and I found myself in the Punk Zone- a cul-de-sac off the Twilight Zone populated entirely by disembodies entities who\u2019ve a problem with authority figures. To cut a long story short, I became possessed by the spirit of Lawrence Clarkson, a 17th<\/sup> Century Ranter and Radical Mystic; a man who was imprisoned during the Civil War for invading church pulpits and swearing for two hours solid. Without repetition. I thought, I\u2019ll have some of that<\/em><\/p>\n

So for the next ten years, I channelled the spirit of Lawrence Clarkson, through my poetry, until I moved to the West Country, where I was cured by a shaman who practised Bristol Healing. This is where you are dragged to the banks of the holy River Avon by a huge, bearded ex-docker and the evil spirits are beaten out of you with an empty cider bottle fashioned from pure, healing Rose Quartz.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Ever since then I\u2019ve just listened to country and western, and written poetry about my dysfunctional childhood.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jonny Fluffypunk<\/strong> was born in 1969 in Buckinghamshire. Describing himself as \u2018a stand-up poet, sit-down storyteller and give-up guitarist\u2019, he presents a unique blend of poems, songlets, surreal banter, off-beat observation and bitter autobiography. He has won many major Poetry Slams and has twice been placed second in the National All-Stars Slam at the Cheltenham Literary Festival. He has published The Sustainable Nihilist\u2019s Handbook<\/em> (2012) and Man Up, Jonny Fluffypunk \u2013 One Man\u2019s Struggle with Late-Onset Responsibility<\/em> is his new show.<\/p>\n

When sending in his poem, he noted ‘It’s unashamedly populist and lowbrow, but then so am I.’ He will be in performance today as well as telling it like it is in his Short Take (3.00-3.15pm). For more on the festival see here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2014 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival runs for the 7th-9th November and this weekend Ink Sweat & Tears is featuring poems on the theme of \u2018Poetry & Disobedience’ which is the subject of the IS&T-supported Short Takes this year.\u00a0\u00a0     War On The Home Front   This was war on the home front & I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7692"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7695,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7692\/revisions\/7695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}