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Thanks to my friend Brian Creswick (whose website will be up this week), I’ve discovered the hilarious and surreal poetry and song of Ivor Cutler:
Fame first came in the late Fifties. He was lying on his bed with a primitive tape recorder for company and, as he puts it, a story came out of his brain. Surprised at the ease at which he could bypass his intellect he tried again, and a second story emerged and was also recorded. Then a third. Writing poetry then began to manifest itself. “My way of writing poetry was to go to a jazz concert and just let the music come through me and just write nonsense poems, so that one was listening to the noise of the words rather than the meaning. I wouldn’t allow my intellect to get in the way. After six years I found certain sounds more to my taste than others and I gradually began to use actual words”.
Cutler is a strange man, and his poems and songs, which he has read and performed on the BBC’s Peel Sessions as well as at festivals and events around the world, are whimsical pieces of aural art, by turns very funny and somehow poignant and sad, as if they have all been written in a minor key. For years he accompanied himself on harmonium, sounding like a Scottish Alan Ginsberg. His poetry needs to be heard to be appreciated. But in case you don’t have a soundcard, here is a little one to read:
Happy Hen
The happiness of birds is not reflected in their faces. Strictly, birds do not have a face, just an arrangement of organs around the head. If a hen looks badtempered, it is due to a superficial disposal of its features, and if you place your ear by its beak, it may be heard humming a contemporary dance tune in a happy, thready fashion.
The happiness of birds is not reflected in their faces. Strictly, birds do not have a face, just an arrangement of organs around the head. If a hen looks badtempered, it is due to a superficial disposal of its features, and if you place your ear by its beak, it may be heard humming a contemporary dance tune in a happy, thready fashion.
