Street Poet

What was he thinking
To come out in the street like this,
Offering poems for a few pence.

His accent raw and Irish,
His poems open to everyone -
What was he thinking, in this day and age!

Better for him the fawning look,
The accent shaved of all commonality:
Better for him if he'd shaved himself!

Better again, to know the right people,
Tarting up falsehoods for their bright pennies,
A pat on the back for saying nothing.

The tongue itself has no voice -
Has no one told him of the new men,
Who play master to servants like himself?

What was he thinking, Irish poet,
To take his wares into the open street,
Like a poet of a scalded dispossessed.

More luck to him to go unrecognised!
When he moves on we'll lament him
The more in the verse of his absence.

^

Biography

Fred Johnston was born in Belfast in 1951 and has published seven collections of poetry, one novel, and a collection of short stories, 'Keeping The Night Watch,' (1998). A new novel, 'Atalanta,' will be published this Autumn (2000). In 1986 he founded Galway's Cuirt festival of Poetry (now Literature) and resigned in 1988. In 1972 he received a Hennessy Literary Award for prose and in the mid-Seventies was co-founder of the Irish Writers' Co-operative. He edits a literary page, 'Markings,' for the Galway Advertiser, and their reviews page, 'BookView,' and works as Literary Arts Worker with Galway Centre for the Unemployed. In 1988 he was writer-in-residence to Galway City/County Library and later ran 'Caidreamh Dhomnaigh,' evenings of poetry and prose and music at Galway's An Taibhdhearc. He teaches Creative Writing as part of the evening Adult Education programme at NUIG. In 1988 he received an Arts Council Literature Bursary and later a Galway County Council bursary; last year he was awarded an ArtsFlight. A reviewer of new poetry for a number of publications and an occasional reviewer of visual art for The Culture section of The Sunday Times, he also recorded two traditional folk albums with the group, 'Parsons Hat' in the early 'Nineties. A sequence of new poems is expected to be published this year and he is working on a novel set in North Africa. In 1995 his play, 'No Earthly Pole,' based on the life of explorer Sir John Franklin, was produced by Punchbag Theatre Co. during Galway Arts Festival. The poem, 'Street Poet,' is based loosely on Gaelic metre and is a satire in that form.