The first piece of verse I composed was at the request of the editor of the Sydney House magazine when i was at School at Oundle in England. I had no idea what the subject might be, but it suddenly came to me that i should do something on John Scrutton, a contemporary at school and with whom had a love-hate relationship.
So here it is, with background
The Onion Patch
- Robin Blackburne, aged 14
My first poem ( or rather verse) was
composed in January 1948
I was then aged fourteen
and at Sidney House, Oundle School.
John Scrutton and I did not
really like eachother, and we had a sort of ongoing intellectual banter which
ended up by my writing the following piece for the Sidney House Magazine,
published in February 1948.
John Scrutton responded with
some acerbic verse about me. I have not
been able to trace a copy of the original magazine. And am still trying to contact John Scrutton
in the hope he remembers the text.
Both pieces were published on
opposite pages and the Editor entitled the two pieces The Onion Patch.
Here is the first stanza of
my piece:
Who does this little bouncing baby try to imitate ?
Is it Shaw or Socrates he likes to quote and state
How Archimedes filled his bath – did not anticipate
That if he entered it when full the floor he’d
irrigate
Plus about four more stanzas, which I do
not recall, the last words of each line all rhyming in “ate”
I seem to recall that some of these
words included:
Irritate
(which he did me)
Over-weight (which he was)
Conjugate (referring to school work – we
were in the same class)
Mental state (which he had)
Tolerate
( I had difficulty in tolerating him)
Circumnavigate (not related to our
relationship)
Ruminate (which he did)
No comments:
Post a Comment