Its a good idea I suppose to take stock and work out why people make the
statements they do ... for instance I have attended many church services
and it seems that former employers of mine made the comment that
England is famous for "freedom of speech" and I used to go along on
Sundays in my free time to listen to the men on their "soap box" ranting
and raving about God, The World, the Sins of the Father, Sins of the
Flesh and Corruption ... in this respect in England the clock swings back.
Unto Poetry.com ... its a group of internet poets who write online in America and
I discovered it via the Poetry Society which Club I belong to as a full member ..
they have a sense of humour but when they elect their winners there is an
awful lot of whining about Americans winning and we Brits being "left out"
because we dont live in America. I dont know of anyone who could afford to commute
to the States on the offchance that they might be awarded the winning cheque
or might get chosen as the No 1 poet in America ... stranger things have
happened ... I got an email saying I was No 2 Poet ... alas! an amateur
dare I say it .. in America with my poem "Midnight Express" but the
bad news was there was no winning cheque ... in order to receive it I would have to commute to America .... that I could not do ... not unless I was one of
Britain''s new millionaires, but when I am one of Britain''s millionaires then its no
problem commuting to America on a regular basis as I live near London Airports!
Keep on writing and reading the blogs ... even I was surprised to get the great
news from poetry.com after the 19 - 21 July Symposium in Las Vegas, USA., but I had done my research and I know that the title is frequently bantered round in
Istanbul Turkey where I used to work ... in fact as a result of that movie
Midnight Express about traffic-ing in illegal drugs and the culprits being
taken into Turkish prison and held there ... I too head away from this
fiasco ... Midnight Express is a term that applies ... loosely .. to the bus,
that I was on ... which travels at midnight into and out of Istanbul ... all the way across Turkey .... but fortunately I wasnt traffic-ing in anything and I have no criminal
record ... the film of the same name as my poem even though the content is completely different was made in 1978 .... I was then living in England .... compulsive stuff ...
excellent blogs from websites on www.yahoo.com/SM Thompson.