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          The Singing Harp

                     by Iain Sharp

 A quick word

  Poetry readings were quite common in Auckland when I was growing up there in the late ’60s and early ’70s. It was possible to take in performances by both old troupers like Allen Curnow and James K Baxter and young tyros like Alan Brunton and Ian Wedde. The desire to strut some stuff of my own kicked in early, but it wasn’t until Dave Mitchell set up regular readings at the Globe Hotel in 1981 that I summoned the nerve. Some of the routines gathered here date back to Globe days. Others were performed at the Shakespeare Tavern in the early ’90s. A couple come from 2002: I knocked out Amnesty Day for an event organised by Riemke Ensing and Two Minute Poem for a gala evening arranged by Auckland University Press involving 28 bards limited to 120 seconds apiece.

    Anyone who’s been to a few poetry readings will be aware of the distinction between what works on the page and what works on the stage. Energetic crap delivered with a friendly smile and an attempt at soft shoe shuffle often pleases a crowd better than ingenious stanzas. I know The Splog isn’t Paradise Lost. The words of The Ponsonby Strut changed every time I did it. So did the dance steps. I once persuaded a gaggle of cronies to storm the stage of the Globe and play a kazoo version of the Strut with me. I still think this was the definitive rendition.

   It was Dave’s habit at the Globe to open proceedings with a recital from an elderly lady of dubious sanity who read straight from her diary. Her 10-minute mumble gave  him some breathing space to order drinks from the bar, greet friends as they arrived and plan the rest of the programme. This sad, lonely woman was usually a bit tedious, recounting indifferent meals fed to her cat and humdrum conversations with her neigbours. But one night she reached the point in her journal when the men in the white coats carried her off to a mental hospital. I guess the diary was either several years old or else she somehow escaped from her confines to read at the Globe. “I might not be back here for a while,” she told us. Then in a faltering voice, which began as a whisper but soon grew to a potent crescendo, she sang the old Engelbert Humperdinck hit There Goes My Everything. It was simultaneously horrible and terrific -- the best performance poem I’ve ever heard.

   In a similar vein, there was another evening at the Globe when Michael O’Leary put paper bags over our heads, we played air guitars and sang -- more or less together -- the John Lennon number I’m a Loser from the Beatles For Sale album. People present told me it was my most convincing performance. The trouble with the Beatles’ original is that their obvious musical talent undercut their credibility as losers. O’Leary and I, on the other hand, nailed down loserdom magnificently. You had to be there, though. A lyric sheet won’t give you the full story.  

TITLE              The Singing Harp
AUTHOR         Iain Sharp
PUBLISHED    2004
CATEGORY    Poetry
FORMAT         Paperback
EXTENT           A5, 26 pages
ISBN                1-86942-036-5
PRICE              NZ  $5

The Reckoning (sample poem)

 Life is improvised like Charlie Parker.
Sure, you can rehearse a few routines
but you never know in advance

how they’re likely to go down --
too rigid and they’re bound to snap
too loose and they won’t sustain

your weight or anyone’s interest.
Some nights nothing works
in spite of deft fingers

impeccable breathing
a wonderful shirt or hat.
Other nights are magical

but you can’t explain why
though you think hard for years …
like the beauty of your lover’s face

as she knelt to light a white candle
in Saint Patrick’s cathedral
the night you entered the church

only because it was raining.
In the end that’s what we’re left with . . .
shards of inexplicable magic

but while you're waiting for them
instead of just pining for your brain
to become a rainbow or for the breaks

in every surface to heal, why don’t you
step outside and do something useful
such as extolling the stars?

Biography

Though born in Glasgow , Iain Sharp has lived close to the Harp of Erin in Auckland most of his life. He’s old now … portly, wheezing and grey-haired … but he retains a boyish enthusiasm for pocket-knives, tooth-rotting confectionery and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich. Two million words ago, before he became a journalist, he used to want to be a poet. God knows why. The mania still affects him occasionally in the early hours of the morning. This is his first book of verse since 1985. Everything sings, he insists, if you listen hard enough. But this might be just a buzz in his failing ears.

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