2 October 2015
Logue’s Poster Poems
The Editors
There's an exhibition of Christopher Logue's poster poems at Rob Tufnell, 83 Page Street, London SW1, until 7 November.
Most Recent
Liberal Values
Ahdaf Soueif
On Monday, 28 October, six small book collectives, including the Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest), published an open letter signed by a...On the Doorstep
Jan-Werner Müller
Analogies with 20th-century fascism are not particularly helpful for understanding our times, but one parallel is instructive: it is not ‘ordinary...We are not OK
Selma Dabbagh
Over a million people have protested in London this year and a majority of the British population think the Israeli prime minister should be...At the Berlin Staatsoper
Olivia Giovetti
When Verdi’s Nabucco was first performed in 1842, Milanese audiences were quick to see their own situation under Austrian occupation reflected in...The Stone and the Unicorn
Sally Davies
The first person to grasp the marketing potential of the unicorn seems to have been King James I of Scotland. Kidnapped by the English as an 11-year-...Contact
Email: blog@lrb.co.ukMost Recent
Liberal Values
Ahdaf Soueif
On Monday, 28 October, six small book collectives, including the Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest), published an open letter signed by a...On the Doorstep
Jan-Werner Müller
Analogies with 20th-century fascism are not particularly helpful for understanding our times, but one parallel is instructive: it is not ‘ordinary...We are not OK
Selma Dabbagh
Over a million people have protested in London this year and a majority of the British population think the Israeli prime minister should be...At the Berlin Staatsoper
Olivia Giovetti
When Verdi’s Nabucco was first performed in 1842, Milanese audiences were quick to see their own situation under Austrian occupation reflected in...The Stone and the Unicorn
Sally Davies
The first person to grasp the marketing potential of the unicorn seems to have been King James I of Scotland. Kidnapped by the English as an 11-year-...Contact
Email: blog@lrb.co.uk
Comments
Last night in Notting Hill
I saw Blake passing by
Who saw Ezekiel
Airborne on Peckham Rye
The posters are very Vietnam. "Airborne" could be a reference to the para regiments who were poured into the jungle.
There's a story about Jimi Hendrix, who had been given the option of joining the army instead of going to jail for teenage crimes. He was introduced to a Chelsea Pensioner and asked him what regiment he'd served in. The old boy, eyeing Jimi's flamboyant, vintage Beatles army tunic, in turn asked the guitarist for his regiment.
"101st Airborne", Hendrix replied immediately about the elite unit. Logue had famously been in the army clink for misdemeanours on national service.
Anyway, it's National Poetry Day, a good day to remember the belligerent old pacifist and his at-'em, not-creative-writing style. As I cycled home up the hill of Camberwell Grove where Logue had lived, the lines came to me:
If I can get high enough
I could be he who saw him
Who saw Blake Who saw Ezekiel
Up the same tree on Peckham Rye
http://croydonradio.com/upload/podcast/2015-10-09-14-00-26.mp3