The Frank Skinner Show - Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast: Liz Berry

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

Frank begins series 2 with a poem that made him cry in a hotel room. He shares a slice of his ‘unfashionable’ hometown in Liz Berry’s 'Birmingham Roller’. Poems Referenced: Bird – Liz Berry Birmingham Roller – Liz Berry The Sea of Talk – Liz Berry

Hello and welcome to Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast. I was on tour, oh it was about 12 months ago, and I'm in the car travelling all round Britain and Ireland with my tour manager and my support act, and every Sunday afternoon I would insist that we had to listen to Poetry Please on Radio 4, which is a programme hosted by the great British poet Roger McGough, in which people, there are different kinds of episodes. This particular week, there was a poet called Malika Booker, and she was talking about some of her favourite poems and poets and she chose a poem called Bird by a poet called Liz Berry who I had never heard of before and the recording that they played was at least Barry reading her own poem. And I've got to say, her accent was not a million miles from my own

and it really, I mean, it really moved me, this poem. It was from a collection Malika Booker pointed out called Black Country, which is the area where I come from. It's an area of the West Midlands of England called the Black Country, which is the area where I come from. It's an area of the West Midlands of England called the Black Country because it was central to the Industrial Revolution and was covered in soot for a very, very long time, less so now. But the name sticks. I think one of the things we look for in poetry is ourselves.

And I could feel myself in this so when I got back to my hotel room after the after the show that night I went on YouTube and I found footage of Liz Berry reading another of her poems called Birmingham Roller which was a poem about a pigeon which you may not feel is an obvious source of emotion I can honestly say without exaggeration that I I wept I don't mean I got a bit dewy eyed I wept the tears made it to my collar and there are many reasons for this but I just I think it's a brilliant moving poem the particular pigeon that she was talking about was called a Birmingham roller hence that the poem being called Birmingham roller it was a poem from the Black Country Collection from 2014. I remember these pigeons as a backdrop to my childhood. We called them tumblers. I didn't know they were called Birmingham

Rollers. But when I was a lonely kid in my back garden in the West Midlands back in the late 60s, early 70s, kicking a football about on my own playing cowboys on my own sitting on my swing always in the sky these birds were there putting on this spectacular sideshow which um we'll discuss in a minute and every now and again i'd stop and and watch them so they are really at the center of my emotional universe these birds so to find a poem about them was was really something so i'm going to read you some of this poem now to anyone listening to this who isn't from the west midlands of england or is unfamiliar with it can i I just say, trust me, it's going to be all right. Okay, here's the first couple of stanzas of Liz Berry's Birmingham Roller.

Wench, yom the colour of our town, concrete, steel, oily rainbow of the cot. Our streets are in your wings. Our factory chimneys plumes on your chest. Okay, stay, stay. I'll tidy this up a bit for the non-black country here. Wencham, the colour of our town. It's fairly straightforward, I think. Girl, you are the colour of our town.

Concrete steel. Oily rainbow of the cot. fairly straightforward i think girl you are the color of our town concrete steel oily rainbow of the cot now the cot is the canal and there are many many canals in the black country and the oily rainbow of the cot when you get oil on the surface of water as I'm sure you know you see it sometimes on car parks and in puddles you get an actual rainbow sheen and that is familiar on the surface of the canal but also in the sort of chest and neck area of these usually grey pigeons you can see this rainbow sheen. It's obviously not caused by oil, or I don't know what it's caused by, but it's a very fine comparison. And I think what she does, Liz Berry,

is that she accepts the greyness of the black country, but she also insists on that colour, on that rainbow. is that she accepts the greyness of the black country, but she also insists on that colour, on that rainbow. And that our streets are in your wings. Again, I think pretty obvious, our streets are in your wings. Our factory chimneys, plumes on your chest. And I think she's using the double meaning of plumes there for plumes of smoke and plumes of feathers. And a lot of these pigeons have got white chests.

And so it looks like white factory smoke against a grey industrial sky. She's clearly making the point that the bird is very much of the black country and then and then she she goes on and uh oh man i i love this here goes bred to dazzling in backyards by men whose ons grew soft as feathers, just to touch you, cradle you from egg, through each death-defying tumble. Okay. Bred to dazzling in backyards by men whose ons grew soft as feathers. Their hands grew soft as feathers.

And this, bear in mind, we're talking about men of the black country here men who certainly if she's talking about her father's generation would have worked in heavy industry and these hands i remember my own father's hands he worked in factories most of his life battered I've battered, broken up, uncleanable nails, but still I can see him reading a copy of Sonny Stories, a tiny little children's story magazine that he used to bring home for me on Friday nights. And I can see these tiny little sort of Enid Blightney type illustrations on this little A5 format magazine in his broken working men's hands and I think that these hands that grow soft as feathers to cradle this bird reminds me of that of that gentleness amidst all that industrial masculinity if you like. I suppose as well the phrase bred to dazzling in backyards

it moves me particularly I hate to say this I suppose I feel I was bred to dazzling in backyards that I grew up in a sort of an anonymous, unfashionable, unconsidered, uncool area. And then I sort of endeavoured to make something of myself. I hate saying that, but I can't help, I'm going to share what I feel with you. Liz Berry certainly falls into this category. To become a poet from that background is not a common place. it from that background is not a common place and I feel for all those kids who grow up in unfashionable areas there who's sort of their their sort of dazzling is I suppose it's clouded over by by class and geography and this seems to be a celebration of all those kids.

So the birds are bred to dazzling by these men. I'm glad that we see these men in a sort of sensitive mode because I think it's easy to think that men who work in industry and who live in places like the black country have been hardened and desensitized by hard drinking and factory work first job i ever had everybody i think who worked in the factory except me was deaf and had three fingers it was what they call a drop forging so there was these the constant thump of fiveton hammers coming down and a complete absence of health and safety in there. This is why most black country people who had a creative urge didn't write poetry.

They wrote heavy metal music. And yeah, we did spend most of our non-factory time drinking but these blokes who I work with these rough working class black country men they all had a lot of very interesting sort of passions and obsessions a lot of it's sort of based on nature it was like they were trapped in the this these grey streets and these grey factories but they reached out for nature so they were trapped in these grey streets and these grey factories, but they reached out for nature. So they were very often, like my dad, they were into gardening, pigeons, whippet racing, fishing. My dad always had chickens in the back garden.

It's some sort of reaching back through all that concrete and steel back to the earth. So these are the guys, I think, with the hidden dazzle who never really got to show it off. And when she says, just to touch you, cradle you from egg through each death-defying tumble, death being death, death-defying tumble, that makes me think that it's very much her we're talking about

and these men are her father to some extent in that poem bird which malika booker chose on um on poetry please liz berry or a poetical version of liz Berry or a character created by her, tells us how she spread her, and I quote, flight greedy arms and became a bird. And I mean became a bird. These poems are not just about factories and canals. They are often quite mystical and have a sort of pagan element to them so she begins her flight as a bird battered and tuneless but then then she starts to find to find herself and she says I felt it at last the rush of the squall thrilling my wing and I knew my voice was no longer words but song so that moment, the character in the poem, be it Lisbury or not, becomes a poet. And I think that she is somehow or in some form the pigeon in Birmingham Roller. There's also a line in Bird, so I left girlhood behind me like a blue egg.

And so I think she is the egg, the pigeon in this. That sounds like I'm pushing it, but I'm going to explain it. I don't just throw these things out there and leave them. I've got my own evidence. I think that the relationship between the pigeon and the man in this, that the relationship between the pigeon and the man in this, this man who's deliberately, whose ons grew soft as feathers just to touch you, cradle you from egg through each death-defying tumble,

I think that is the relationship between Lisberry and her father. And I know I don't often put the poet directly into the poem I think they they like a bit of distance and I'm respecting that but it just really suits me to think of of Luce Berry being nurtured and cradled and each death defyingying tumble. That sounds like poetry writing to me. Every poem is a death-defying tumble, isn't it? So she became a poet. Now, to try and justify this connection with the father, I want to go to another poem in the Black Country collection called The Sea of Talk, subtitled For Dad. And it's about

spending August with her dad just before she started school for the first time, that last summer of freedom. And The Sea of Talk begins, that last summer before school robbed language from my mouth and parceled it up in endless ladybird books you made me a boat of words and pushed us off from the jetty into the sea of talk and i think it's talk here the sea of talk because it's that period of your life when when writing and reading hasn't yet become part of language when yours is an oral life and your parents and and their language and their stories and their talk is is so crucial to you so I I think it's it's sort of about when her language was unfettered if you like at home and it's it's about to be when she starts school tame standardized but made exam friendly and I think this particularly applies to local dialects because I think that is squeezed out of kids when i was

growing up in the black country old people had much stronger not just stronger accents they use words that we didn't know and that they hadn't been so globalized as we had at that point they they held on using some german words like like like being and and uh are uh for yes coming from yar it was all they were like walking history these whole black country people and that does now i think get trained out of people and she addressing her father you made me a boat of words now i don't know whether that means that he made a he made for her a boat of words if you like he made a boat of words in which to navigate education, you know, that he gave her a love of words and language. Or if it means that he made her into a boat of words, that he created the poet in her. But we get in this poem a sense of a sort of rich, very verbal world that she spent the first five years of her life soaking up. So this one of this last summer.

All August we sailed, the vast shadows of stories trawling below us. Shadows of stories trawling below us. How the lights was out the night you was born. The secret in the marl pit up Batman's hill. And I think what she's saying, these vast shadows of stories trawling below us. Like when you see the dark shadows of whales and stuff you see on the boats. And these stories, it's those family stories that I think everyone has. The big one in our family was when I was taken to Dudley Zoo,

which is again a black country place that I'm sure Liz Berry would know. And a chimpanzee urinated. He sort of stood like a... I've been told this story many times. I was a baby, I don't remember it. But he hung like an X on the bar, stretched out, and urinated all over me in my push chair. And I would be told that story,

the sound of chimpanzee urine hitting a hand knitted cardigan that kind of that was that kind of word picture i was raised on you can probably see um or hear it in me now i guess anyway at the end of the sea of talk and and like I said, this is talk, this is the verbal life. The father explains the importance of their local language and how she should try to hold on to it despite going into school. Bab, little wench, don't forget this place it's babble never caught by ink or book for on land school is singing its siren song and oysters clem their lips upon pearls in the mock their lips upon pearls in the muck. So bab little wench, baby little girl,

don't forget this place. It's babble never caught by ink or book. So no writer, no book ever caught our language properly. It's something that lives in your gut, this sort of language of the of the area of the street. For on land school is singing its siren song on land because they are in the sea of talk. They are in this oral world and oysters claim their lips upon pearls in the muck so if she is a pearl in the muck if you like this this this bright kid with all this beauty and potential in the muck in this industrial area and oysters clem their lips and oysters clamp down on things like that and hold them tight and keep them in place.

So her dad in this poem urges her to hold on to that language, hold on to that freedom. Look, I'm going to make a confession. I used to do a routine on stage about the word local, and I always used to say that the word local could be replaced with a colloquial term for excrement, a four letter word I'm sure you're familiar with. And so when you said local newspaper, you could say newspaper, local radio again and local poet was one of the examples I gave it the word was local but it actually the excrement word could be substituted and it would still mean the same and when I look back I'm ashamed slightly now of that routine it got pretty good laughs but I honestly think reading Liz Berry has changed my opinion about that I think I um as they say in the southern states of America I got ideas above my raising

and um now I I I get it I that part of me is very very important and i don't want to mock local because local is under threat and i think it's important to uh to hold on to anyway back to to birmingham roller i'll read you a bit more little acrobat of the terraces we we'm winged when we gaze at you. Jimmiking the breeze, somersaulting through the white-breathed prayer of January. Now I need to clear up here. This pigeon, what it does is it flies as pigeons do and suddenly it drops. It just drops and that's why as a kid even though I saw them every day of my life I still had to stop and watch them because every time they did it you're

impressed by the courage it takes to just let yourself drop trusting the fact that you will be able to regain flight and continue and it's got a sort of a cockiness about it it's got a tremendous self-confidence a vigor to be able to just let stop flying and just fall is the bravery of the thing so that's what they're talking about little acrobat of the terraces people standing in their gardens outside their terraced houses watching these birds we'm winged when we gaze at you and yeah when you're watching them from the ground it does raise you up and and it excites you and it makes you feel winged, if you like. And I think poetry does that as well. I think poetry wings us, if you like.

It lifts us up and makes us excited and exhilarated. exhilarated and jimmicking the breeze so riding on the wind like somersaulting through the white breathed prayer of january the cold gives prayers a visible form because you can see your breath in the cold and it suggests that these rise up to where the pigeons perform and i don't know maybe these prayers are from the people below reaching up recognizing if you like that there's more that that that there's it's sort of their urge to break free and and to soar and to be like that pigeon to have the guts to to fly and to fall and to fly and to just be that brave. And I think a lot of people can feel that urge. You know, it's not just class and geography that holds people back. There are many, many reasons that people feel they're not worthy of flight.

And I think that Liz Berry is the little acrobat of the terraces. We winged when we gazed at you like I cried in that hotel room when I watched her reading Birmingham Roller on YouTube. So what I think she's done is she's, the language of her childhood, the language of the black country is sanctifiedified if you like it's sort of made holy by her poetry it's it's given its place it's shown its worth it has it has the right to be in a proper i must say multi-award winning poetry collection language which when I was a kid and at school we were encouraged to dump and to get rid of because it would hold us back in life is now part of the poetic canon thanks to

thanks to Liz Berry and at the end this fearlessly falling bird is caught up by the open Donny of the clouds. Donny was a sort of child's term for a hand in the black country when I was growing up and it's like the bird now has been passed from the working man's hand on the ground to something higher, something bigger and I feel again I feel that's what's happened to Liz Berry. She's gone from bright black country kid to successful and I think brilliant poet. She writes poetry that can appeal to anyone from anywhere. Let me, I'm not saying that she is some colloquial poet and you need to come from that. You can hear, I hope from what I'm reading to you, it's a lot more than that.

what I'm reading to you it's a lot more than that but I think she has taken her dad's advice from that poem that the sea of talk don't forget this place and and she she continues I think to show the the rainbow amidst all that grey now look I don't want to overstate this just bear with me i think liz berry is doing for the black country in this collection a bit like like like james joyce did for dublin and i don't want to put pressure on her by comparing her to a sort of literary icon but that that skill of embracing the local whilst making it universal is hard to do. And she does it brilliantly, I think. Some of you will be familiar with James Joyce's short story collection, The Dobliners, and there's a story at the end of that called The Dead,

which is generally accepted, I think, as one of the great short stories in literature. And the end of it is a very famous... I'm going to read you a bit of James Joyce's The Dead, would you believe? Just a couple of... Anyway, this is how the story ends. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling like the descent of their last end upon all the living and the dead it's a fantastic moving ending and i'd like to end this

with the last 19 lines of a liz berry poem from, again, from the Black Country Collection. It's called Christmas Eve. And it's beautiful. It makes me think of how you can leave a place, but a place never quite leaves you. And also, as a footnote, I've got drunk in every pub she mentions in this passage. Just saying.

And it's Christmas soon, abide it or not. And now the pobs are illuminated pink and gold. The crooked house, Mar Pardo's, the struggling mon. And snow is filling women's hair like blossom. And someone is drunk already and throwing a punch. And someone is jamming a key in a change lock, shouting, for Christ's sake, Mary, I'll freeze me to death. And a hundred new bikes are being wrapped in sheets

and small pyjamas warmed on fire guards. And children are saying, one more minute, just one, mum. And the old girls are watching someone die on a soap and feeling every snow they've ever seen set in their bones. It's snowing on us all. It's snowing on us all. And I think of you, Eloise, down there in your terrace, feeding your baby or touching his hand to the snow. And although we can't ever go back or be what we were,

I can tell you honestly, I'd give up everything I've worked for or thought I wanted in this life to be with you tonight. So, thank you so much for listening to this episode of My Poetry Podcast. Don't forget to press subscribe on your favourite podcast app so you never miss an episode. Imagine it. And if you enjoyed it, never know, please do rate, review and subscribe. See you next week.

Oh, and P.S. There aren't enough P.S.s in podcasts. If you like this, you can listen to The Frank Skinner Show every Saturday morning at 8am on Absolute Radio. That is also available, of of course as a podcast. It's got less poetry in it than this, but more laughs.