Friday, June 15, 2012

A S J Tessimond "Cats"


Arthur Seymour John Tessimond (Birkenhead, July 19, 1902 - Chelsea, London May 13, 1962) was an English poet.
He went to Birkenhead School until the age of 14,[ before being sent to Charterhouse School, but ran away at age 16. From 1922-1926 he attended the University of Liverpool, where he read English literature, French, Philosophy and Greek.[He later moved to London where he worked in bookshops, and also as a copywriter
After avoiding military service in World War II, he later discovered he was unfit for service.
He suffered from bipolar disorder, and received electro-convulsive therapy.
He first began to publish in the 1920s in literary magazines. He was to see three volumes of poetry were published during his life: Walls of Glass in 1934, Voices in a Giant City in 1947 and Selections in 1958. He contributed several poems to a 1952 edition of Bewick's Birds.
He died in 1962 from a brain haemorrhage.
In the mid-1970s he was the subject of a radio programme entitled Portrait of a Romantic. This, together with the publication of the posthumous selection Not Love Perhaps in 1972, increased interest in his work; and his poetry subsequently appeared in school books and anthologies.
A 1985 anthology of his work The Collected Poems of A. S. J. Tessimond, edited by Hubert Nicholson, contains previously unpublished works.
In 2010 a new collected poems, based closely on Nicholson's edition, was published by Bloodaxe Books.
In April 2010 an edition of Brian Patten's series Lost Voices on BBC Radio Four was committed solely to Tessimond.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

C.J. Dennis" Lines to a Lugubrious Leader"


Heres a virtual movie of the most successful Australian poet ever C.J. Dennis reading his poem "Lines to a Lugubrious Leader" first published in the Herald the Australian Newspaper in 1931.The poem asks politicians to take themselves less seriously and to try and be less dull,and to perhaps inject some humour into their approach. With some of the media savvy politicians around today the message seems to have gone too far with their public gloss and lack of substance or sincerity.Then theirs the grey Lugubrious Leaders of that abomination the so called European Community which we in Britain never agreed to ruled by who hide away in brussels meddling with our freedom.Alas politicians don't change they are in it for quick effect,personal vanity,gain,and we the citizen are left to live with the mayhem they leave behind them..

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis, better known as C. J. Dennis, (7 September 1876 - 22 June 1938) was an Australian poet known for his humorous poems, especially "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke", published in the early 20th century. Though Dennis's work is less well known today, his 1916 publication of The Sentimental Bloke sold 65,000 copies in its first year, and by 1917 he was the most prosperous poet in Australian history.[1]
Together with Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, both of whom he collaborated with, he is often considered among Australia's three most famous poets.
When he died at the age of 61, the Prime Minister of Australia Joseph Lyons suggested he was destined to be remembered as the "Australian Robert Burns.