The Frank Skinner Show - Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast: Rebecca Hawkes

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Frank gets very excited about the Rebecca Hawkes collection, ‘Meat Lovers’. The poems referenced are ‘After The Blizzard I Followed My Mother’ and ‘Pony Club Summer Camp’ by Rebecca Hawkes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The epic return of Yellowstone is now streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus. You destroy me, you destroy yourself. Unlike you, I keep my promises. The wait is over. Yellowstone, new episodes now streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus. What does possible sound like for your business? It's more cash on hand to grow with up to 55 interest-free days. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Hello and welcome to Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast.

This week I want to look at a collection which came out in 2022. It is called Meat Lovers and it is by the poet Rebecca Hawkes. Man, it's a fantastic collection. I find it exhilarating to read and even to think about. Even the artwork on the book is gorgeous and that was also done by Rebecca Hawkes. She's one of those one of those people with more than one major talent. Anyway, the book is split into two sections meat and lovers taken obviously from the title meat lovers and they are separate sections but there's plenty of meat in the lovers section and plenty of lovers and potential lovers in the meat. Here's a quote from Rebecca Hawkes which I think is a fair summary of the

experience of reading the meat lovers collection. I like lush OTT poetry as in over the top. I like lush OTT poetry where it is permissible to load up the adjectives just because they're delicious. What better reason than that? And she really does. Oh man, the language is so rich and juicy and full of sugary sweet frighteningness. There's a stuff about her childhood in the book and there's one of her lusting after an apple lolly in a pick and mix and this is what she says. Ethel Valerate Reek, radiating from a cartoo nuclear waste green gummy apple lolly.

The gelatin absorbed light so it glowed from within. Neon Clot, synthetic peridot. Peridot is a green gemstone. The fake was always prettier and more delicious than the real apple. The illusion of non-perishable desire magnetizing my attention beyond nutrient rich five plus a day to the synthetic forbidden. Or here she is looking back on a relationship, now a woman and speaking about the relationship and how she could have been in it.

Have I not been a ruby-throated truth to you? I could be as ruinous as an orchid mantis shimmying, or as toxic as an almond-scented shocking pink dragon millipede dripping cyanide syrup. I have contemplated chewing off your tongue and replacing it myself like a parasitic louse in the mouth of a rosy-ate snapper. But it is best to shed my skin like a magenta scaled eyelash viper and leave it folded neatly on your pillow. My, my, my. And for all that, she can also be really stark and economical. What about this for a sort of heated sexual tension?

The afternoon pulses with perhaps. I mean it's so good. Okay I'm gonna look at a poem called After the Blizzard I followed my mother. That is the title and also the first line of the poem. I'm going to give you the first three stanzas. OK. I'll give you the title as well. After the blizzard, I followed my mother. The drifts hip high as we pushed stiff bones through the cold to plough a path the cows could follow, single file, into the bush for shelter.

Obsidian flanks vanishing among black beech trunks, so when I stared into the abyss it gazed back with bovine eyes. Mourning and thrown back its lid like a chest freezer to reveal too much bleak bedazzlement. Snow filled our boots until the frost felt hot. Wow. Okay, after the blizzard I followed my mother. There are lots of stories of farm life in this collection, Meat Lovers, and this is one. So after the blizzard, I followed my mother. So now she's a child, or at least a youngish teenager, it sounds like, following her mother

after this blizzard has struck in order to try and protect the cattle. After the blizzard I followed my mother the drifts hip-high as we pushed stiff bones through the cold to plough a path the cows could follow single file into the bush for shelter. In that first line the drifts, it's hard to say that, it's snow drifts, you know, D-R-I-F-T-S, the drifts hip-high as we pushed stiff bones. That's the first line, that's where the line break comes. That drifts hip high and pushed stiff bones. Three consecutive stressed sounds.

Often in poetry, and we've talked about this before, there's that sort of de de de de de de de unstressed, then stressed, or sometimes variations de de de de de, stressed, unstressed, but here, two triplets, that's not what they're called. I'll tell you what they're called. I believe the technical term is three consecutive stresses like that is called a molossus, M-O-L-O-S-S-U-S. So she's got two molossuses,

possibly molossi in the first line. And I think that dum, dum, dum of a molossus, three stressed syllables, gives a sense of them pushing their way through these deep snow drifts. After the blizzard I followed my mother, the drifts hip high as we pushed stiff bones. It sounds like somebody battling through. And then the next line, through the cold to plough. And then it ends there. And cold to plough is obviously not three stressed syllables.

It's not going to be the whole thing the whole thing's not gonna be like this. I'm just trying to make a point at the beginning. Not three stressed syllables. It's stressed, unstressed, stressed. So cold to plough. You don't really hit that too. That if you're interested, stressed, unstressed, stressed is a critic, I believe it, like critic,

but with a E instead of an I. My point is, and this is what I think is happening critic, I believe it, like critic but with an E instead of an I. My point is, and this is what I think is happening here, and of course whenever people talk about the structure of a poem, they usually have this qualifier that says the poet themselves might not even have been aware of this, what they were doing, that they just felt that that's how it needed to be. And then we are able to identify a structure which they just have on their hard drive because they're poets. The drifts hip high as we push stiff bones through the cold to plough. And because that has gone a non-stressed syllable in it, cold to plough, it suggests that the struggle is now slightly ending. The path is made now for the cows so the form can relax a bit and stop that thudding insistent dum dum dum. It's reduced to a

dum da dum and then everything's fine. We're doing it. They've made a path the cows could follow single file into the bush for shelter and at the end of that stanza we're in shelter safety Job done. So one more time trying to hear two molossus, two molossi anacretic. The drifts hip high as we push stiff bones through the cold to plough a path the cows could follow single file into the bush for shelter. Next answer, obsidian flanks. Obsidian is a shiny sort of glossy black stone that looks a bit like glass and it's caused by lava, volcanic lava cooling too quickly. Anyway, it's black and shiny obsidian flanks.

So a good description for black cattle or cattle maybe in deep shadow because they're in shelter, but glossy and shiny like obsidian. Obsidian flanks vanishing among black beach trunks, so beach trees also black. So when I stared into the abyss, I think on one level where they are gathered these black cattle or at least cattle made black by shadow, I stared into the abyss it gazed back with bovine eyes, bovine obviously of cattle. So she gazed into this darkness where the cows were sheltered and it gazed back, the darkness if you like, the abyss as she calls it, gazed back with bovine

eyes. Now let me tell you something, obsidian has got all sorts of mystic implications. Ancient civilizations used obsidian stone as a sort of divination tool, like a crystal ball or something like that, to see the future, etc. And there's a thing that you can get now if you're into crystals and all that, although obsidian isn't, strictly speaking, a crystal, but you know what I mean? You can get a thing called an obsidian mirror, which you look into, and which I think is generally felt as a way of seeing into your inner self. That is what I understand your modern mystic views it to be hence gazing into this darkness this black Mirror, so what I'm getting at is the second stands out. We've got the cows. There's all that

pushing all that Molossus Pushing in the first standsanza. We've made a path, we've got the cows through the blizzard, the snow, we've saved them, they're in shelter in the bush. And then she looks at them and I think things sound not so sheltered and safe. Obsidian flanks, so she's,

and poets rarely do things accidentally when it comes to word choice. I think she has chosen obsidian because she knows of all its mystical implications. Obsidian flanks vanishing amongst black beach trunks. She's made it a black darkness in there. When I stared into the abyss, and the abyss, of course, makes the whole thing psychological sounding. Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher, said that when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

And I think Rebecca Hawkes is giving us a literal, even maybe a slightly playful version of that very famous quote. But it also makes us think of a sensitive, ruminative child who perhaps meditates on dark subjects and who is in turn sort of being shaped by those dark meditations, which is what Nietzsche warns us against. So there's something going on there, the obsidian flanks, this idea of staring into one's inner being in an obsidian mirror, this darkness the black beach trunks the obsidian flanks the abyss and these eyes gazing back at her there seems to be something more psychological going on I stared into the abyss doesn't just sound like someone looking into a bush where cows are sheltering. It sounds a lot deeper than that to me.

Mourning thrown back its lid like a chest freezer. Now I love that because it sounds, doesn't it, like it's going to be a sort of a rural poem and it is a rural poem, but she talks about writing rural gothic and there is definitely something gothic about this certainly with obsidian flanks and abysses but now a very modern a very contemporary simile mourning had throwed back its lid like a chest freezer, to reveal too much bleak bedazzlement, you know the way the sun shines on snow and you can't see. Snow filled our boots until the frost felt hot.

One could suggest that's another molossus there at the end, the frost felt hot. But more interestingly, I think, there's two cases there of contradictory things, bleak bedazzlement. You don't normally associate being dazzled with bleakness and the frost felt hot, obviously, you don't normally associate frost with heat.

And I think there's a sense here that her world is slightly upside down, that things are, they're a bit awry and we need to dig further into this poem to see what's going on. Next three stanzas. My mother said our service to the cattle came first, although the power was out in the house, and the needs of all the rest of us formed a torrent like badly stacked firewood tumbling towards her, heavy enough to crush, but the cows on the mountain relied on us, our gloved thumbs, opening gates to survival. We abandoned our candles and log burner glow to slog through the snow and haul wet straw sheaves uphill until the cows came home.

So there's a bit of a crisis at home as well as with the cows in that this blizzard has caused a power cut. But the mother, we never hear directly speak, we just get this one piece of indirect speech, my mother said our oh, a service to the cattle came first. The mother seems to be someone who cares a lot about our animals, and that's sort of admirable. But we've also got this thing that

the speaker is feeding into us, that what about the stuff at home? What about the fact we've got no power? What about the fact that we're out here in the dangerous weather? Let's hear it again. My mother said our service to the cattle came first. Although the power was out in the house, that although suggests, yeah, but what about us? But this is the speaker thinking now.

Although the power was out in the house and the needs of all the rest of us, I presume there's more children, and the needs of all the rest of us formed a torrent like badly stacked firewood, tumbling towards her heavy enough to crush. So there's a suggestion there, there's almost a sort of criticism of the mother, should she have looked after the family at home before the cattle, but also an acknowledgement of her responsibility, her feelings towards the cattle and the fact that they depend on her, and also that she's under tremendous pressure in all this. I mean, what a fabulously apt simile this is

for someone who lives on a farm. The needs of all the rest of us formed a torrent like badly stacked firewood, tumbling towards her heavy enough to crush. Badly stacked firewood, tumbling towards her, heavy enough to crush. Badly stacked firewood, just about the worst thing you can have in a country context. But the cows on the mountain relied on us, our gloved thumbs opening gates to survival. The cows couldn't have got to this place of safety without them. We abandoned our candles and log burner glow.

Now listen to the beautiful sounds of this. We abandoned our candles and log burner glow to slog through the snow and haul wet straw sheaves uphill until the cows came home. So much going on there. We abandoned our candles. Asonance as you know is internal rhyme based on vowel sounds as most rhyme is let's face it. So we abandoned our candles and it's the and in abandoned and candles and log burn a glow to slog through the snow so you've got a rhyme with log and slog you've got a rhyme with glow and snow. Hall wet straw is more assonance the awe of and straw, and finally that rhyme of hill and

on till, uphill on till. Let's hear the whole thing again with the cows coming home at the end. We abandoned our candles and log-burner glow to slog through the snow and haul wet straw sheaves up hill until the cows came home. It's beautiful. Man, Rebecca Hawkes I think is pretty special just saying that. Can I also say the cows came home is the beginning of another stanza? And of course, it feels a bit like a slight joke because the cows did come home, but there is obviously that idiom that people use.

You can do this until the cows come home. It won't make any difference. It sort of suggests a futile effort. I don't know if that is to be suggested of this particular effort, but the cows coming home I think suggests it took a long time. It's a why because, oh, we did that until the cows came home. It suggests slow progress and a way of economically expressing a long, arduous task that we don't want to go into in the course of this poem. That's what I think.

Again, I don't think a poet accidentally uses a phrase like the cows came home when it has all those, you can do this till the cows come home, implications. So it has a literal sense. And I think it's also suggesting that this took a long time and she's not even completely sure that that is what they should have been concentrating on. Maybe they should have been at home looking after the family and getting the power working. Anyway, now we get a moment of

beauty. On breaching the forests, so they've come through the forest now, my mother, the heifers, and I stood at the dappled sanctuary's edge, steaming under the leaves, sweat defrosting on our bodies in an onslaught of feeling that may have been love if we were allowed it or something else as pure. I'm gonna stop there. Now I'm breaching the forest so they've come out of the forest now. My mother, the heifers, the cattle, and I stood at the dappled sanctuary's edge, steaming under the leaves. They're hot from their efforts, generating steam in the cold atmosphere, in an onslaught of feeling. So they've done it. They've got through.

They're standing now at the edge of the forest and she has, it's what Wordsworth used to call this phenomenon, spots of time when something happens and it feels special, it feels sacred amidst the ordinariness of the world and she feels it there. On breaching the forest my mother the heifers and I stood at the dapple sanctuary's edge steaming under the leaves sweat defrosting on our bodies in an onslaught of feeling that is very words worthy and an onslaught of feeling that may have been love if we were allowed it. I wonder if that's another comment on her mother. If we were allowed it is in parentheses. I'm not going to suggest it's in parentheses because it's to do with her parents. Even

I don't read that deep and ridiculously. If we were allowed it though, this sounds like a very practical mother. We've got things to do, never mind the kids at home sitting in darkness or at least candlelight. We need to do our job and get the cattle out and maybe an onslaught of feeling that may have been love doesn't really fit in with that no-nonsense practicality. But the way this ends is very interesting and I didn't quite go to the end of the stanza. I'll explain why in a minute. And I stood at the dappled sanctuary's edge steaming under the leaves, okay, end of one stanza, sweat defrosting on our bodies in an onslaught of feeling

that may have been love, open brackets, if we were allowed it, close brackets, or something else as pure... dash... sour. That's how it ends. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter Fairs include beer, wine, and snacks and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats.

And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit FlyPorter.com and actually enjoy economy. How can you be sure your child is making the right decision when choosing a university? The smart approach is to look at the facts, like the fact that York U graduates have a 90% employer satisfaction rate. That's because across its three GTA campuses, York U's programs are strategically designed to prepare students for a meaningful career and long-term success. Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future.

Raising your hand you notice it. Fear, building, heart beating faster, moving closer, sweat drips, shaking, you reach for it. The chilling handle of the refrigerator? We understand. When you're in debt, everything looks different. Like the fear of the cost of groceries. At Farber Debt Solutions, we can help you see things the way you did before you were in debt.

Farber Debt Solutions, we can help you see things the way you did before you were in debt. Farber Debt Solutions, licensed insolvency trustees. Get the truth about debt. So, it may have been love. Let's lose the brackets for a second. It may have been love or something else as pure-sour. Now, the sour is the beginning of the next sentence. Now the sour is the beginning of the next sentence. As pure dash sour and insistent as the smell of silage, extreme as the glare of sun on snow. So the experience, this spot of time, if I can stay with Wordsworth's terminology, this epiphany that she's had when

she's reached the edge of the forest, it's an onslaught of feeling that may have been love, though her mother probably wouldn't approve of that, or something else as pure, sour and insistent of that or something else as pure sour and insistent as the smell of silage silage being fermenting fodder kept in a silo so a pretty strong smell sour and insistent as the smell of silage extreme as the glare of Sun on snow. So blinding, stinking. So it's a pure love but it's a real love. It's not a romantic love. It's got balls. It stinks. You can't bear to look at it. Sour and insistent as the smell of silage, extreme as the glare of sun on snow. Wow, what went on here. And now the last two lines of the poem and this turnaround. Can you ask my mother, was she seized by that brightness? And what if she dies while we are still angry with each other? Oh my goodness. So there's all sorts of hints in this when she gazes into the abyss as opposed to that

brightness at the end which halts her, which makes her think of love in all its many manifestations. But can you ask my mother? Immediately we know there's a problem. She can't ask her. They're not speaking. Can you ask my mother, was she seized by that brightness? So did she have a spot of time? Wordsworth told us that these spots of time was something that he went back to for consolation.

He relived them when he was in the city or wherever, because they usually happened in the countryside. I think it always happened in the countryside for Wordsworth. She wants to know if her mother was seized by that brightness, if she had that moment. She obviously didn't feel she could ask her at the time because she didn't even know if they were allowed to have those feelings as she points out. And that last line and what if she dies while we are still angry with each other. And there's no ending to that. It ends on a question mark, which isn't really an ending and the tone and the rhythm of it all seems to bring no closure at all.

What if she dies while we're still angry with each other and we've gone? And I guess that's where the relationship is and there was clearly some conflict between this super practical mother and maybe this sensitive poetic child of hers. But instead of being healed by moments like that onslaught of feeling, it looks like things have got worse and worse and now they're not speaking at all. If it makes you feel any better, by the way, and I like making you

feel better if I can in case you're despairing now for the home life of Rebecca Hawkes, I should say that the dedication of this book is to my mother, my father, my mountains. And she does say in an interview that I like my poems to feel true, but reserve my right to tell lies. So we can maybe hope that the relationship with her mother is not as bad as it sounds. I want to do one more I want to do one more to show that she is capable of lightness, there's always a bit of Dark underbelly with Rebecca Hawkes, but that's what I love about her and I think I have come to love her one collection that's all I've read and I'm hungry for more. Okay

This is called Pony Club Summer Camp and it's one of the stories from childhood from the meat section of this but there's a lot going on as well. I'll give you the first three stanzas. The Pony Club wash up against the rocks while you watch from the riverbank the socks and jodhpurs stuffed into their helmets. And the Pony Club offer you electroly any of their true loves could be stronger than the bond between a girl and a horse, a phenomenon so universally potent it is taken for granted as a unit of measurement. Now two things about that before we even look at the wordage. Those ands are actually represented on the page as ampersands, you know, the symbol

for and. And also there's no punctuation in this, no capitals, it's just rattled off like that. To me it feels like the diary of a young teenage girl. Why do you need capitals or punctuation if you're the only one who's going to read the diary? And also there are seven stanzas and in each one the relationship between her and the pony club develops and that could be the diary of the pony club summer camp, seven day, horsey week, I think.

So let's have a bit of a closer look. The pony club wash up against the rocks. That, in case you can't feel it, the pony club wash up against the rocks is actually iambic pentameter, I would say. And I think, oh God, is going to be a more formal poem but we don't get any more of that certainly not as noticeable and I think maybe because it's a sort of a tableau that we start off with the pony club wash up against the rocks iambic pentameter

by the way is 10 syllables and each alternative one is stress the pony club wash up against the rocks and giving it that formal structure gives the pony club itself and remember this is our first glimpse of them it makes them seem sort of formal structured maybe slightly grand, elitist, even alienating, like sadly some formerly structured poetry can be. And I also think it makes the speaker a bit more of an outsider, looking at this tableau of these girls washing up against the rocks. One imagines they're paddling as they wash because their socks and jodhpurs are stuffed into their helmets.

And when you first see them and throughout this, they are slightly held in awe by the speaker. I think also the way the poem is in second person, I believe that is called, when you say you throughout it, even though she's kind of speaking about herself, makes her not quite part of the events. It's not an I, it's a you. Even in the diary, she's something of an outsider. I've invented the diary, there's no real evidence it's a diary, it just feels out to me. I won't mention the diary again, I'm over egging it. The pony

club wash up against the rocks while you watch from the riverbank, the socks and jodhpurs stuffed into their helmets. Already there's a slight sexual undertone here. These girls washing against the rocks. And the speaker just watching. Next stanza after another. And... And you know what I mean by that, do you? The way kids, and I think particularly teenage girls, young teenage girls,

say blah blah blah and and and and the pony club offer you electrolyte drink so much more blue than swimming pool you expect a half die of it quenching sharp in your throat like an eye full of chlorine so you've seen these blue drinks these electrolyte drinks they look very dangerous and unhealthy. And it's interesting that that's the first gift she gets from the pony club. You expect a half die of it quenching sharp in your throat like an eyeful of chlorine because it looks like it's got a sort of David Hockney's a bigger splash blue about it. It's almost glowing and she's expecting to be slightly poisoned by chlorine so the gift, the first gifts

from the pony club seems a bit dangerous. There's something menacing about them I think because she sees them are so far above her. You'll notice by the way that every one of these stanzas, as well as being followed and proceeded by an ampersand, begins the pony clob. The pony clob, I think that suggests her obsession with them. The pony clob argue over whether any of their true loves

could be stronger than the bond between a girl and a horse. And now suddenly the voice becomes a bit more adult and after this I think the poem becomes a bit more surreal and a bit more disturbing. A phenomenon, this is the bond between a girl and her horse, a phenomenon so universally potent it is taken for granted as a unit of measurement. I don't want to lose the fact that this is funny as well, this poem. It's got some menace in it.

But it is funny that the Pony club take the bond between a girl and her horse as a unit of measurement because of its universal potency. That is brilliant. Okay I'm going to give you the next three stanzas. They get weirder. And the pony club braid everything with their hot freckled hands, and after weaving plaits in hay and mains and dressage ribbons, they sit in a circle and braid your hair together with their hair, and thus you become one amalgamated ponytail, and so the pony club is a sunburnt rat king. And the pony club weep their way through the season mocking in through gusty pollen and horsehair malt all red-eyed on repentant anti-histamine

addled and still yelling at you newly on saddle to get up and quit bawling and the pony club have you scrubbing for hours polishing chewed grass paste from bridal bits, but they refuse to pick the musky cake cereal out of their braces and... It's good, isn't it? She's good. Rebecca Hawks. And the Pony Club braid everything with their hot freckled hands. I love the idea of them. Now she's literally becoming entwined with the pony club. She's been drawn in by the electrolyte drink at first, and then she's allowed to listen to them talking about their true loves

and the bond between the girl and her horse. No real suggestion that she joined in, in that conversation. She's not quite in the in-crode. The Pony Club braid everything with their hot freckled hands and after weaving plaits in hay and mains, the horse mains, dressage ribbons, obviously the things they wear for their show jumping, et cetera, riding things. They sit in a circle and braid your hair together with their hair. This is a moment, surely now she's becoming part

of the pony club. And thus you become one amalgamated ponytail. And so the pony club is a sunburned rat king. A rat king you may know is when rats, often small rats in a nest, their tails become entangled and inseparable to do with their stickiness and all that and they form a weird sort of like a crown of rats. Looking up on the internet is pretty interesting. This feels like an entry ritual doesn't it? But it's a scary one They sit in a circle and braid your hair together with their hair and thus you become one Amalgamated ponytail and so the pony club is a sunburnt rat king. What have you entered into and

Next answer and I love this is properly funny I think these these girls they sound horrible but they are lovably hardy I like that about them even though as we see in this stanza they're also quite unempathetic to any horse based failure one thing that they will not put up with is Pony Club unworthiness of any kind. Listen to this. The Pony Club weep their way through the season mocking in through gosty pollen and horsehair moult. So they're working in the stables these girls, mocking in and joining in generally is to mock in but they

literally do it of course with horses. Gosty pollen and horsehair malt all that stuff all that stuff making you terribly terribly allergic. What a great line this is. All red-eyed, unrepentant, antihistamine, addled and still yelling at you. Still yelling at you, newly unsaddled. Oh no, you've let yourself down in the pony club. You've fallen off the horse to get up and quit bawling. So obviously she was crying. And she seems to have been enslaved now.

It was all that thing she was brought in. She was entwined, physically entwined with them. She was given the drink, she was allowed to listen to their intimate stories of love. But having been screamed at for falling off the horse, she's now... Although they're all mocking in, she sounds enslaved by them. And the pony club have you scrubbing for hours, polishing chewed grass paste from bridle bits around the horse's mouth where the grass the horse has chewed has stuck to the riding equipment in its mouth. But they refuse to pick the musky cake cereal out of their braces. And it's brilliant, isn't it?

The horses have their bridle bits all cleaned and polished while these girls are walking around with big chunks of corn flake in their braces, their teeth braces. I mean, it's such a contrast to the poem I read you before, but there are still things in it, the fabulous use of language and that sort of slightly menacing undertone. Okay, the last stanza. And the pony club dangle above your bunk on long reins hitched to the celestial rings of Saturn and they rotate slowly with your every exhale as though you could still move them even if you can't quite reach from here.

So it sounds like she's still at the pony club. The pony club dangle above your bonk. I imagine you'll sleep in a bonk when you're at the pony club summer camp. And so maybe this is a nightly fantasy while she's at the camp. The pony club dangle above your bunk on long grains hitched to the celestial rings of satin. She has made them sort of gods and they rotate slowly with your every So as she breathes out, these tiny cherubs, the pony club girls represented here as celestial beings, they rotate slowly as though you could still move them.

So you can't actually move them. There they are. And you can't move them emotionally, it seems. It doesn't feel like they love this girl. They've kind of let her in, but then they've treated her a bit horribly, but she still loves them so much. As though you could still move them,

even if you can't quite reach from here, and she never does quite reach the pony club on this summer camp they are always somewhere above her to the point where she makes them angelic creatures on long reigns hitched to the celestial rings of Saturn above her bunk I mean yes and we've all done it, haven't we? We've all wanted to be part of a gang, especially when you're kids and you've all really thought that they were so clever and so brilliant and you envy them and you want to be part of them and you never quite make it and I feel all that aching and longing in Pony Club summer camp and it makes me a bit sad even though it makes me laugh out loud. Listen I'm gonna be absolutely straight I think that

Meat Lovers by Rebecca Hawkes published in 2022 is an exceptional work and I read it often. You should too. Thank you for listening to Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast. Don't forget to follow so you never miss Thanks for watching!