Conversation Three - Darrell Barnes, Peter King

Is a series allowed? ‘Yes’ or ‘No’? If ‘Yes’, then my verses will grow; if ‘No’ s ’ the reply then I’d like to know why and go on as before, anyhow.

The Challenge that Rose clearly set, Whose conditions must surely be met, Was to get us all snoring By writing a boring New limerick - one, not a set.

A secluded cloister of nuns counted beads with their fingers and thumbs; when asked why this was, they replied “it’s because a set’s just a series of ones.”

“A rosary’s all very well,” I remarked, “but how can you tell that you haven’t miscounted?” They replied this amounted to sin and they’d all go to Hell.

A sequence or perhaps just a single? This debate makes my blood tingle. If a series is out, then I’m right up the spout, but could they be used in a jingle?

There’s nothing to say I can’t edit my verse into one - give me credit. From what I’ve read here the contest’s quite clear (of course, I may have misread it).

Whitby’s a very nice town. It will take you uphill and then down. And when the sky’s blue The sea also looks blue But the sand’s always yellowish brown.

Said a friend of mine ‘Whitby? Let’s face it: the best thing to do is replace it.’ Apart from the Abbey, which he found rather drab, he found nothing of note which might grace it.

I said ‘Whitby is famed for its ships, and bus loads of people on trips, who bring a packed lunch, but a good place to munch is ‘The Magpie’ - the best fish and chips.’

From Cornwall’s hobgoblins and elves to where ‘Dracula’ first hit the shelves, the easiest way is ‘ignore what folk say and go and find out for yourselves.’

The significant moments in history Are all about girls - that’s no mystery. We’re obsessed with the size Of their boobs and their thighs. And I’m like Joan of Arc - a bit blistery.

Now, some girls are bigger than otters, and some girls are extrovert nutters! Others are dull with buttocks so full you could use them as ink-rubbing blotters.

I’m getting so used to limericks that when I see a post from Lucy, I move onto the second line, no, not quite following, then by the third it dawns on me that this is prose after all.

I like your typo - flattened for flattered! Hilarious Better than any than any song played on a Stradivarius But what is this? Just a bit of bliss Playing around with words, endlessly silly and various.

The recent set of remarks from Sarah, Ms Maitland Parks, and the absence of rhyme some might think a crime, but I find it fun. Oh, what larks!

Rose Anderson is a lifelong poetry junkie living in Chapel Allerton, Leeds. She is slowly recovering after many years of illness, rediscovering in her forties all the ordinary-extraordinary things she hasn't done since her twenties, from hanging out the washing to visiting the seaside ☺. Her poetry pamphlet, Falling Upwards Through the Night (first published in 2002) should be available in e-book format later this year, but she’s hoping to start putting together a new collection before too long.

Darrell Barnes (1963) read Modern Languages (so long ago they are probably ancient) at St Edmund Hall and joined Barclays Bank DCO after leaving university. He worked in East Africa, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and other places beyond Ultima Thule before concluding that the rewards of work were vastly inferior to the those of working in the voluntary sector in various capacities. He lives in Putney where he once rowed - alas, no longer.

Carmen Bugan was born in Romania and has lived in the US, Ireland, England, and France writing poems about memory and politics. She has a doctorate from Balliol College, Oxford. Her publications include a monograph entitled Seamus Heaney and East European Poetry in Translation: Poetics of Exile, two collections of poems, Crossing the Carpathians and The House of Straw, and a memoir, Burying the Typewriter: Childhood Under the Eye of the Secret Police.

Ian Cumpstey grew up in Manchester and studied for an MChem and a DPhil in chemistry at St. John's; he later taught organic chemistry at Teddy Hall). He was resident in Sweden for several years, becoming associate professor in organic chemistry at Stockholm University. He now lives in Cumbria, but is far too young to have really retired.

Stuart Estell read English at St Edmund Hall in the mid-90s and is a founder member of the Hall Writers' Forum. His novel Verruca Music was published by Eight Cuts Gallery Press in 2011, and he has recently completed a new volume of poetry entitled End of the Season.

Richard Hunt (1963) read Modern Languages and then tried to use them in the tourism industry. He decided Los Angeles was not the place for that so joined Midland Bank and retired from HSBC 35 years later, having made a reputation as the office cynic. He now lives in Bromley, Kent, in a house large enough for

Notes on Contributors boomerang children and growing grandchildren to visit; is active in the local U3A; and manages the website of his Pensioners’ Association.

Peter J King was active on the London poetry scene in the mid-1970s, running Tapocketa Press, and co-editing words worth magazine with Alaric Sumner. He started studying philosophy in 1980, going on to read for the B.Phil. at Brasenose in 1983, then a D.Phil., and is now lecturer in philosophy at Pembroke College and at St Edmund Hall. He wrote and published poetry for a while in the mid1980s, and started again in 2012. He translates poetry from modern Greek (with Andrea Christofidou), and has recently started translating German poetry.

Jude Cowan Montague is a writer and artist from London. She has worked as an archivist on the Reuters and ITN video collections and has published poetry relating to news agency video. She is working on her third collection The Wires, 2012 about international news stories to be published by Dark Windows Press. She is also a musician and composer.

Lucy Newlyn has taught English at St Edmund Hall for the last thirty years. She has published widely on English Romanticism, and edited a number of poetry anthologies. Her first collection of poems, Ginnel, was published with Carcanet in 2005; and her second, Earth’s Almanac, will be published by Enitharmon in 2015. She is Literary Editor of The Oxford Magazine.

Natasha Walker lives in Germany and works for companies, governments, foundations and change-makers shaping strategy on climate change adaptation, biodiversity, poverty and other global issues. She studied English Literature and Modern Languages (German) at SEH and Göttingen University. She has a grown-up son at Manchester University and a seven year old daughter, loves Mozart and Bartok, Bach and Shostakovich, hiking, Cornwall and her enormous family. She’s constantly writing a novel, but actually manages to finish poems and proverbs.