Beowulf

Er, the next poem is the, it's the second haiku on this CD
This one was inspired by Seamus Heaney's um, winning the Whitbread Book of the Year prize for his translation of Beowulf
I was very impressed with that, 's er, twenty five thousand pounds and a hundred thousand book sales
Not to be sniffed at in the poetry world
Especially for what is essentially copying out somebody else's poem in neat handwriting
Um, and so inspired by this I thought I'd have a go at doing Beowulf myself
But being quite busy, um, I turned it into a haiku.

Er, Beowulf.

And there's a lot of debate amongst er, scholars about how to translate the first word of Beowulf which you'll remember in the original Anglo-Saxon is "Hwæt!"
Um, H W you know sort of linked together, A, E T and it's been translated as er, "So!" and "Listen!" and "Pay attention!"
Um, things like that so er, er, I've, I've followed that tradition as a sort of call to awareness.

So the poem's called Beowulf.

Oy! He kills Grendel
And his mother
Seasons change
The dragon eats him