Roger McGough - Said And Done

Roger McGough

Century London

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Epub ISBN 9781407071114

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Published by Century in 2005

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Copyright Roger McGough 2005

Roger McGough has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in the United Kingdom in 2005 by Century The Random House Group Limited 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA

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For my children

Also by Roger McGough

Frinck, (A Life in the Day of) and Summer with Monika

Penguin Modern Poets Ten: The Mersey Sound (With Adrian Henri and Brian Patten)

Watchwords

After the Merrymaking

Out of Sequence

Gig

Sporting Relations

In the Glassroom

Summer with Monika

Holiday on Death Row

Unlucky for Some

Waving at Trains

New Volume (With Adrian Henri and Brian Patten)

Melting into the Foreground

Selected Poems 19671987

Penguin Modern Poets Four (With Liz Lochhead and Sharon Olds)

Defying Gravity

The Spotted Unicorn

The Way Things Are

Everyday Eclipses

Collected Poems

For Children

Mr Noselighter

You Tell Me (With Michael Rosen)

Sky in the Pie

Noahs Ark

Nailing the Shadow

An Imaginary Menagerie

Helen Highwater

The Great Smile Robbery

The Stowaways

Counting by Numbers

Pillow Talk

The Lighthouse that Ran Away

Another Custard Pie

Stinkers Ahoy!

My Dads a Fire Eater

Lucky

The Magic Fountain

The Kite and Caitlin

Until I Met Dudley

Bad, Bad Cats

Good Enough to Eat

Moonthief

The Bees Knees

Dotty Inventions

Daniel and the Beast of Babylon

All The Best (Selected Poems)

Said and Done

When alls said and done
Therell be nothing left to say or do.

Collected Poems published by Penguin Books in 2003 contains the complete poems from which the follow extracts have been taken:

The Railings (page 72), In at the Kill (page 117), Cinders (page 119), The Way Things Are (page 121), Let me Die a Youngmans Death (page 134), At Lunchtime (page 180), Discretion (pages 211, 212), Huddersfield (page 240), Cardiff (page 241), The Identification (pages 2423), Out of Sequence (page 245), The Rot (page 248), Here I Am (pages 303, 306, 330).

Extract from The Moons Last Quarter (page 319), by Robert Graves kindly reproduced by permisison of Carcarnet Press.

My thanks to Kate Watkins, my editor at Century, to Peters, Fraser and Dunlop, to Adrian Mealing at UK Touring and to Phil Bowen whose story of the Mersey Poets A Gallery to Play to (Stride Publications), reminded me of details I might have forgotten.

Dunrhymin
London
England

Ladies and gentlemen,

I apologise sincerely for being unable to attend this evenings performance. Owing to pressure of work, an increasing sense of unreality, and the fear of drowning in a sea of upturned faces, I have employed an out-of-work actor to impersonate me.

On my behalf he will read poems, answer questions, sign books, get drunk and generally keep up the poetic image.

Of course, there will be weaknesses in performance, the overeagerness to please, the nervous mannerisms too consciously affected, and it goes without saying that he lacks the charisma, charm, wit and raw animal sexuality of the real poet.

I trust, however, that you will enjoy the evening, and forgive my underpaid stand-in should the mask slip and his true self show through.

Yours faithfully,
Roger McGough

This is a letter I often read out before a performance, usually in a foreign country where I am unknown, and where the only photographs of the author available are those on the back covers of books published long ago. Occasionally it will result in puzzled mutterings in Czech or Portuguese which I interpret as Is he really an actor? Is he really the poet? Does it matter either way? Im only here for the wine and canaps.

It has long been a daydream of mine to have impersonators going around the world at other peoples expense, reading my poems in packed auditoria, selling my books, forging my signature, and popping a huge cheque and a thank-you letter to me in the post. In that way I could stay at home and quietly get on with writing works of flawed genius. My dilemma is that I have always regarded the creative impulse as something pure and seen a paradox in the need to show off the result, to have it published, sung, or hung on the wall, the shy extrovert, or the wheedling introvert Look at me, look at me, I have never fully resolved the conflict between the privacy of the poet and the public face of the performer, and the trick has always been to try to achieve a balance between the two.

I have been quoted as saying (a risk you take when someone asks for a quote and you oblige) that my favourite journey is not the one over Hammersmith Bridge on a summers evening, or the one on the ferry crossing the Mersey, but the one I make at the end of a show from the microphone centre stage to the dressing room. Its terribly coy isnt it? The image it conjures up of the performer in a hurry to escape the warm embrace of the audience to the solitude backstage, the empty dressing room, the unforgiving mirror. It is true, however, that Im not very good at bowing and saying thank you, and coming back for encores because I feel embarrassed, afraid of overstaying my welcome, but its equally true that one of my favourite journeys is the one from the wings to the centre of the stage but please dont quote me on that.