Wordsworth gets stuffed

This is horribly late in coming, but Tim T from Will Type For Food (the link is to one of my favorite of his posts) sent me a copy of his zine a while ago, and it arrived right in the middle of my horribly busy patch (another version of which starts tonight after dinner (which is going to be Balsamic Lamb Shanks, and I'm really looking forward to it)) so I didn't get to look closely at it until I cleaned my desk up today in anticipation of the aforementioned busy time.

[Takes a breath.]

The zine is called WORDSWORTH CAN GET STUFFED, and it is quite a lot of fun, starting from the actual design: folded and cropped down to about 1/4 of an A4 page, the pages are loose except for a thin paper band that wraps vertically around half of the zine, holding it together, and can be slid from side to side while you read, avoiding the need for staples. My only worry is that the paper band is itself held together with blu tac, which (from an archival point of view) will leave a greasy stain on the paper over time. But that's just me, with my longevity hangups.

Here's the title poem:

WORDSWORTH CAN GET STUFFED, or, The Lake Poet on a Good Day

There is a rock, a little rock,
Its home is by the road;
And ever and anon I pass
Its pebbly abode.

"Sir Rock, good day - good day, Sir Rock!"
I shout as I pass by,
But, being a rock, it does not talk,
And thus makes no reply.

What does it do all day, this rock?
I really would not know:
The rock will never tell me
(I think about it, though);

Perhaps it spends its rocky day
With its sedimentary friends,
While ever and anon men pass
Before turning round the bend.

I must admit, as soon as I opened the envelope and saw the title, I was reminded of a little poem written by an ex-boyfriend back in the halycion days of uni:

WORDSWORTH GOES TO FLORIADE

I wandered lonely through a crowd,
High on pot and booze and pills,
When all at once I got the urge
To gobble all the daffodils.

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
I wolfed them down in twos and threes.

That's one for the Canberrans. The ex is no longer alive, thanks to teh drugs (he's an ex-ex-boyfriend), so I guess he won't mind me blogging it.

Another of Tim's poems is about the Ampersand, and I wish I'd had it when I did a recent letterpress workshop, and was casting around for text on ampersands:

AN ODE TO THE AMPERSAND

O Ampersand, o Ampersand,
I'd like to sprinkle you on dampers and
Put you in picnic hampers and
Take you away in the camper van
To toast you with glasses of champers and
Other liquors of a celebratory variety,
O Ampersand.

I very much like his Poetical Summary of The Lord of the Rings, which should be sent to Martin Pearson, who wrote a very funny musical version available on CD.

Tim is giving this zine away for free, so if, like me, you like odd bits of modern ephemera, click on the zine link at the top of this post, get in contact with him and he'll send you one.

Thanks Tim!