Happy birthday, Sam Hunt

 

Reader Ruth reminded me that poet Sam Hunt is 70 today (thanks Ruth) – a performance poet whose poems, he says, are "songs for the tone-deaf" – so before the day is over let’s celebrate the great man who introduced many of us to poetry in a pub somewhere, and who most of us involuntarily imitate when we recite, with a recent (from his latest book of poems, Salt River Songs) and a non-recent look at his work:

 

 

And try performing one for yourself, recited (of course) in the manner of Sam’:

Tommorrow, or today (2)

We prepare for departure,
no see-you-later;
we make our goodbyes.
It’s a quiet time, quieter
by hour, by day,
by day, by hour:
not a lot left to say.

I was moving the cattle earlier,

told them
We’re in this together,
we’re headed for the Works,
no one pumping the brakes:
no one, I told them,
is giving a damn –
the stock-truck’s on its way.

And later found myself talking
to nodding tops of totara:
told them I’d no idea
how all of this started, or how
(when it does) it stops.
The trees agreed.
And it just got quieter.

[Poem from Sam Hunt’s website]

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