Clive Atkins
This collection of poetry has something for everyone. Clive Atkins tackles everyday situations which we all experience and can relate to. He explores relationships, love and lost love, growing up, social injustices, environmental issues and the humorous side of life.
Clive’s musical influences can be seen in his Writer’s Forum prize winning poem The Rap and in the The Record Poem which consists entirely of song titles (see if you can identify the song title and the artist). The diversity of subject matter can be experienced in the humorous poem My First Car and Duckworth Lewis Strikes Again juxtaposed with the haunting composition The Sighting and Living On The Edge exploring the results of the young drug taker.
This book takes the reader on an enjoyable and diverse journey through serious and humorous modern poetry.
Clive Atkins was born in 1953 in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Like a lot of people in High Wycombe his family worked in the chair making industry, his father being a chair maker. He had a happy childhood with his mother and father and younger brother and lived in a council house in the Micklefield district.
His early school days were difficult as he found watching the magpies in the woods from the classroom window more preferable than studying his reading. Football and cricket were also great passions, which have continued to this day. In his senior school days at Hatters Lane School and later at Wycombe College
Clive flourished and had a number of poems published in the school magazine.
Clive progressed in a business career and has done well but his great love other than sport has been the written and spoken word. He has written lyrics and songs and likes provocative subject matter. His lyric writing has progressed into poetry and he has had numerous works published in anthologies and magazines.
Clive likes to write about life situations and how they affect people. He likes to explore relationships, love, growing up, social injustices, environmental issues, but also has a sense of humour, which comes through in a number of his poems.
His influences are drawn from various modern forms, but music has been a major force, The Kinks, The Jam, Sting and Billy Bragg. His humour is influenced by Spike Milligan and John Cleese and Sir John Betjeman, Roger McGough and Pam Ayres are poets he enjoys reading. Clive tries to avoid influences wherever possible to maintain spontaneity and originality.
The Rap
Symbiotic relationship of drum and base
Intergalactic interpretation of time and space
Rhythmic spoken lyrics of gender and race
Class structure of society that’s in your face
A ghetto version of a sixties protest song
A poetic but aggressive righting of wrongs
Injustices and political overtones coming on so strong
Stereotyping and phobia do not belong
A protest rap worthy of a Dillon ode
A culture shock following an Eminem code
A mode, a form, a storm, a heavy load
Outrageous, dynamic, but never middle of the road
Like it or not it has something to say
It’s generated from the heart of the young person today
From sub-culture and reality they effectively prey
With naive, compulsive statements they have their say
* * *
The Sighting
Eyes that glow as twilight fades
Summer disappears into an autumnal haze
Green leaves give way to a gold and crimson phase
The fruits of the harvest are ready to be praised
A full and wholesome moon shines with clarity and might
The bright white light dances in the dead of night
And shimmers off frozen dew with intensity so bright
And reflects in the kerb side puddles like twinkling fairy lights
Driving quietly in pitch black without a sound
Staring intently while eating up the ground
Concentrating as inert thoughts in my head abound
When suddenly a large black shape is eerily around
Was it a shape or an object more solid?
Did it have a tail or was it animal bodied
Definitely feline, large and almost torrid
Was it a trick of tired eyes or the beast most horrid?
