Skip to main content

Andrew Taylor

Martin Stannard Poem

“The poet
Martin Stannard?”
“No, Sharon’s partner,
Martin Stannard.”
“Oh.”

“That can’t
be Martin Stannard,
he lives in China.”
“It looks like him.”
“Hi Martin, when
did you get back?”

Martin Stannard
prefers Grand Mere
coffee over Lavazza
il Mattino. It reminds
him of American
diner coffee.

For that matter,
it reminds me of
the Washington
Square Diner
in Greenwich Village,
now renamed
the West Village.

Odd that coffee
from deepest
France, can do that.



Copyright © Andrew Taylor, 2022

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rupert Loydell 1

WHAT THE POET SAID ABOUT IT for & from Martin Stannard ‘As you know, Ted, I’m very cynical.’ – Father Dougal McGuire, Father Ted Poetry has always been for me a process either of finding out what I think, or asking myself questions about what I think, and often learning more about what I think. I don’t know if that’s the right way to explain it, but it’s possible to be the right person or the wrong person sometimes, discovering that what I thought I thought is not what I thought it was. In some cases, I'm astonished by myself. I didn’t know I was that smart, and I'm still in agreement with what I said back then. I don’t really like stacks of poems that, let’s be honest, have someone’s death to thank for being there. People might think me almost totally deficient when it comes to appreciating other people’s emotions, and caring about how they feel, and all that business. I could be seen as a cold robot with no heart or, as some people might have it, plain stupid. Wh...
Post a Comment
Read more

Alan Baker

I came to Martin Stannard's poetry relatively late, when, at a book fair, I picked up a pamphlet entitled "Easter" (published 1994). The easy, familiar tone and the quick wit drew me in to what was at first just a pleasant read. Then, imperceptibly, the poetry took me to to a zone of wonder and disorientation that was exhilirating. Fast forward twenty-six years and, by 2020, I had the honour of being Martin's publisher, when the third title of his that I published, "Reading Moby Dick and Other Matters", was released. It's a beautiful object (I can say that as the book design was all Martin's). And the title poem, "Reading Moby Dick" has all the features I'd been struck by in "Easter" but with an added sophistication that the intervening years of poetic practice had brought to it. It opens with a knowing dodgy joke - "Call me optimistic..." which sets the tone of irreverence and tongue-in-cheek meandering...
Post a Comment
Read more

Martin Stannard at 70 - A Celebration

Photo by Graham Lester George, copyright © 2022. Publisher: Leafe Press
Post a Comment
Read more