29. Last Post By Carol Ann Duffy - A Friend To Jackie

Welcome to The Poetry Exchange. We have conversations with people about a poem that has been a friend to them. In exchange we make them a gift: a unique recording of their chosen poem, inspired by the conversation and their thoughts and feelings about the poem. The Poetry Exchange takes place in a range of venues and settings, featuring public visitors and special guests. In this episode of our podcast, you will hear Jackie talk about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'Last Post' by Carol Ann Duffy. We are delighted to feature 'Last Post' in this episode and would like to thank Carol Ann Duffy and Peter Strauss at Rogers, Coleridge & White for allowing us to use it in this way. Carol Ann Duffy has just published a collection of poems written over the course of her laureateship, entitled 'Sincerity', which is available from Picador: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/carol-ann-duffy/sincerity/9781509893423 She has also edited an anthology, 'Armistice' - A Laureate's Choice of Poems of War and Peace, available from Faber & Faber: https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571347070-armistice.html Jackie visited The Poetry Exchange at St Chad's College Chapel in Durham, during Durham Book Festival, in association with Durham University Foundation Programme. We’re very grateful to all our Durham partners for hosting us so warmly. http://durhambookfestival.com https://www.dur.ac.uk/foundation.programme/ https://www.stchads.ac.uk Jackie is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange team members, Andrea Witzke-Slot and John Prebble. 'Last Post' is read by John Prebble. ***** Last Post By Carol Ann Duffy 'In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.' If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud… but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood run upwards from the slime into its wounds; see lines and lines of British boys rewind back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home- mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers not entering the story now to die and die and die. Dulce- No- Decorum- No- Pro patria mori. You walk away. You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet) like all your mates do too- Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert- and light a cigarette. There's coffee in the square, warm French bread and all those thousands dead are shaking dried mud from their hair and queuing up for home. Freshly alive, a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings. You lean against a wall, your several million lives still possible and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food. You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile. If poetry could truly tell it backwards, then it would. © Carol Ann Duffy 2009