Bernard Bresslaw introduces Radio 4's Poetry Please: with Floyd Mayweather Senior
Sid asked me to inject a bit of class into this blog so I'm currently talking poetry, and other forms of rhyming culture, with Floyd Mayweather Senior. Floyd, what got you into poetry?
“Well, [long period of inaudible chatter]...and then I just got into my groove, can you get with that?” asked Floyd.
Erm, would you care to repeat the answer?
“Only if you repeat the question.”
Floyd, how did you discover your poetic gifts?
“I was listenin' to Paul McCartney. I was grooving, you know, just relaxing all moving and thinking of throwing a little b-ball outside the school when I heard 'say, say, say' and I says, 'hey, hey, hey, this shit might be Ok, ring-a-ding-a-ling'.”
You obviously have a gift. Cadence, cascade, metaphor, alliteration, will you be introducing any of these things into your poetry.
“Well, I call it floetry, because I don't write that shit down. Writing it down is like the Nazi’s opening the Ark, and I ain’t got no Jones, not any more. I just let it flow. You could write it down and it'd look like Chinese to me, but I wouldn't really know, as I can't read that shit either. I just freebase my poetry. You bring me a few crumbs of crack and I'll turn it into weight, give me a word and I'll turn it into a poem.”
How about starting a poem with the word 'oblique'?
“I don't speak Spanish. Listen to this one instead:
My poems are so slick,
like that guy I trained Rick,
I ruined his career real quick,
tic-tac-toe.”
Brilliant, got any more for us?
“Aiyo, tic-tac-toe,
what you come here fo',
nobody got to know,
rub-a-dub-dub”
I'm close to tears here.
“Yeah, Roach the joke,
you know his brain done poached,
from all the shots he done stoked,
tra-la-la-la”
One more, please.
“I like poems they say,
but it is another day,
and that is Ok,
bing-a-bang-a-bong.”
Tell me, do you come up with the concepts first, or start with the words?
“I don't go and see live bands anymore. I think of a word, then a word that rhymes, and I throw the mothers down. One last time.
I bin' out of work for a while,
but I can still beat my child,
black beans on the rye,
if you give me mayo…I'll slap you in the mouth.”
Brilliant once again, was that a hymn of reconciliation for Floyd Junior and your own personal resolution with your previous drugs history?
“Nah man, I'm trying to order lunch, so get the fuck out my face,
before I make a disgrace,
in this fine place,
that we call Nandos.”
Was that a Haiku?
“Bless you!”
Floyd, thank you for your time, we've learned a lot today.
Next week I'll be talking smacking that biatch down, Midwest feminism style, with my good friend Roger Mayweather.
Source:
www.boxedanslemerde.blogspot.com
