Pete Mortimer Pens A Tribute to Red Squirrel Press
Nice One, Squirrel
(For Sheila Wakefield on the Red Squirrel 10th anniversary event,
Monday April 4, 2016, Lit & Phil, Newcastle upon Tyne)
Bloody books are bloody dead
they all said. It’s Facebook now, it’s Twitter
it’s U-Tube, it’s Tumblr. Don’t be a grumblr!
The printed word? It’s absurd!
It’s a dodo. You’re loco!
We don’t need to read
A book. We just look at a screen.
Know what I mean?
It’s U-Tube, it’s Podcasts
It’s tablets, it’s Skype
It’s laptops – we can’t stop!
It’s selfies, it’s Facetime
It’s Kindle, it’s the next app.
Books? They’re all crap.
Bloody books are bloody dead
They all said.
And who’s this? It’s a bloody greaser
A bloody mechanic. It’s a bloody woman!
Has she been to Cambridge
Or a public school?
Does she know the rules?
Tell me this, dear chap
Can she publish celebrity crap
Or a stand-up’s ghosted novel?
The twelfth autobiography of Wayne Rooney?
Are her authors good for chat-shows
Or a quick TV prog on two nights in a hovel?
Celebrity Bake-Off, or a spot in the jungle?
Are they PR groomed?
They’re poets, you say? Bloody poets?
Unknown bloody poets?
Unknown northern bloody poets?
More than 100 bloody books of bloody unknown
Bloody northern bloody poets?
In ten bloody years?
You’ll have me in bloody tears!
Someone should stop her, for her own good.
It’s unhealthy. And will never make her wealthy.
It’s delusional, it’s plainly illogical.
The problem must be deeply psychological.
At all costs we must prevent her
from future lunacy. I suggest a real job;
such as tele-sales at a leading call centre.
Peter Mortimer
I was fortunate enough to hear Peter read this at the Red Squirrel 10th Birthday Celebtation in the Lit & Phil. Excellent!
Joyous! Thank you – and congratulations to Sheila; a long way in ten successful years.