Paul Green: 'The Terminal Poet'

Here is an experience for you that i enjoyed immensely. At
http://greatworks.org.uk/poems/ttp1.html and
http://greatworks.org.uk/poems/ttp.html you will find the script of Paul
Green's (Britain) radio play 'The Terminal Poet'.

The synopsis:

"Poet Charles Kenning was once a darling of the literary world. Now a
drink-sodden wreck, he's holed up in an inner city high-rise, unaware that
agents of an American think-tank are monitoring his squalor. For both the
Helicon Foundation and the British Cabinet have a use for him in their
hi-tech struggle against urban anarchy and the strange powers of the Quantum
Slut Crew. . ."

The script also contains some mp3 links. I suggest you click on them while
reading that part of the script.

Paul Green has been at it for a long time. Here's a piece of his from 1971
called 'The Gestalt Bunker' which is relevant today:
http://www.culturecourt.com/Audio/PG/DNA/PG-gestalt.mp3 (6:41). It's from a
poet's point of view also, a poet holed-up at the end of whatever we're at
the end of in his 'gestalt bunker', but in 1971. A related piece, again from
1971, is called 'Directions to the Dead End':
http://www.culturecourt.com/Audio/PG/DNA/PG-deadend.mp3 (6:49). This is a
post-apocalyptic poem. All these pieces might be considered 'nihilistic'.
Yet i find them entertaining and not nihilistic in the sense that they find
their way to liveliness and poetry. They are exciting. They create
beginnings.

I find myself going back to 'Gestalt Bunker' and 'Directions to the Dead
End' from time to time. I think after you hear those two pieces you read the
script of 'The Terminal Poet' differently. You have a sense of Green. It may
give you a deeper sense of Green to know he also runs a literary press
called Spectacular Diseases. A catchy name, certainly.

I found the reading experience of 'The Terminal Poet' gripping, and have
read it several times by now.

ja