The call for poems inspired by the Shipping Forecast drew an entry that was funny, poignant and varied, in both content — cricket, adultery, the choppy waters of Brexit — and form (haiku, sonnet, villanelle…).
Life-saver, lullaby, poetic reminder of our maritime heritage, the Shipping Forecast celebrated its 150th anniversary this year. Charlotte Green has described it as the nearest she ever came to reading poetry on air; Carol Ann Duffy ended her poem ‘Prayer’ with the lines ‘Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer —/ Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre’; and Seamus Heaney wrote a beautiful sonnet, ‘The Shipping Forecast’.
Joe Houlihan’s entry — ‘The general synopsis at 1100/ Shopping trip with spouse, new low expected./ Iceland, Tesco, Aldi/ Fare: good’ — brought to mind the clever Shipping Forecast parodies on David Quantick and Daniel Maier’s Radio 4 sketch show One: ‘And now with the time approaching 5 pm/ It’s time for the mid-life crisis forecast.../Forties; restless: three or four./ Marriage: stale; becoming suffocating.’
Other strong performers, only narrowly pipped to the post by the winners below, were Mike Morrison, Ralph Rochester, Alanna Blake and Brian Allgar. Those that made the cut take £30 each. D.A. Prince snaffles the extra fiver.
D.A. Prince
Valentia, my sweetest love,
Sandettie’s playing jazz above
while we let Ardnamurchan point
the Scilly way to light a joint.
We’re in our Forties so we know
how German Bight can spoil the show;
to me your Sole Bay spirit’s dearer
than both the kingdoms of Utsire.
My love, Valentia, my dear,
your Biscay’s now becoming clear;
the Cape Wrath of our youth is past
and we are Fastnet bound at last.
Let trumpets make the Malin ring
and Rockall dance and Dogger swing.
We’ll Lundy on without a care
until we reach our Finisterre.
Bill Greenwell
Nicely-spoken palpitations
In the early hours of night:
Steadily, like incantations:
Fisher, Dogger, German Bight.
As the sleepless settle in
To the darkness they patrol,
As stealthy as a bedouin:
Lundy, Fastnet, Shannon, Sole.
A roll, a schoolboy brotherhood,
Uttered to the teacher’s liking —
Hoping for the comment, ‘Good’:
Rockall, Malin, Bailey, Viking.
Perhaps a tribute to the lost,
Now their bitter lives are over —
Quietly, their graves embossed:
Fitzroy, Biscay, Portland, Dover.
Frank McDonald
Do not go gentle to the German Bight
Rage, rage and rowing keep the sea at bay;
Be like a Viking ready for a fight.
And when you leave the sanctuary of Wight,
The waves will thunder, menacingly grey.
Do not go gentle to the German Bight.
When Fair Isle tempts and even may excite,
Beware the sirens singing far away;
Be like a Viking ready for a fight.
Go forth to meet the demons of the night
And brave gigantic storms where monsters play;
Do not go gentle to the German Bight.
There dragons lurk; a thousand perils invite
And mariners unwary always pay.
Do not go gentle to the German Bight.
Be like a Viking ready for a fight.
Basil Ransome-Davies
The Skipper sank another rum and stared into
the night.
‘Is this the Hebrides?’ he asked, ‘Or just the
German Bight?’
The First Mate poured himself a tot and
answered, ‘Don’t ask me,
For all I know it’s South Utsire or the Irish Sea.’
They summoned up the boatswain, who’d been
at the bootleg gin
And suggested ‘South-East Iceland’ with a
disrespectful grin,
Then fiddled with the radio as though it were a toy.
They tipped the numbskull overboard and called
the cabin boy.
The young lad was a simpleton. He stank of
rotgut wine.
No flicker of intelligence, of morals not a sign.
He mumbled, ‘Dogger Fisher — either that or
Dover Sole’.
He went into the briny with a kind of Western roll.
The Captain and his Number One took equal
turns to pour
As wicked winds whipped up the waves and
battered Britain’s shore.
Both pissed as newts, they slumbered as the ship
went round and round.
You don’t need navigation when you don’t care
where you’re bound.
W.J. Webster
The ring of odd and yet familiar names
Recited in its stately, settled round
Beguiles us as a soothing day’s-end sound
Whose litany of states and numbers tames
Wild elements with words, and neatly frames
In measured lines those forces which, unbound,
Can render vessels wrecked and sailors drowned
As victims that the challenged ocean claims.
For those at night who brave the open sea
(Not those prepared for sleep in some quiet
place)
The forecast, as an overseeing eye,
Keeps watch beyond their own vicinity:
They’re tuned to catch the hazards that they
face —
Not hear some quaint euphonious lullaby.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Carlos Williams and R.S. Thomas all wrote poems entitled ‘January’. If they did it, so can you. Please email (wherever possible) entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 3 January.