The Waitrose Poems
Mu Pi Chan
P
Q
Mu Pi Chan Books
The Waitrose Poems
(Writing to order online or by post)
Mu Pi Chan
Hants
(2014)
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First release 2014
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Introduction
The poems in this pamphlet resulted from me reading a
notice in Waitrose Weekend, the free paper produced by
the supermarket chain Waitrose™, about the Waitrose
Year of Poetry competition. This notice invited poets to
submit poems that “... must be between two and eight
lines and should be related to the world of food or where
it comes from.”. It also stated that the competition will
comprise “... four rounds, ...”.
Hence this pamphlet contains the four poems i 1
composed and originally intended to submit in each of
the rounds of the competition. It also contains a series of
notes that describe how these poems were composed
and the thoughts that lay behind them. For the record, i
have always felt that i am a very poor judge of my own
work and the myriad of thoughts that lie behind many of
my poems. I therefore suggest that you, the reader,
should formulate your own views on what you think these
poems are really about, without feeling constrained by
my thoughts.
After much consideration i decided not to submit any
poems to the Waitrose Year of Poetry competition. The
key reason for this was that for me writing poetry is a
deeply personal thing about self expression, it is not
1 One of my many quirks is that i consider 'i' to be solely a pronoun,
and therefore only use capital letter for it when it appears at the
beginning of a sentence. I treat 'me' and 'myself' in exactly the
same way. It is also fair to say that i do not have a large ego so i
do not feel any need to use a capital letter for this personal
pronoun.
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about fame, money, or prizes 2. I write poems for many of
the same reasons as other ordinary people paint,
produce music, or undertake similar creative activities.
Many of my other poems, but probably not these, are
about those inner voices we all have but which we chose
to ignore or at least suppress in order to conduct our
normal daily lives. I however find i need some form of
release for such thoughts if i am to stay sane.
At the time of writing these poems i was also working on
my 'Getting Even' poems (due for release in 2015).
These poems all have an even number of lines between
four and fourteen. As the first two of the poems in this
pamphlet do not fit the criteria for 'Getting Even' i decided
to release them separately in this pamphlet.
2 I should also point out that i was confused by the detailed Terms
and Conditions of the competition as they were ambiguous. It was
not clear whether someone could only submit one poem for the
whole competition or one poem per round.
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The Poems
Doctor - A Comfort Food ?
You prescribed hot steamy porridge
After birdsong at morning
I Am All Lost In Gerrard Street / A Clash Of Cultures
In the west end
The east's delicacies
Piled high on supermarket shelves
The Hubbard's First Floor Pantry
If there are apples
Then they may be in pairs
But if there are no apples
Then the cupboard may be bare
English Peas and Queues
The humble tinned pea
Is enough for me
But the fresh garden variety
Is preferred in high society
Because the little split yellow
Is a dried up old fellow
Whilst the sweet petits pois
May come in french jars
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The Notes
My first action in response to reading the Waitrose Year
of Poetry competition notice was to look through my
released poems to see if any were about “... the world of
food or where it comes from”. The only poem i thought
even vaguely relevant was from 'The Eighties Poems'
(explicitly January 9 (1988)). This i re-worked to better
fulfil the competition requirements at least in an obtuse
way. The title comes from the fact that the original poem
was about shopping in the Chinese supermarkets on
Gerrard Street. It is also a reference to the track 'Lost In
The Supermarket' from the The Clash album 'London
Calling'. This poem also shows my reluctance to use
capital letters in poems other than at the start of lines.
The next poem to be composed was the four line one.
This actually went through a number of draft versions,
one of which was as follows:
If there were apples
Then they might be in pairs
But there were no apples
As the cupboard was bare
Each of these drafts had this play on the Cockney
rhyming slang expression 'apples and pears' (for stairs)
and the use of the 'cupboard ... bare' idea from the
nursery rhyme Old Mother Hubbard. I preferred the
selected version over the others because of the almost
propositional logic feel of the poem. The title tries to bring
together these ideas whilst also making a more obscure
reference to the fact that it has become popular, well at
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least more common, to have the kitchen on the first floor
of a house rather than on the ground floor as has been
almost universal in the good old suburban estate house.
I am unsure which of the remaining poems i started first
as i was working on them contemporaneously, but as the
two line poem was the first to be finished i will deal with it
first.
Like the four line poem the two line poem went through a
number of draft versions. All these drafts used the word
'oats' or 'porridge' and had a slightly sexual feel, the
following is the probably best example:
I like my oats
Hot and steamy in the morning
However, i decided i wanted to be more sexually explicit
in the poem but in a subtle way that required the reader
to understand a key reference. Therefore, having
remembered that one of the section titles in 'The Joy of
Sex' is 'birdsong at morning' the poem evolved to its final
form. The title plays on the fact that 'The Joy of Sex' was
edited by Alex Comfort PhD.
The eight line poem was one of those poems that came
out almost at once, but then had a number of single word
changes here and there over a few days. Thus it is hard
to identify truly different versions. The poem was written
at the time of the European Parliament elections and the
British values debate. For me it is a humorous poem
about minding ones Ps & Qs, politely queueing, social
class, ageism, and having a mild distrust of the French.
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Mu Pi Chan
Mu Pi Chan is an English poet who has spent his life in
Essex, Kent, Herts, Surrey, and Hants. He is single and
currently lives in Romsey, Hants.
More information on Mu Pi Chan and his writings can be
found through his publicly accessible Facebook,
Google+, and Windows Live accounts.
This work was first released via his Google and Sky
drives.
Mu Pi Chan Books