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performing with them on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1957.
All four poets performed without apparent nerves and their fine work was warmly received and appreciated by all. In addition to their prizes, each can also lay claim to being published, because the adjudged best 50 poems have been collated in a new book issued the same day, A Poem For Buddy, edited by The Poetry Society, with an introduction by Roger McGough and a foreword from Paul McCartney. "I've often thought that 'Buddy' was a good moniker for Charles Hardin Holley," Paul writes. "Buddy, it conjures up images of a pal, of a friend. Which is apt, because his music has always been a friend to me. His songs can buck you up when you're feeling low, or even better your mood when you're feeling great. So congratulations to all those poets who were sufficiently inspired by the man to have their work selected here for this anthology, and my thanks to all of the many others who made the effort to send in their stanzas. It makes a great read."
The prizewinners were followed on stage by Roger McGough who had agreed to read a selection of his own wonderful work. Accompanied by the guitarist Andy Roberts, Roger delighted the assembled throng with 16 superb pieces, brimming with wit (as in For Want Of A Better Title and Posh), delightful wordplay (In Case Of Fire Break Glass), 1990s reality (The Five Car Family) and sadness (The Railings, Forty Love and The Trouble With Snowmen). They're a goodly talented bunch, those Liverpudlians.
The event was rounded off by a ten-piece mariachi band cramming themselves onto the small stage and running through a selection of Buddy Holly songs in Spanish and English, 'Listen To Me, 'True Love Ways', 'Heartbeat' and more.
And so Buddy Holly Week 1997 concluded, having proven, once again, a fitting tribute to an inspirational figure. The world needs inspirational figures, and as Paul McCartney pointed out in his welcoming address, in the light of more recent tragic events, it's a good thing to reach out for music and poetry to remember our heroes and heroines.
A Poem For Buddy can be ordered in bookstores (quote ISBN 1 900152 35 5) or is available post-free to UK purchasers (cost £6.95, cheques payable to 'Stride') from Stride Publications, 11 Sylvan Road, Exeter, Devon EX4 6EW.
JOINT 3rd
EXPECTED HIM IN A LIMOUSINE
What's there to do down in Texas but stomp?
They go long-legged mean or galloping loco.
THE CRICKETS ARE PLAYING.
Convertibles flash by like silver iguana.
BUDDY AND JERRY AND NICKY AND JOE.
The boys amble out of the pool-hall strumming
and beating invisible drums. ONLY TONIGHT.
Chiquitas in rayon lock the door to the whorehouse.
Whatever came out of Lubbock but stomp
(except sand and coyotes)?
Not a Miss Texas, not a fat Baptist preacher,
not presidents, communists, or trapeze performers –
there's a gas station, grocery store, hardware
and drive-in; Manuela, Ricardo, and Peggy Sue.
The soda stream's spurting tonight like Old Faithful.
Pack up your Stetsons and get out your loafers.
SPECIAL TONIGHT. THE CRICKETS ARE PLAYING.
Cancel the bake sale and the Scout jamboree,
and the annual meeting of the South State Kiwanis.
Ring up the sheriff and the big Houston papers.
What we're gonna do next down in Lubbock is stomp
(not shoot off our rifles).
The plane's landed safe and Sir Buddy is near,
and the dust startles up like the sweepings from heaven.
ANNE ROUSE
JOINT 3rd
RADIO-CHHL
Here is tonight's weather,
On February 3rd 1959.
We forecast a snowy night,
With outbursts of
Tragedy
Somewhere in the Mid-West.
Tomorrow will be clear
Of musical genius,
With many patchy clouds
Of pale imitations
Reaching sometime
Into the year 3000.
Floods of tears are expected
Disrupting the lives of many
Worldwide.
Long term charts suggest
An almost permanent wave
Of influence,
Covering every country.
All major performers
Will be covered with a
Layer of frozen gratitude.
The frequent flurries of genius
Experienced over the last
Eighteen months
Should give rise to
A lasting legacy,
With an outbreak of legend
To be expected
In the latter half
Of this century.
This weather system
Should not fade away.
GRACE HUGHES
2nd
LAST BUS TO LUBBOCK
Peggy Sue waits on tables
And waits for Mister Right
In a Texas diner north of Abilene
Where the men blow past like sagebrush
And a passing trucker's smile
Makes her think of just what might have been.
Like an off-white wedding gown
In a sunlit store window
Her hopes are slowly fading everyday
As the highway heathaze shimmers
Beneath a lonesome cloud
And another customer goes on his way.
Chirping crickets chorus
The arrival of evening
And a scarlet sunset streaks the summer sky
While Peggy cleans the tables,
Counts the takings and the minutes
For the last bus to Lubbock to come by.
And the letter D in D IN E R
On the faulty neon sign
Flickers like a forlorn guiding star
As a hungry horn-rimmed singer
Hums a tune that finds its title
Illumined in the headlights of his car.
MIKE TURNER
1st
THE CRICKETS
Sonny's front man tonight, his timing's just right
and his spontaneous asides are rude, jovial and apt.
He still plucks a sturdy tune on that battered Fender Strat
(a vintage instrument, envy of all the Britpop kids),
though his beard's more salt than pepper now
and for forty years he's seen more road than home.
And Jerry still taps a mean beat on a snare drum,
you know, the intro to 'Peggy Sue'? An oddball,
no doubt, he flails away, sticks flicking, Hawaiian shirt
like a surfing accident. And Joe B. still snaps
the fat strings on that double-bass. He twirls that girl
like a dancer and bobs his head to the rhythm.
And they still swing, those songs, three minutes
of magic, no junk, no fifteen minute drum solos,
no techno, no modern urban, existential angst.
Just boy meets girl, mostly. And how they evoke
their heyday, an innocent world that never was:
a pre-Vietnam, pre-Watergate, black & white world.
But no matter how many years they've played together,
there's still a space centre stage taken by the ghost
of that skinny kid in a stiff suit and black horned-rims,
The Crickets have grown old while he stays forever 21
and on the Ed Sullivan Show, 1957, where he swings one hip
on a pivot, snaps his fingers in time to 'That'll Be The Day'.
Do they hate him sometimes - his nerd grin, that mad yodel,
his perfect, posthumous fame, at the umpteenth request
for one of those still dazzling tunes? Maybe baby.
But they don't show it tonight. Jerry pounds away,
Joe B. thrums and spins, Sonny laughs and gets the crowd
to sing along with 'Rave on, rave on with me...'.
AMY WACK
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