With high hopes, buoyed by a half-remembered bit of verse about the North-East wind making pike lunge hungrily, I set out to a club pike match yesterday.
Two pike were caught.
The verse was googled this morning, and turned out to be this:
"Jovial wind of winter
Turn us out to play!
Sweep the golden reed-beds;
Crisp the lazy dyke;
Hunger into madness
Every plunging pike."
- From Charles Kingsley's "Ode to the North-East Wind".
Further googling reveals Kingsley to have been a kind, Christian, bigotted, Odinistic, racist bundle of contradictions... not the best source of advice, piscatorial or moral.
Maybe I should re-read Ted Hughes' "Pike" next time; or possibly not.
Never trust a poet (with unknown angling credentials)
- Vole
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Never trust a poet (with unknown angling credentials)
"Write drunk, edit sober" - Hemingway.
Hemingway didn't have to worry about accidentally hitting "submit" before he edited.
Hemingway didn't have to worry about accidentally hitting "submit" before he edited.
- Stathamender
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Re: Never trust a poet (with unknown angling credentials)
Or listen to him read it himself: https://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/pike.
Iain
What is your favourite word?
I suspect it could be “love”, despite its drawbacks in the rhyming department.
Björn Ulvaeus
What is your favourite word?
I suspect it could be “love”, despite its drawbacks in the rhyming department.
Björn Ulvaeus
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Re: Never trust a poet (with unknown angling credentials)
I think I once met 'Crisp'
- Vole
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Re: Never trust a poet (with unknown angling credentials)
"Write drunk, edit sober" - Hemingway.
Hemingway didn't have to worry about accidentally hitting "submit" before he edited.
Hemingway didn't have to worry about accidentally hitting "submit" before he edited.
- Vole
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Re: Never trust a poet (with unknown angling credentials)
Stathamender, many thanks for that link, it was grand! He really did manage to cature both pike and pool, didn't he?
Well worth several listens!
Well worth several listens!
"Write drunk, edit sober" - Hemingway.
Hemingway didn't have to worry about accidentally hitting "submit" before he edited.
Hemingway didn't have to worry about accidentally hitting "submit" before he edited.
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Re: Never trust a poet (with unknown angling credentials)
Great stuff Vole, I enjoyed the poem, never mind the source!!
Trouble is, the fish just don't read the books......
John Harding
John Harding