Читать книгу The Incomplete Tim Key - Tim Key - Страница 13

INTRODUCTION

When the green light flashed go and my dream of cranking out a paperback became reality, I became aware of a certain major opportunity. Namely, if they were going to slide this thing through the printing presses again, surely there must be a chance I could slide an extra poem through with it.

I phoned my paperback publisher, Jenny, and asked her about this possibility. Jenny’s one of these people who instinctively knows how to deal with people like me. She listened to my idea and then I could hear her clicking the nib of her biro in and out and leafing through the hardback version of the book. She called my idea ‘interesting’, which was a boost. Then she asked whether I had more poems ready to go. ‘Just the two thousand,’ came my reply. ‘And are they like these ones?’ she asked. I said that they were and she was quiet for a bit. ‘You betcha they’re like those ones,’ I reiterated and she said either ‘mmm’ or ‘uh huh’. I can’t remember exactly which. Then there was another long silence. She was playing me like a fiddle, is what she was doing. ‘I mean, there’s a lot of poems in here already,’ she said and I said, ‘Thank you.’ I could hear the nib clicking in and out again. I could hear her whispering my idea to colleagues. I could hear them laughing. They, at least, were on board. ‘Just one?’ she asked and I made it clear that more than one would be easy, I had oodles – in fact, she was more than welcome to name her figure. ‘Just one,’ she said again, this time not as a question.

I was excited that Jenny had waved the idea through. I was now at liberty to rifle through all of my poems and choose one that I thought my fan base would appreciate seeing in black and white. My immediate attention turned to the poems I had written in between the hardback hitting the shelves and now: the advent of the paperback. I thought the poem I chose should be a fresh one. One that hadn’t been seen before. Like virgin snow, one that hadn’t had some great idiot’s welly stuck in it. Pristine, untouched. I plunged my huge nose into my sack of poems and started churning through all the ones I’d written in the past three years.

My God, they were good. Just to give you an idea of the standard, here are a couple that didn’t get the gig in the end:

POEM#1627

‘DOUSING’

Roy fixed a hose to his bell-end.

He roamed around looking for small fires.

And he put them out by pissing through his hose or draping his cloak over them.

POEM#2050

‘THE TATTOO’

Derreck got a tattoo done.

It said ‘I never think about Jessica any more’.

He showed it to his wife.

She asked him why he was getting tattoos done about Jessica.

‘Read the tattoo, love!’

Derreck yelled.

‘It says I don’t think about her! That’s the point I’m trying to make! I don’t think about her.’

Also, I really liked this one. I liked the idea of having David Platt somewhere in the book anyway. His swivelled volley in the last minute against Belgium at Italia 90 is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

POEM#1986

‘REEDUCATION’

David Platt had an idea.

He’d take a GCSE.

He got all the forms and tried to enrol.

But my God was it hard!

At night he would go to bed and have nightmares about these bloody application forms.

His wife held him.

‘You’ll be fine, Dave – you’ll fill out the forms – I’ll help you fill ’em out.’

Platt swallowed and clung to her flanks.

He loved his wife.

She made everything okay.

I sent my ideas to Jenny and followed up with a couple of phone calls and then another email and an email to a colleague of Jenny’s who I knew for a fact sat somewhere near Jenny’s desk. I was interested to know whether she felt these were the kind of poems that might capture people’s imaginations. The kind that would push the book further into the public’s consciousness. When the reply did come it was far from negative about the poems that I’d proposed. In fact she barely talked about those; more she expressed reservations about the idea of adding a poem, as a whole. Now that she’d thought about it some more, she wasn’t sure that there would be space in the newly configured paperback. Also, she wasn’t sure that people would necessarily have the appetite for another poem.

I explained that we could make space; if we told the chaps reconfiguring the material they could accommodate another ode, one way or t’other. I heard her nib going in and out like the clappers. I said that if we’re making space for seven introductions then I’m sure we can find space for one lousy poem. She asked me what I meant about the seven introductions; I explained my plan to write seven new introductions. More nib action. Then a sigh, then a ‘very well’, and then my snout back in my sack of poems. I wanted to find a real humdinger for her.

I left no stone unturned. I charged through my back catalogue like a man possessed, reading, chuckling, applauding. Sometimes I would fire one into the ether, to see who saluted. I’d chuck one out of my window, recite one to the Turkish girls who run the dry cleaner’s, photograph one and send it to other poets. Anything to make sure I made the right choice. The idea of adding one more poem to this anthology and it not being up to snuff made me want to chunder. And the closer I got to choosing one, the more sick I became. Several times I attached a poem to an email to Jenny and then backed out at the last minute, vomiting. No! Not that one! Back into the sack.

And then I found it. The perfect candidate. Beautiful, thought-provoking in every way: sublime. I sent it to Jenny. She wrote back some time later saying ‘okay’, and it was done.

It’s in. It’s on page 245. Just nestling there, happy as a clam. In a way it needs no introduction. If I wasn’t writing seven, I imagine it wouldn’t get one. It’s just a simple tale of a man, a bed and, well, who knows. Of course I’m a gibbering wreck this end, worrying it’s going to stick out because my style has developed in the years between book formats. I’ve done a lot of growing up since the hardback. But still. I’ve been assured, in a separate email from Jenny, that there’s no difference in style or – crucially – quality between this poem and the pre-existing material. That’s good enough for me. I hope you enjoy the poem. Please, please don’t flick forward to it now – find it when you find it – but when you do, please take it in the spirit it is meant. It’s a bonus, is what it is. I hope you enjoy it.