The Festive Backroom 4: Jim Ferguson

Jim Ferguson is a veteran of the written and spoken word scene in the West of Scotland. If the poetry scene was inclusive and democratic and not a cross between a bear-pit and the Prefects room, folk like Jim would be getting awarded the Queens medal for Poetry just so he could turn it down. He's an example of what keeps poetry going and what makes it worthwhile, people who write and organise for the joy of the word and its communication. He's still waiting for his invite to the Makar to Makar sofa but we're delighted to feature him and his poetry here. 

Jim Ferguson is a poet, pamphleteer, novelist and critic based in Glasgow. Born in 1961, Jim has been writing and publishing since 1986 and is a Creative Writing Tutor at Glasgow Kelvin College. His poetry collection 'the art of catching a bus and other poems' is published by AK Press Edinburgh. Two other collections of poetry 'When feeling fully at home in the drifting living room of time' (2018) and 'For Eva' (2017) are published by Famous Seamus Publishing. In 2011 he was the 'Poet Laureate' of the Scotia Bar, Glasgow. He has also written a short monograph on Robert Tannahill: 'Tannahill: The Soldier’s Return.' This was based on his PhD thesis 'A Weaver in Wartime.' Jim has worked as a Creative Writing Tutor in Preisthill, Govan, Lochwinnoch and Easterhouse.

Ferguson's work has appeared in anthologies, on-line publications and in numerous journals and literary magazines, such as: Edinburgh Review, Common Sense, Minted, New Writing Scotland, Northwords, Cutting Teeth, Scottish Child, Nerve, Echo Room, Rebel Inc., West Coast Magazine, The Wide Skirt, Variant and Air.

Here are his notes that accompanied the video.

" I made this video on the morning of Wednesday December 9th 2020. I got out of bed put on a woolly jumper, tea-cosy-hat on my head, and proceeded to film myself doing three poems from a new collection called ‘Weird Pleasure’. Unfortunately, with my gibberish between poems and being in the process of eating breakfast, the whole thing went on much longer than the three or four minutes I was asked to do. I therefore had to do some basic editing and remove the middle poem completely. The poems I originally recorded were, ‘Song of the Deep-fried Dug’, ‘Wiseblood’ and ‘If I was Pablo Picasso, or The Porridge Song."

 

song of the deep-fried dug

 

i’m so hungry

i’m so hungry

i’m so hungry

i’m so hungry i could eat a deep-fried dug

(deep-fried dug)

 

it’s my west of Scotland working-class poverty narrative

and i hope that you won’t think me too pejorative

when i say:

 

those West of Scotland toffs are much too greedy

with their brats in private schools they’re oh so needy,

while our weans love white bread and food-bank beans

—our obese, diabetic, future does not gleam

 

i’m so hungry

i’m so hungry

i’m so hungry

i’m so hungry i could eat a deep-fried dug

(deep-fried dug)

 

 

 

wiseblood


pin-point of light
do you think that it’s easter
the angels can't dance for you anymore
they can't dance for you anymore...

pin-point of light
do you think that it’s easter
nothing comes back
and no one can help you

in the cold river clyde
where sanity drowned
there’s a hole in your head
to let in the sun

pin-point of life
you’re a pick and an axe
the tip of a needle
and the angels in boots

can’t dance for you anymore
they can’t fly for you anymore
feet swollen fat and marble lungs
and the box never floats

it just carries you off
back to atoms and flame
as burst stomachs look on
pus dripping down cheeks

pin-point of light
peeping out your black coat
the pus all pours in
closes everything down

closes it all down forever
closes it all down forever

pin-point of light
do you think that it’s easter
the angels can't dance for you anymore
they can't dance for you anymore...

 

if i was Pablo Picasso

(or The Porridge Song)

 

if i was Pablo Picasso

i’d be smaller and balder and Spanish

but turns oot i’m taller and Scottish

cause huge bowls of porridge i eat

 

i have porridge at dawn for my breakfast

i have porridge soufflé for my teas

and after a good porridge curry

i go for long runs on my knobbly auld knees

 

if i was Pablo Picasso

i’d have porridge tae the end of my days

i would be not lonely or sad

and i’d smile as i go on my way

 

but i am not Pablo Picasso

i’m just some auld dude farting words

i have nothing to say that is royal:

can’t wait to be dancing in mud.

 

or burnt to a crisp in a box.

Link to Jim's Website here;
http://www.jimfergusonpoet.co.uk/home/4560210585

A Chat with Jim here;

https://jimandpatwestendchat.podbean.com/e/jim-ferguson-glasgow-poet-pamphleteer-and-novelist-chats-to-pat/

Some more Poems:

https://jacket2.org/poems/poems-jim-ferguson