In this episode, Pete Green reads and discusses Chapter Eight from Louis MacNeice’s book-length poem Autumn Journal and how it played a part in the writing of their own long poem Sheffield Almanac.   In the programme, Pete talks about their own long relationship with MacNeice’s poem, how it ‘works’ as a poem, stitching together contemporary ‘pinch points’ of late 1930s history and the author's own autobiography.  In a wide-ranging (roaming) conversation Pete talks about how the form of MacNeice’s poem influenced their own approach to Sheffield Almanac. They also explore how MacNiece brings together high and low culture to discuss notions of privilege, politics, and the state of the nation. Pete goes on to reflect on the first and second editions of Sheffield Almanac, and how their own work as a song writer has informed their own poetry writing skills. Pete talks about conflating the personal and political in Sheffield Almanac, and 'the predicament of the city of Sheffield' that is interrogated in this extended lyrical narrative.   The edition that Pete reads from here is Autumn Journal (Faber, 2012).   Pete Green is a song writer, musician, and poet. They have published two pamphlets with Longbarrow Press - Sheffield Almanac (first edition, 2017 and second edition, 2022), and Hemisphere (2021).  Pete’s first full-length came out with Salt in 2022, entitled The Meanwhile Sites. from Chapter One of Sheffield Almanac (second edition, Longbarrow 2022):                And we were timeless
As the empty afternoons when we would settle   In for desultory shifts at the Fellow & Firkin Unprepared to take one more step   Toward the millennium’s unmapped plains Without a pint of cloudy ale and a doorstep   Sandwich loaded with fat chips. Some seminar on Woolf and Joyce just finished,   We might stay put, we might loose happenstance With suburban wanderlust undiminished —   Let the current bus us to Cotteridge or West Bromwich, Let the bondage of deadlines unravel   Free in time and space, at least within the bounds Of an off-peak pass from West Midlands Travel.    Suede supplanting Blur, Blair succeeding Smith: Tumbleweed days. None of us paused to cherish    Carefreedom since we never knew — or just Suppressed the knowledge — that it could perish    While the ink dried on our dissertations. Weeks were some abundant currency one borrows    At deceptive interest rates, pays backAt breakneck terms, in repossessed tomorrows    And when the time came to consolidate Sheffield was our redemption, our second    Bite at adulthood’s sour cherry; And when it’s done, when the tallies are reckoned    And we feel the slowing of the birthdays zipping Past like the exit signs for junction    33, will we have come this far Only for the settled life itself to seal our dysfunction    Rather than those years of frenzied chasing? We thought those threadbare rented rooms, curtained   With frost and damp, would be the time the Low tide turned amid the hurt and
    Searching. What if they prove instead the High water mark? These kids have 4G, streaming media, wi-fi,    Colossal debt, jobs pre-empted by machines; We had payphones, typewriters, a dust-strewn, scratchy hi-fi,   Student grants and jobs that worked us like machines And all of us austerity, austerity and ISIS,
    Seas that go on rising through each summit, Refugees, and leaders somehow baffled by a crisis    Every bugger else could spot a mile offJust as, this time last year, we watched the occupation    Of Central Office while they pricetagged hope and knowledge,Surprised by the moral pluck and spunk of a generation
    Dismissed as dismal materialist go-getters. Equally Wrong-footed, the coppers made a kettle,
    Flung kids from wheelchair seats, performed the miracle Of raising a new cohort to its feet and on its mettle    To pick up where we left the poll tax off. This time, beyond London’s hall of mirrors, every region     Saw insurgent youth again And round Coles Corner march