I am so pleased to welcome my dear friend, Geoff Le Pard, or His Geoffleship, as he is affectionately known, to my blog, in a touring capacity, where he has featured in the latest book by Robbie Cheadle, and Kate Lynne Booth, Poetry Treasures.
Blurb
A collection of poetry from the poet/author guests of Robbie Cheadle on the “Treasuring Poetry” blog series on Writing to be Read in 2020. Open the book and discover the poetry treasures of Sue Vincent, Geoff Le Pard, Frank Prem, Victoria (Tori) Zigler, Colleen M. Chesebro, K. Morris, Annette Rochelle Aben, Jude Kitya Itakali, and Roberta Eaton Cheadle.
Purchase links Poetry Treasures
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Treasures-Sue-Vincent-ebook/dp/B0933KSJR9
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poetry-Treasures-Sue-Vincent/dp/B093QLNGC5
Oh, and there is a lovely little giveaway that you could take part in, too…
Follow the tour and leave a comment at each stop for a chance to win one of three digital copies of Poetry Treasures to be given away. (Winners will be randomly selected following the end of the tour.)
Anyway, here is the lovely Geoffles!
‘Let’s do the Three Peaks.’
I don’t remember who suggested it but there was pretty much universal agreement that this was the answer. The question had troubled us for a few days. We’d agreed to undertake a group challenge at work, to raise money via sponsorship for a charity. The question that vexed us was: ‘What challenge?’
Being a bunch of lawyers the sponsored silence was a common suggestion. We rose above the perceived slight with the nobility expected of our profession. A legal bake off caused heart flutters amongst some whose culinary skills ran to the speed dialed pizza delivery. The truth that soon became apparent was that the challenge would have to be a physical one. We might be the second oldest profession but the majority of its members employed at my firm were under forty. At this point I was the exception, weighing in at a crisp 52.
The Three Peaks takes its name from the three highest peaks, in each of England, Scotland and Wales. We call them mountains but those countries with seriously craggy rock walls covered in glacial ice might quibble. The challenge is to climb them all inside 24 hours. This involves not just the elevation but some ten kilometres of distance and an equally challenging 450 miles of driving between. To achieve the goal in daylight also limits you to mid-summer.
The first peak and the highest is the Scottish leviathan, Ben Nevis at a squidge over 4500 feet. Yes, I know, feet, not metres. But still…
I hadn’t expected to be inspired to write the poem. Poetry is an inspirational form of writing. It comes to me unannounced, whispering couplets and phrases, demanding I look anew at a prosaic action such as climbing uphill. I think the combination of the physical efforts, the glorious evening weather, the nerves induced by this being a timed challenge and not wanting to let down my colleagues by slowing them up, just as much as not wanting to let down the charity we were supporting combined to stimulate my poetical synapses.
I remember sitting in the van, sucking down liquids and nursing my feet as we drove south in the increasing gloom of a Scottish evening. We needed to be in the North of England before 6 am, if we were to start Scarfell Pike, our English monster (yeah, yeah, 3200 feet and small change – it’s a lot, okay?) in time to make it across Wales for the final peak, Snowdon (or Yr Wyddfa as we are to know it, going forward, and no, I can no more pronounce it than I can explain Schrodinger’s Cat or explain the point of Prince Andrew). The other climbers were already sleeping but I felt wired. That bloody poem was nagging and niggling at me. I probably surprised our driver by putting on a head torch – we thought we might have to climb in the dark at some point – and begin writing. But poetry is no respecter of sleep. It, as much as the Three Peaks, is a challenge, and one I can never ignore.
The result? We smashed the challenge, finishing inside 23 hours.
The Poem?
You decide…
Ben Nevis
The summit sits alone, brooding.
It has to be aware we are coming and it can’t be pleased.
We sit and fiddle with our socks
Ironing seams with our fingers
Removing granite grit
And soothing away the terror and sweaty mist to come.
The incessant ring tone of midges pricks our ears
And disturbs our skin-deep musings.
We flap a little, alert to the next pass.
On goes a shoe; we tug at laces,
Tightening the knot in our stomachs.
Still not right.
Scotland’s Red Baron leads another wave,
Dive bombing our hairline,
Piercing soft exposed flesh, fracturing our temper and releasing a logarithm of pain.
We are distracted by corrugated socks, our defences are lowered
And the formation, delighted to pass through unimpeded,
Strikes the target and sucks the joy out of our walk.
The slope steepens as hopes tumble,
Horizons pile up, one on the next,
Crowding forward in their excitement.
We struggle on, the skies now clear of the air defence
But relief is as short as our breath;
Shattered lungs, gassed to shreds by effort.
And all the while the Troll in the hill slumbers;
Is he disturbed by our laboured tread?
Little irritating pinpricks distracting him from his quiet repose?
The weather is clear; squally showers pour down our faces
From the clouds in our hair, stinging our eyes with our own acid rain and drenching our
vision;
Little drops of liquid midge, irritating and incessant.
We flick uselessly, trying to stem the flow.
A moment’s relief and then another flood, one aggravation follows another.
The sun can’t set on this Leviathan we are climbing.
We stay on his back, avoiding his gaze, sure he must be wakening to our insistent feet.
He breathes out patches of slippery white, remnants of winter, to slow us down.
Any moment
He might rise up,
Angry,
To swat at us,
Hard.
We are so small he would miss most of us if he flapped.
We have no sharp proboscis to annoy, just our shoes, repetitive irritations
Cutting a path up his aged old back.
Would we cower and return to the fight, like midges, like sweat?
Or run like hell.
Author Info
Geoff Le Pard (not Geoffrey, except to his mother) was born in 1956 and is a lawyer who saw the light. He started writing (creatively) in 2006 following a summer school course. Being a course junkie, he had spells at Birkbeck College, twice at Arvon and most recently at Sheffield Hallam where he achieved an MA in Creative Writing. And what did he learn? That they are great fun, you meet wonderful people, but the best lessons come from the unexpected places. He has a line of books some published and some still waiting. Details of his work can be found on his blog, TanGental at https://geofflepard.com/ where he writes about anything and everything. His aim is for each novel to be in a different style and genre. Most people have been nice about his writing (though when his brother’s dog peed on the manuscript he was editing, he did wonder) but he knows the skill is in seeking and accepting criticism. His career in the law helped prepare him. His first book of poetry, The Sincerest Form Of Poetry was published last year.
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