Have you ever seen a poetry film? It’s a modern way of linking both media and it’s certainly to the advantage of poetry. Anything that makes poetry more accessible works for me.
The film I would like to share with you is called “Rocket Tom.” The background is that I bought a black Labrador from a friend who couldn’t get on with the dog. The dog was called “Tom” and we couldn’t use that name, as you will see in the poem, so we renamed him.
The video was made by my two grandchildren and me and we had a hoot making it. It’s only a minute long. We had more trouble with the adult in it than we did with the children and the dog. This year I will be making more poetry films with A level students so watch this space. Enjoy!
We got a black lab
ten months on
who came with a name,
named Tom.
But my wife has a son
who died at six,
very much loved
and he’s called Tom.
So we bent some rhyme
like Pom and Dom
to hear how they went
and even tried Bomb
in an Irish accent,
but they didn’t fool us
and wouldn’t fool Tom
so we called him Rocky.
You can see the video on https://vimeo.com/180018813. There are several other films that are popular, “Mallow County Cork” has a big following https://vimeo.com/181692488.
First published in Swindon Link magazine