Search - Roger Mcgough :: Summer With Monika

A beautiful bitter-sweet romance

10/17/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I heard this first when it was first issued on cassette in the seventies. It's truly beautiful and the imagery utterly hilarious."

Gilded Lily

Stephen Foster | Seattle, WA United States, via Scotland | 06/05/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It shocks me to give this just four stars. ?Summer With Monika? is a neglected gem - one of the great epic love-poems of the 20th Century, here read by Roger himself in all his ineffable Scouseness. The gilt that has been applied (by the producers, surely, for I cannot imagine Roger so choosing) is an intrusively awful string-n-sappy-guitar accompaniment.Still well worth it though. Some of the expressions are rather obscure. I defy any American, and any Brit under 40, to explain what the shilling is doing in:or just sunbathed lazily
in front of the fire
until the shilling set on the horizonMr. McGough is a wonderful poet, fond of using agglutination to great effect, who is both blessed and cursed by runaway pun-itis. An example of both is the name of his house in London: ?Dunrhymin? (the canonical house-name in Britain is ?Dunrovin?).Here is my review of his book version of the poem (sadly recommended over this reading):A work that manages to evoke just about every known human emotion, as it traces the arc of a relationship from the early joy:for i locked a yellowdoor
and i threw away the key
and i spent summer with monika
and monika spent summer with me
...
somedays we thought about the seaside
and built sandcastles on the blankets
and paddled in the pillows
or swam in the sink
and played with the shoals of dishesThrough conflict:your finger
sadly
has a familiar ring
about itThrough resignation:we nolonger stroll along the beaches of the bed
or snuggle in the longgrass of the carpets
the room nolonger a world
for makebelieving in
but a ceiling and four walls
that are for living in
--------------------------
My closing comment: roger mcgough
sadly
is discounted
because realpoems
can't be
funny"