Christopher Logue
Christopher Logue, CBE (born 23 November 1926 in Portsmouth, Hampshire) was an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. He also wrote for the theatre and cinema as well as acting in a number of films. His two screenplays are Savage Messiah and The End of Arthur's Marriage. He was also a long-term contributor to Private Eye magazine, as well as writing for the Merlin literary journal of Alexander Trocchi. He won the 2005 Whitbread Poetry Award for Cold Calls.
His early popularity was marked by the release of a loose adaptation of Pablo Neruda's "Twenty Love Poems", later released as an extended play recording, "Red Bird: Jazz and Poetry", backed by a Jazz group led by Tony Kinsey.
One of his poems, "Be Not Too Hard" was set to music by Donovan Leach, and made popular by Joan Baez, from her 1967 album "Joan". Donovan's version appeared in the film "Poor Cow"(1967).
His major poetical work was an ongoing project to render Homer's Iliad into a modernist idiom. This work is published in a number of small books, usually equating to two or three books of the original text. (The volume entitled Homer: War Music was shortlisted for the 2002 International Griffin Poetry Prize.) He also published an autobiography called Prince Charming (1999).
His lines tend to be short, pithy and frequently political, as in Song of Autobiography:
"I, Christopher Logue, was baptized the year
Many thousands of Englishmen
Fists clenched, their bellies empty,
Walked day and night on the capital city."
He wrote the couplet that is sung at the beginning and end of the 1965 film A High Wind in Jamaica, the screenplay for Savage Messiah (1972), a television version of Antigone (1962), and a short play for the TV series The Wednesday Play titled The End of Arthur's Marriage (1965).
He also appeared in a number of films as an actor, most notably as Cardinal Richelieu in Ken Russell's 1971 film The Devils and as the spaghetti-eating fanatic in Terry Gilliam's 1977 film Jabberwocky.
Logue wrote for the Olympia Press under the pseudonym, Count Palmiro Vicarion, including a pornographic novel, Lust.
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source: wikipedia.org
“Come to the edge, he said.We are afraid, they said.Come to the edge, he said.They came to the edge,He pushed them and they flew.Come to the edge, Life said.They said: We are afraid.Come to the edge, Life said.They came. It pushed them...And they flew.”
“Come to the edge.We might fall.Come to the edge.It's too high!COME TO THE EDGE!And they cameAnd he pushedAnd they flew.”
“And he who is forever talking about enemies / Is himself the enemy! ”