{"id":13903,"date":"2021-03-31T12:26:33","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T11:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/plague-songs\/"},"modified":"2021-03-31T12:26:33","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T11:26:33","slug":"plague-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/plague-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Plague Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

In May 2020 the award-winning cartoonist Martin Rowson set himself the challenge of writing a Lockdown Diary in verse. The result is\u00a0Plague Songs<\/em>, a unique cycle of furious, bleakly comic and often offensive poems about COVID-19, fiercely inventive and desperately funny. Rowson, who recovered from the virus at the start of the year (\u2018sweating in freezing fits, embalmed in bed\/ In sulphurous miasmata, my joints like broken walnuts,\/ With hogtied eyeballs and less energy than dissipating smoke<\/em>\u2019) records in manic verse the long lockdown Summer of 2020 \u2013 coughs and sneezes, lockdown-haircuts, funerals and furloughs, hangovers and hauntings, track and trace, when Death and Pestilence were playing on the swings and visiting the elderly in their Care Homes.<\/p>\n

Plague Songs<\/em>\u00a0is also book about living in Banarnia \u2013 a nightmarish world of jingoism and xenophobia, hierarchy and inequality, government incompetence, Boris Johnson\u2019s world-beating wet dreams, and the deadly twin viruses of stupidity and selfishness. What rhymes with COVID except bovid? Is Matt Hancock the Tory Party\u2019s answer to Fred West? Does every shroud have a silver lining?<\/p>\n

Plague Songs<\/em>\u00a0is also available here<\/a> on CD, set to music by Welsh musician and playwright Jon Tregenna.<\/p>\n

Recalled to Life<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>by Martin Rowson<\/em><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been stuck indoors so long you\u2019re Monte Christo\u2019d,
Scratched days runed on the walls,
Your eyes Ben Gunning madly,
So stir crazy now most mornings you can\u2019t stir.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been stuck inside so long you\u2019ve gone full Withnail
Breakfast every morning
From last night\u2019s takeout\u2019s tinfoil
Cold Korma which you spoon in with a shoehorn<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been stuck inside so long that you\u2019ve Rasputined,
Charles Manson in the mirror,
Homer Simpsoned in your y-fronts
De-evolving til you\u2019re now the Missing Link<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been stuck indoors so long you\u2019ll Dr Manette,
But you\u2019ve been recalled to life!
The shops have opened! There\u2019s a fire sale
On strait-jackets and shrouds on down the High Street!<\/p>\n

Cover image: Martin Rowson<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In May 2020 the award-winning cartoonist Martin Rowson set himself the challenge of writing a Lockdown Diary in verse. The result is\u00a0Plague Songs, a unique cycle of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":13900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/557"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}