Anything fa yow, cupcake?
(a TV advert, featuring exaggerated Birmingham accents, received overwhelmingly negative feedback from Birmingham locals and further afield)
The yampy press said, this sounds thick,
This bostin’ early English music
How we write it, how we say it,
How we posh it up, or everyday it
Geordie, Scous, Yam Yam, Brum,
Don’t unstitch my vowels from my tongue
Dialects from Cockney to Creole,
One hundred words for one bread roll
One hundred languages in every body
From Zanzibar to Kirkcaldie
Each house a wordhoard, what Gran said,
What makes Kyle Kyle, the gob on Fred
Our words ūz, but only the tip,
Note from the throat, leap of a lip
Passing ship’s journey of intent,
Gesture’s wink to what you meant
Dialect, second language or RP,
I won’t judge you, if you don’t judge me
But if you do talk posh, and I’m plastered –
You’ve got a bob on yourself, you rich bastard
Don’t level the trills, flatten the picture,
On the kaylighed hills the waerld is richer
They don’t understand? Well tough, m’ dears,
It’s nae yure accent, it’s their ears
So let’s beat the drum for Brummie,
Mumbly, bumbly and knowingly funny
And to be who you are, who I am,
Sing the fettle fittle of Yam Yam,
It’s ow we spake, bab, where we are from,
Ode suck from the cake-hole of our Mom.
Matt Black
Yampy – stupid
Kaylighed – intoxicated
Fettle fittle – excellent food
YamYams – Black country dialect speakers, because they say I am, You Am, She Am. Black country dialect is widely held to be the closest English we have to English spoken in the Middle Ages.
Suck – sweets
Biography
Matt Black lives in Leamington Spa, writes poems for adults and children, and was Derbyshire Poet Laureate (2011-2013). His recent collections are Spoon Rebellion (Smith Doorstop, 2017) and Tales from the Leaking Boot (Iron Press, 2018). He works on commissions, and as a visiting writer in schools, and his play The Storm Officer is touring in 2018. www.matt-black.co.uk
Matt is performing at Ledbury Poetry Festival on 1 July, and can currently be found up a ladder at The Tree House Bookshop, Kenilworth.