A Jolly Naughty Bank speaks out
Poetry inspired by museum artefacts is nothing new. Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn is probably the best known example, and I read recently about Cambridge University's Thresholds project in the Museums Association Journal However nobody seems to have been inspired by the Muse to write about any of the items in what my friend Simon Heptinstall called Fairlynch Museum's "delightfully eclectic mix of locally donated period costumes, radioactive pebbles and natural history (ie, stuffed seabirds)" in his amusing 2001 Daily Telegraph article There are some pretty odd things at Fairlynch, but that's possibly what a museum is all about. Anyway, here is what I was inspired to write about one of them: I’ve got the most enormous mouth, my tongue is round and red. My eyes are blue, my face is dark, my origin’s unsaid. Cos I’m a Jolly Naughty Bank, I sit here every day. Some people think I’m curious, And others look...