Poet Margaret Galvin contacted us with a tribute to the great Brendan Bowyer,listen back to her chat below:
Poem :
Our House, Delirious
In loving and grateful memory of Brendan Bowyer, (1939-2020)
Hucklebuck mania seized us that Christmas
when my brother brought the portable record player
from London, hauled it in a suitcase
on the boat train from Paddington,
across on the ferry, up from Rosslare on the bus.
We watched as the stylus circled the vinyl grooves
releasing the gleeful tunes stored in those black discs,
gasped as Brendan Bowyer’s perfect diction
trembled through the hiss and crackle
of the dance party machine, exhorting us
to never lose our hucklebuck shoes.
The turntable hopped as we
wriggled like a snake, wobbled like a duck
around the squeaking lino in the kitchen,
delirious under the showman’s spell.
Las Vegas glittered through the mottle
of my father’s shaving mirror
as I sang into a hairbrush microphone.
Someone lassoed the newel post with a scarf
and jived that wooden partner to spark and frenzy.
My father, sucked on his unlit pipe and observed
from the sagging seat by the fire,
his house gone mad with the Waterford lad
who had made it big in America.
