Kendrick Smithyman

MEETING FEODOR SECOND

Nobody told me. It could be like that,
a man could make his voice do what that voice
did. I didn’t even know
it was to be a musical of sorts.

A kids’ version of the story, I’d read
that in maybe Standard Three or Four.
My father said the film should be worth seeing,
George Robey had a part. Mum thought
I ought to go, it would be educational.

For one week the Majestic ran two features
          day and day about:
three days Paul Robeson, The Emperor Jones,
the other three Don Quixote.
I came out reeling like the Don, dazzled,
deafened perhaps. Queen Street made
no sense, no way was same.
I’d seen what I was growing up to be,
an operatic basso, six foot six at least.

Are You Going to the Pictures? AUP 1987, p. 13.

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Last updated 11 May 2001