"Tonight at Noon" by Adrian Henri (poetry reading)

It's a poem about hopeless love, relating the probability of its requital relative to other unlikely events.

Sod's Law states "Desirability is Inversely Proportional to Probability" meaning the more you want something to happen, the less likely it is that it will happen. And the converse is also true, the more you fear something will go wrong, then the more likely it is that it will go wrong in exactly the way that you thought it would.

Although Sod's Law cannot be proved by Newton's Laws of Thermodynamics, Tensor Calculus, or other known principle that makes the world go round, everyone knows in their heart of hearts that it is true and can cite anecdotes to support their conviction.

It is similar to the principle known as "The Sheer Cussedness of Inanimate Objects" which also states what everyone inherently knows, that if stuff can possibly be in the wrong place then that that's where it is.

The picture is of the Liverpool Poets wisely investing their poetry fees in some useful beer: Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, in that order, meaning that Adrian is the one in the middle.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Tonight
• Noon
• Adrian
• Henri
• Liverpool
• Poets

[amhainn]

There is a mistake, in fact. The original (remember that the poem was written before the pound's decimalisation) read "Supermarkets will advertise 3d extra on everything". No one in 1967 would have said "3p".

[SpokenVerse]

@amhainn True enough but we never said 3d either, we said threepence pronoucing it thrupence.

[amhainn]

@SpokenVerse Yes, of course. It is rather odd that neither who transcribed the text nor who reads it (assuming it is not the same person) have noticed. Besides, saying "3p" makes you think of a negligible difference as it's today's money, while "3d" would put it in the right context as a noticeable sum.

[SpokenVerse]

@amhainn I copied and read it but I assumed that the text was correct. If you use Google to search for the line you will see that 3p gets 422 hits and 3d only 52.

[marcolopolis55]

What year was this written in?

[SpokenVerse]

It was first printed in a collection of The Liverpool poets, called The Mersey Sound in 1967.

[samuelpeix]

Is there any relation between this poem and the charles mingus' song? If so, what was first?

[amhainn]

@SpokenVerse But I have the book :)

[dabesser]

NOT Adrian Henri.

Who is responsible?

[BigBruinekool]

This one's going into my favorites. I'd never heard of Adrian Henri before. Thank you for bringing him to my attention. I love the pause on the last line before "at noon" and how your voice cracked slightly. It brought out the emotion that Henri himself put into the piece.

[thegreatgroucho]

I grew up with The Liverpool Scene, and Adrian Henri in particular. Many thanks.

[littlemissirishful]

wonderful, I like "Love is" by Adrian Henri as well :)