Split Screen: Poetry Inspired by Film & Television

Split Screen: Poetry Inspired by Film &

Television showcases work inspired bythe moving image. Facing pages eachfeature a poem that interprets themes suggested by the media, and the authors' approaches can be compared and contrasted.I tackled Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry, andthis poem is set against Mike Dillon's takeon blaxploitation icon John Shaft.My haiku sequence "Hakai-no-Renga for Inspector Harry Callahan" addresses whatCarl B. Klockars, a professor of CriminalJustice and Sociology, calls the Dirty Harry problem: "The troublesome issue ... is not whether a right choice can be made, butthat the choice must always be betweentwo wrongs. And in choosing to do eitherwrong, the police officer inevitably taintsor tarnishes himself."I don't attempt to solve that conundrum,but use the oblique approach of Japanese

formalism to let readers make up their

own minds. A working title for my

contribution was "The Trouble with Harry"...

Andy Jackson's anthology will be published

by Red Squirrel Press.

Update: Split Screen editor Andy Jackson

has accepted another of my poems for his

forthcoming anthology. This time I have

plugged a gap in the contents with lines

about none other than Emperor Ming from

the Flash Gordon series. "Merciless" will be

published beside Helen Ivory's poem on the

Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.