The Hungry Ghost

As the stalwarts amongst you may recall, ‘A Pint for the Ghost’ was first inspired by old legends that describe leaving milk on the hearthstone for ancestors or spirits. The question of how ghosts sustain themselves seems to be a vexing one: some maintain that they can’t eat solid food at all.

Eastern traditions, meanwhile, often celebrate the notion of the ‘hungry ghost’. In Buddhism, these are a metaphor for unfulfilled desires or emptiness – beings driven by intense emotional needs. In Tibetan Buddhism, they are described as having "mouths the size of a needle's eye and a stomach the size of a mountain". This is a metaphor for people trying (and failing) to fulfill their illusory physical needs.

On May 18th, I’m going down to London to taunt any hungry ghosts out there at an event that promises to be a feast for all the senses: ‘We Eat Poets!’ isn’t a morbid sacrificial ritual (I hope) but “an eclectic mix of poetry, excellent food and related performance and participation, surrounded by extraordinary antiques and architectural relics from London’s past.”

The venue is bonkers and beautiful LASSCo in Vauxhall, a den of curiosities which I visited in March. The room that will host the event is full of strange bits and pieces, all for sale. Walking into LASSCo is an experience in itself – you’re constantly assailed by strange and lovely things, hanging from the ceiling, inviting you to sit on them (er) or decorating the walls. It’ll be a great stage for a night of theatrics.

I’ve written some new material loosely based around the theme of ‘hunger’ to perform and will even be taking part in a quickfire poetic challenge on the night itself… If the poetry isn’t enough to tempt the Londoners / dedicated travellers amongst you, perhaps the prospect of food from Cannon & Cannon is. Either way, you can buy tickets here, before they’re all devoured (sorry, I’ll get my coat).

I’ll leave you with a short story from ‘A Pint from the Ghost’ that’s sure to put you off your dinner. It takes place on Gibbet Moor, in Derbyshire, close to Brampton and concerns a hungry visitor…

“Long, long ago – and no-one’s quite sure when – there was a tramp who wandered up from Brampton to the only cottage on the moor. A widow lived there, and he sneaked in through the door to beg for food, for he’d had none in weeks. He had a grisly face: a thin, black beard, a hat that he’d pull down so that you barely saw his bright blue eyes.

He found the widow frying bacon in her kitchen and he pleaded for a scrap. She said she had no food to give him, bid him go, she said there’d be no supper for the likes of him. That set him in a fearful rage, and the smell of the food was maddening to one who’d starved so long. He knocked the widow to the ground, then seized the frying pan and poured the scalding fat into her mouth.

They found him living in her house, the widow’s body in its twisted posture on the kitchen floor. The policemen set a gibbet up beside the cottage door. But rather than kick the stool away, and spare him with a quick death, the townsfolk strung him up to starve, or else to die at the hands of winter cold, or wind and rain. It took three dreadful weeks, and all day long the tramp would howl and scream. The sound was so piercing that it carried over the hill to Chatsworth House, disturbed the Duke himself from sleep. If you go walking over Gibbet Moor, you’ll hear his howl, and blame it on the fearful gale. Or else you’ll see that dark shape moving on the skyline, tell yourself it’s nothing but a swaying tree, tell yourself it isn’t drawing closer, following you home.”