Happy New Year! 2.1.10
Here we are in a new year and what an interesting selection of poems we had to start us off. As we were doing ‘Favourite poems’ diversity could be expected, but the natural world turned out to be a kind of unofficial theme. We began with Shelley’s ‘The Cloud’, which gave raise to lots of differing views. Moving further out into space, John Donne’s ‘Song’, beginning ‘Go and Catch a Falling star’, swiftly moved back into the early modern convention of the faithless female beauty. Kipling’s atmospheric ‘The Way Through the Woods’ had us roughly divided between those who thought there were ghosts, and those who had other ideas. Ralph Hodgson’s ‘Eve’ proved fascinating for its unusual treatment of the Temptation because of its very English setting which included not only the orchard and the lane, but ‘titmouse’, linnet, and Jenny Wren. Ted Hughes ‘The Thought-Fox’ certainly made us think! As did his ‘Crow’s Nerve Fails’. After all the wildlife, Simon Armitage’s ‘About his Person’ returned us unequivocally to bleak modern human life, and Tony Harrison’ ‘First Aid in English’ challenged us to consider the limitations of language when confronted with atrocity. After some of the rather sombre subject matter, was nice that the last things on the agenda were light-hearted couplets and epigrams gathered from the Internet.
Our next meeting is on Feb 6th. And the topic is ‘poems beginning with D’. FYI – Sylvia Plath’s ‘Daddy’ has already been ‘bagged’!
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
December Meeting
Dec 5th 2009
Our topic was Christmas – naturally! And we had quite a selection of poems, although tending mainly towards those concerned with the Magi. Indeed, two members chose exactly the same one and some rapid renegotiation of the choice. The exception to the Christmas theme seemed to be Caroline Bird’s ‘Gingerbread House’, except that the title recalls the story of Hansel and Gretel, sometimes adapted as a pantomime. The poem had nothing of a pantomime about it, but suggested an allegorical representation of drug abuse!
Among the other poems presented were: ‘The Coming of the King’, Anon but attributed by some to Henry Vaughan; ‘The Magi’, W.B. Yeats; ‘Christmas is Really for the Children’, Steve Turner; ‘Christmas Landscape’, Laurie Lee; ‘Dear True Love’, U.A.Fanthorpe. This is a rewriting of the old song ‘On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me…’; ‘Christmass’ from The Shepherd’s Calendar, by John Clare; and 'Holly and Ivy’, anon. A 15thC version, and a carol in the medieval sense of a dance song with a burden or refrain. No prizes for guessing who chose this!
Our next session is Free Choice.
Our topic was Christmas – naturally! And we had quite a selection of poems, although tending mainly towards those concerned with the Magi. Indeed, two members chose exactly the same one and some rapid renegotiation of the choice. The exception to the Christmas theme seemed to be Caroline Bird’s ‘Gingerbread House’, except that the title recalls the story of Hansel and Gretel, sometimes adapted as a pantomime. The poem had nothing of a pantomime about it, but suggested an allegorical representation of drug abuse!
Among the other poems presented were: ‘The Coming of the King’, Anon but attributed by some to Henry Vaughan; ‘The Magi’, W.B. Yeats; ‘Christmas is Really for the Children’, Steve Turner; ‘Christmas Landscape’, Laurie Lee; ‘Dear True Love’, U.A.Fanthorpe. This is a rewriting of the old song ‘On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me…’; ‘Christmass’ from The Shepherd’s Calendar, by John Clare; and 'Holly and Ivy’, anon. A 15thC version, and a carol in the medieval sense of a dance song with a burden or refrain. No prizes for guessing who chose this!
Our next session is Free Choice.
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