May Poems

This month we had a free choice and the usual wide variety of poems gave us plenty to discuss. We were much exercised by D.H. Lawrence’s enigmatic poem ‘The Man of Tyre’, and debated the significance of its reference to ‘maidenhair’. Gillian Allnutt’s ‘Alien’ created more debate with its high-feminist agenda. Tatamkhula Afrika’s ‘Nothing Changed’ continued the political theme from another perspective and introduced most of us to bunny chows – an interesting-sounding snack of hollowed bread with curry filling.


Still being political, 2 members of the group brought poems by Kipling. One, the hymn-like ‘Recessional’ was full of war-like imagery of the high days of Empire, the other, an apt satire in 6 lines on corrupt politicians under the title ‘A Dead Statesman.’

In a shift away from politics of all kinds Roger McGough’s ‘P.C. Plod versus the Park Road Rapist’ was initially taken as light-hearted mockery of the stereotypical ‘thick’ policeman of earlier times, but on further reading most of us were disturbed by the potential consequences implicit beneath the humour, and the poem took on its own bleakly satirical edge.

Less controversial was ‘Musee des Beaux Artes’, about the Brueghel painting of the fall of Icarus. We were treated to a copy of the painting in order to get some idea of the context. The disjunction between ordinary and extraordinary was remarked upon. Philip Larkin’s ‘An Arundel Tomb’ found general approval for its atmosphere of enduring love.

Everyone seemed to relax and enjoy the beautiful extract from Shakespeare’s A Merchant of Venice. It was Lorenzo’s short speech to Jessica that begins ‘How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!’ No wonder Ralph Vaughan Williams set it to music.

Our topic for June will be FRANCE.