August 7th 2010 - Geography

As we reassembled after a 5 week month, we welcomed 2 new participants to the group and the discussion during the afternoon was as diverse and lively as usual. Our topic was Geography and we found many approaches to it.

Starting very sensibly we heard Caroline Bird’s short and somewhat pessimistic ‘Geography Lessons’. This was followed by Keat’s ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’ – what a contrast as the poet presents his excitement at intellectual discovery in terms of geographical exploration. My poem was the last part of Shelley’s ‘Mont Blanc’, and after this, came Ian McKay’s ‘Volcanoes’. It was remarked that the first 4 poems all contained references to mountains of one kind or another – but all very differently handled.

We had a complete change of location with Seamus Heaney’s ‘The Peninsula’ and Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’. Following their engagement with psychology and to some extent even with epistemology, Edward Thomas’s profoundly melancholy ‘Rain’ provoked a good deal of comment.
The emerging poet Miriam Gamble’s ‘On Fancying American Film Stars’ generated some discussion on one of our perpetual themes: ‘what makes a poem a poem and what makes a good poem?’
We finished gently with Frances Thomson’s ‘Arab Song’.
In September we have Free Choice again.