After the snow before Christmas we have been enjoying a brief milder spell of weather, but the memory of the bitter cold made our topic of ICE perfectly appropriate for this meeting. Among the poem discussed were Wilfred Gibson's incantatory 'The Ice Cart', Archibald Lumpsman's 'A January Morning', both of which contrasted brilliant colours against dullness, and Matthew Sweeneys ' The Appointment', a puzzling, rather mythic poem. John Clare's 'January - a Winter's Day' from his long work The Shepherd's Calendar delighted us with its simplicity, as did Shakespeare's song of Winter from Love's Labour's Lost. We had more Shakespeare, with Sonnet 97 'How like the Winter...' Robert Frost's 'An Old Man's Winter Night' provoked some diverse opinions, but not so many as Wallace Steven's provocative 'The Emperor of Ice Cream'. Judith Wright's 'Halfway' about a tadpole trapped in ice was a more unusual image, while J.H. Prynne's 'Charm Against too many Apples' led to a good deal of discussion.
February meeting will again be Free Choice.
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