June Meeting

This afternoon’s meeting began with and example (in translation) of probably the oldest poet we have encountered so far as we heard one of Horace’s Odes. To be precise it was Odes, Book1, No. 6 by Quintus Horatius Flaccus (BC65-8), trans. James Michie. Following on from Thursday, and entirely by accident, we also had Tony Harrison’s poignant ‘Book Ends’, Luke Wright’s amusing lesson on time management: ‘When Instant Coffee Just Isn’t Enough’, Seamus Heaney’s ‘Death of a Naturalist’, which divided opinion, ‘Ken Edwards’s ‘Rilke Driving School’, which has demanded that we track down the statue of Rilke in the Queen Victoria hotel in Ronda (it does exist). Amazingly, 2 people brought Emily Bronte’s ‘High Waving Heather'. Roald Dahl’s version of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ amused us, and ‘Titanic’ by David Slavitt challenged our desire for a watery grave, but not so much as the handout kindly produced by Sandy on Found Verse. This was a response to our ongoing debate about what constitutes a poem.


Opinion, mostly detrimental, revolves around the problem of how one distinguished a poem in free verse from a piece of ordinary prose merely arranged in lines. The handout seemed to prove that there is no real distinction. This demanded further consideration and no doubt we will revisit the topic again (and again!)
Our topic for next month will be Love.