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.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
April, with it's showers sweet ...
Our topic for the month was Eroticism, and the poems chosen ranged from the subtle to the almost obscene, and many provoked strenuous debate. Polarised views of the poetry on offer opened up 'fault-lines' defined probably by generational differences, but the range of poems revealed how important the expression of human sexuality has been in every age - from the Old Testament to the present day. The mode of expression mirrors the age and culture in which the poems are produced, as we would expect, but the representation of delight, anxiety, and revulsion, gave us plenty to consider.
Among the poems read were and extract from The Song of Songs, John Donne's 'Unruly Sun', Yeats's 'Leda and the Swan', John Updike's 'No More Access to her Underpants', Herrick's 'Upon Julia's Clothes', an extract from Milton's Paradise Lost, D.H. Lawrence's, 'Figs', Donald Hall's 'Villanelle', Kim Addonizio's 'For Desire'.
Next month is a free choice of favourite poems again.
Among the poems read were and extract from The Song of Songs, John Donne's 'Unruly Sun', Yeats's 'Leda and the Swan', John Updike's 'No More Access to her Underpants', Herrick's 'Upon Julia's Clothes', an extract from Milton's Paradise Lost, D.H. Lawrence's, 'Figs', Donald Hall's 'Villanelle', Kim Addonizio's 'For Desire'.
Next month is a free choice of favourite poems again.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Bright but Chilly March
The Poetry group met in an alternative venue this month. The Library had been taken over by numerous educational events and displays, so we move across the Junction to The Art House, and we were made very welcome and comfortable (I can recommend the coffee!)
It was a different kind of meeting because we started with a free selection of short poems which were followed by a group discussion on T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. We only got through Part I 'Burial of the Dead', and that gave us a great deal to discuss. Among the short poems that preceeded this were Jenny Joseph's thought-provoking 'Dead of Night'; U.A. Fanthorpe's insightful 'Deer in Gowbarrow Park'; Thomas Hardy's charming poem 'The Weather'; Sonnet 64 from Edmund Spenser's 'Amoretti' - was he parodying convention? Spike Milligan's brilliantly daft 'Rain', and the wonderfully named Sir Aston Cokaine's 'To Plautia'. I took along Robert Herrick's surruptitiously subversive 'Cavalier' poem 'Delight in Disorder'.
Having unintentionally covered all sorts of clothing this month, next month we will probably be considering the lack of it as the topic for April is Eroticism.
It was a different kind of meeting because we started with a free selection of short poems which were followed by a group discussion on T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. We only got through Part I 'Burial of the Dead', and that gave us a great deal to discuss. Among the short poems that preceeded this were Jenny Joseph's thought-provoking 'Dead of Night'; U.A. Fanthorpe's insightful 'Deer in Gowbarrow Park'; Thomas Hardy's charming poem 'The Weather'; Sonnet 64 from Edmund Spenser's 'Amoretti' - was he parodying convention? Spike Milligan's brilliantly daft 'Rain', and the wonderfully named Sir Aston Cokaine's 'To Plautia'. I took along Robert Herrick's surruptitiously subversive 'Cavalier' poem 'Delight in Disorder'.
Having unintentionally covered all sorts of clothing this month, next month we will probably be considering the lack of it as the topic for April is Eroticism.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
February 6th
February's Free Choice
On a fine and much milder afternoon we met to discuss both our chosen poems and the 'way forward'. It has often been suggested that we should take on a single poem or poet as a group project. After some debate about who, and how, it was agreed that at our next meeting we would all look at T.S. Eliot's THE WASTE LAND, but we will not necessarily devote the whole meeting to it, so we have agreed to bring along SHORT poems of our own choice to counterbalance the intensity of Eliot's work.
We have been alerted to the liklihood of a change of venue in March, from the Library, to the ART HOUSE, a cafe opposite the Junction, owing to a large educational event taking over the Library. The Art House has an upstairs room that the library staff are negotiating for on our behalf. Confirmation of the move will be emailed or telephoned to all members of the group by Sandy later in the month.
Yesterday's meeting produced the usual stimulating selection of poems which included Sylvia Plath's 'Daddy',
Dylan Thomas's 'And Death Shall Have No Dominion', G.K. Chesterton's 'The Donkey', Charles Cotton (1630-87) 'Winter's Invasion'; Seamus Heaney's 'Docker', and Jenny Joseph's 'Dead of Night'. Oddly, in view of our opening discussion, I had brought along 'Death by Water', section IV of The Waste Land!
On a fine and much milder afternoon we met to discuss both our chosen poems and the 'way forward'. It has often been suggested that we should take on a single poem or poet as a group project. After some debate about who, and how, it was agreed that at our next meeting we would all look at T.S. Eliot's THE WASTE LAND, but we will not necessarily devote the whole meeting to it, so we have agreed to bring along SHORT poems of our own choice to counterbalance the intensity of Eliot's work.
We have been alerted to the liklihood of a change of venue in March, from the Library, to the ART HOUSE, a cafe opposite the Junction, owing to a large educational event taking over the Library. The Art House has an upstairs room that the library staff are negotiating for on our behalf. Confirmation of the move will be emailed or telephoned to all members of the group by Sandy later in the month.
Yesterday's meeting produced the usual stimulating selection of poems which included Sylvia Plath's 'Daddy',
Dylan Thomas's 'And Death Shall Have No Dominion', G.K. Chesterton's 'The Donkey', Charles Cotton (1630-87) 'Winter's Invasion'; Seamus Heaney's 'Docker', and Jenny Joseph's 'Dead of Night'. Oddly, in view of our opening discussion, I had brought along 'Death by Water', section IV of The Waste Land!
Sunday, January 3, 2010
January 2010
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’!
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’!
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.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
November's Free Choice
We were a smaller group than usual this month, but still did not manage to get round to discussing everyone's poems! Those we did discuss ranged widely from the mildly bawdy eighteenth-century broadside ballad 'An Amorous Dialogue between John and his Mistress' . This under-represented form of ephemera drew plenty of approving comments. It was followed by John Masefield's 'Cargoes' - always a favourite for its marvellous imagery and mimetic rhythm. I took along John Keats 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer', after which U.A.Fanthorpe's 'Atlas' brought us right up into modern form and content. Its transition into metaphor created some debate. The next, and last poem, that we had time for was Michael Ondaatje's 'House on a Red Cliff', which puzzled and delighted in roughly equal measure.
As our next meeting is 5th December the topic will be Christmas, but it doesn't have to be the trite approach to tinsel and fairy lights, so it will be interesting to see if anything subversive turns up!
As our next meeting is 5th December the topic will be Christmas, but it doesn't have to be the trite approach to tinsel and fairy lights, so it will be interesting to see if anything subversive turns up!
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