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.

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!

October 3rd, October 8th

At our October meeting we were fortunate enough to have a visit from the local poet Joan McGavin. She brought along some of her poems and read them to us, analysing each one as she did so. It was an enlightening and fascinating experience to listen to a poet explaining the thinking behind her technique and inspiration. Joan's poems were 'Birthday Sleepover 3', 'Dining with the Dead', 'At a Distance', 'One Use of a Painting', 'Salt' (a most enigmatic poem), 'Soft', and my own favourite 'The Tremulous Hand Speaks'. Everyone in the group found the afternoon engrossing, and indeed the break for refreshment prompted so much small-group discussion it took a while for us all to refocus because we all had so much we wanted to discuss.

Members of the Poetry Reading Group have also had an open invitation to visit Sunrise of Bassett, the sheltered faciltiy for elderly residents. With the help of the Activities Co-ordinator and a young volunteer, some of the resident ladies and gentlemen have formed their own literary group which includes poetry reading and they have invited us to join them and contribute to their discussions. I have already done so, taking along Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, and Carol Ann Duffy's sonnet 'Prayer' for discussion. It was a delight to meet more people with an interest in poetry.

I hope everyone enjoyed and participated in National Poetry Day on 8th October. A lady next to me on the bus was reading the Faber Book of Blake's Verse. I read my Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetry and Poetics. Two of the members of the PRG were fortunate enough to get tickets for Carol Ann Duffy's appearance in Winchester.

September Meeting

Among the poems read were the short but atmospheric 'Night and the House' by Sophia de Mello Breyer, 'In My Craft or Sullen Art' by Dylan Thomas, a poem that caused some debate over the significance of adjectives, and one that seems heavily influenced by Shakespeare's Prospero. Of particular interest was Carol Ann Duffy's poem 'Prayer', not simply because it is the work of our first female Poet Laureate, but because it came with a printout of an analysis of the work. How much faith should be placed in http://www.squidoo.com/ is a matter of personal judgement, but the analysis is sufficient to help readers new to poetry and to Duffy's work, although it skims the surface rather too often, and simply observing that 'Duffy has included plenty of metaphor and imagery...to evoke a plethora of contrasting emotion' is really avoiding saying anything!

In October the group is looking forward to the visit of local poet Joan McGavin, who will be talking to us about her work, including the poingant 'Salt', and 'One use of a Painting'.

August Meeting

This month our topic was Beginnings. As usual we enjoyed a wide and varied selection of poems. They were William's Blake's deceptively simple 'Lamb', 'New Every Morning' by Susan Coleman, an untitled poem by Simon Armitage that caused a good deal of debate; Walt Whitman's enormously long 'I Sing the Body Electric' - we only had time for the first and last sections. Amy Clampitt's meditative 'Beach Glass', Edwin Muir's post-apocalyptic 'The Horses'; the very appropriate 'Rainy Summer' by Alice Meynell, and taking the topic literally - Caedmon's Hymn, said to be the very first English poem.
September will be Free Choice

June, July, and August

It has taken us 2 meetings to complete our latest 'Favourites' topic because 15 of us attended the meeting in June so we only managed to get half way through our poems. With such a full house, Sandy and I decided it might be wise to see about a bigger room, and guess what, for our July meeting only 9 of us enjoyed the facilities in the much larger seminar room! However, it was a lively and interesting meeting as always. Among the poems read was an extract from John Betjeman's verse autobiography Summoned by Bells which prompted a good deal of debate.

For our August meeting we will be bringing poems on 'Beginings'