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POETRY — APPRECIATION

Members bring a poem, to read aloud, to reflect the theme chosen by the group, and this is followed by discussion of the poem.

Group Coordinator: Sarina Turner (click to contact)

When

First and third Mondays of the month at 11.00am.

Where

At the Canonbury Tavern.

Our meetings are informal and friendly. We start at 11.00am with coffee/tea and discuss future themes and other matters of interest to the group. From 11.15am we move to reading and talking about our chosen poems, ending at 12.30pm. Each member of the group reads their poem on the agreed theme, followed by a group discussion. We agree a new theme each month and so we have time to discuss four or five poems at each meeting. We have discussed a wide range of poems from the sixteenth century to contemporary poems. No specialist knowledge is required, just an interest in sharing enjoyment of poetry.

Previous themes
Here are two very different poems we discussed when our theme was 'a specific place':

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802, by William Wordsworth:
Old Westminster Bridge Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

The Sightseers by Paul Muldoon, a contemporary Irish poet:
My father and mother, my brother and sister
and I, with uncle Pat, our dour best-loved uncle,
had set out that Sunday afternoon in July
in his broken-down Ford

not to visit some graveyard — one died of shingles,
one of fever, another's knees turned to jelly —
but the brand-new roundabout at Ballygawley,
the first in mid-Ulster.

Uncle Pat was telling us how the B-Specials
had stopped him one night somewhere near Ballygawley
and smashed his bicycle

and made him sing the Sash and curse the Pope of Rome.
They held a pistol so hard against his forehead
there was still the mark of an O when he got home.

If you are interested in joining our group please contact the coordinator using the email address at the top of this page.