The Poetry Room

Love was in the (still rather nippy) air at the Poetry Room this month. The book under discussion was Hand in Hand – an anthology of love poetry edited by Carol Ann Duffy, in which 36 poets were asked to contribute a love poem of their own and select a love poem by a member of the opposite sex. In keeping with Hand in Hand’s spirit of partnership, Linda and Anna introduced the book together.

We began by reflecting on Ruth Padel’s recent visit to Newcastle (as part of the Bloodaxe Poetry Lectures) following Linda’s discussion of The Soho Leopard last month. There was unanimous appreciation for the insight Padel’s lectures had offered and the generosity and mesmerising nature of her reading style.

Returning to matters in hand – Hand in Hand – we began with the work of two American poets: Billy Collins’s Japan and Dorianne Laux’s Kissing. The tender twist of Collins’s ending was noted and the way the structure of the poem echoes those three little words that underlie it. Dorianne Laux’s poem prompted a lively discussion about the kissing couple she depicts – some people found their animalistic embrace threatening while it made one woman just want to go home and get her hands on her boyfriend!

Our next couple were Colette Bryce and Iain Crichton-Smith. We discussed these poems as a pair, noting how effectively Bryce echoes the Gaelic root of Crichton-Smith’s You Are at the Bottom of My Mind in her poem Song for a Stone. The song-like qualities of both poems were picked up on – an effect which was traced back to their rhyme and rhythm.

Our final pairing was Nick Drake’s poem Static and Elizabeth Bishop’s The Shampoo. Many people identified with Drake’s tingling description of static and skin upon skin. Some people found Bishop’s poem difficult and there was discussion of her unusual choice of words. Many people enjoyed the resolution of The Shampoo, with its surprising and loving final action. It was noted how both poems set a domestic incident against a huge cosmic backdrop.

From next month The Poetry Room is moving home! On Tuesday 29 July at 6.30pm, Linda will be discussing Alice Oswald’s Woods etc at Blackwell’s bookshop in Newcastle. You can get the book at a discount from Blackwell’s if you mention you are a member of the Poetry Room. And finally a big thank you to all of you who came along to The Poetry Room’s first season – it has been a pleasure to see new faces every month as well as existing members. Please do join us if you would like in the second half of 2008 – we look forward to seeing you!

We started the first Poetry Room by rearranging the furniture in order to accommodate everybody! Twenty three people came to discuss Ted Hughes’ Birthday Letters on a cold Wednesday night: thank you to all of you who turned out and provided a great discussion.

This session was introduced by Linda and Anna. We began by setting the context of Ted Hughes’s life, looking at the following extract from the poet’s letter to his son on why he published Birthday Letters, a collection exploring his relationship with the American poet Sylvia Plath:

It was when I realised that my only chance of getting past 1963 was to blow up that log-jam, and assemble whatever I had written about your mother and me, and simply make it public – like a confession – that I decided to publish those Birthday Letters as I’ve called them. I thought, let the feminists do what they like, let people think what they like about me, let critics demolish and tear to bits these simple, unguarded, quite private for the most part, unsophisticated bits of writing, let the heavens fall, let your mother’s Academic armies of support demolish me, let Carol go bananas, let Frieda and Nick bolt for their bomb-shelters – I can’t care any more, I can’t lock myself in behind this glass door one more week.

Linda discussed how to read a poem- the particular challenges and delights the form presents to a reader. We selected eight poems from Birthday Letters to look at:

Fulbright Scholars
Visit
You Hated Spain
Fever
The Earthenware Head
Epiphany
The Inscription
Red

Eight was perhaps a little ambitious and there was so much to say (a good sign!) that we didn’t get past the first three. Themes that came up were the difficulty of reading the poems as poems and not journalism/biography. Some people also felt affiliated with either Hughes or Plath.

One of the things we hope to do in The Poetry Room is to assert the primacy of the poem. This is a particular challenge with Birthday Letters but we picked the book because we knew we wouldn’t be short of things to say about it and we weren’t. Some people went on to the bar to carry on the conversation, which we hope people will continue to do over the course of the sessions – and to use this blog for discussion too.

Next Thursday 3 April at 6.30pm, Sharon Olds’s Selected Poems is up for discussion. If you haven’t got the book, you can get a copy from Blackwell in Newcastle with a discount if you mention the Poetry Room. Everyone is extremely welcome: whether you’re new to reading poetry or an old hand, please come and join us and spread the poetry word.