Wednesday 9 December 2015

Poetry please.

The one downside, as far as I am concerned, to having regular dates in one's diary, is that it does make every week go past like a rocket.
This applies to my various coffee dates, my hairdresser's appointment, my physiotherapist, and - as far as today is concerned - our Poetry meeting.

If you like poetry then I do encourage you to join a Poetry group.   If you can't find one then why not start one yourself?   Our group, which always meets on a Wednesday afternoon, usually has somewhere between ten and a dozen there; we meet in a friend's conservatory and each of us reads our favourite poems.   Then we have a cup of tea and a biscuit.

Today being our Christmas meeting, most of us chose Christmas poetry.   Two of us chose to begin T S Eliot's 'Journey of the Magi' but we both had enough to leave that one out.   Instead I started by reading Ogden Nash's 'The boy who laughed at Santa Claus'.

It wasn't all Christmas - we had 'The Highwayman' and 'The Lady of Shallott', both firm favourites with us all.   We had Wendy Cope and Pam Ayres, as well as more serious stuff - in fact a good mix.
Ted Hughes is always a firm favourite as is Robert Frost (Christmas Trees).

I always come home thoroughly relaxed - there's nothing like good poetry to put you in a good mood.  Give it a try.

15 comments:

Gwil W said...

I used to go to a poetry group. It was called Cafe' Kafka. I left because I couldn't stand the room filled with cigarette smoke. Sadly some poets who think we still live in the 60's also think it's de rigeur to be seen with a fag dangling from one's lips. But I take your point and I would do it if I could fins somewhere nearby with clean air. Arnold Schwarzenegger currently in Paris at Cop21 reckons 19,000 people die every day from breathing polluted air. That's not including the fact that so many children are having to be issued with asthma inhalers. Why are we killing the planet and by doing so our own grandchildren? It#s a mytsrey to me. Well not really a mystery. There are obviously powerful vested interests.

donna baker said...

Like minds Pat from so far away. I just brought a large framed print of the Lady Of Shallott (Leighton?) from the farm to my city house to hang over my new tub. The wall looked so empty and it is a pretty print. From what I remember she went in search of Lancelot. I would love a poetry group as I know nearly nothing about it. What a full life you have.

Terry and Linda said...

You are so right, Pat!! WOnderful!

Linda

Dawn said...

Pam Ayres I use to love her poetry and remember when she had a TV show and used to read some of her work :-)

Gwil W said...

Dawn, Pam Ayres could write a kid of humorous doggerell I'll give you that. But to call it 'poetry' I don't know. Larkin, for example, his Mr Bleaney is poetry.

Rachel Phillips said...

I read poetry out loud in the house. I think poetry is good if spoken out loud.

Midlife Roadtripper said...

I think I need new friends. Or to reconnect with some old ones.

Heather said...

I love to hear about your poetry afternoons and am re-educating myself slowly by collecting a few poetry books from charity shops. They are perfect for dipping into before going to sleep. You are right about regular appointments seeming to make the time go faster. I swear there is more than one Thursday in some weeks.

Sarah said...

When I was at university reading English literature 35 years ago I used to go to a voluntary practical criticism seminar on Wednesday afternoon when we would read and deconstruct poetry. Occasionally we would write our own pastiche of a favourite poem, which sounds wrong but was great fun. I adored these afternoons and tried to replicate them with my own children. It must have worked as this Wednesday afternoon I've had another lovely phone conversation with my daughter, who is also reading English literature, about the poetry of Walt Whitman. Talking of whom, I'm now off to bed with a volume of his poetry.

Joanne Noragon said...

So that's why my weeks are shooting by. I can't grasp that it's December, which has caused me a lot of backtracking at work.

thelma said...

Poetry Rules! It flows, reminding us that life can be funny, sad, portentous, descriptive anything it wants really ;)

Elizabeth said...

What fun!
Yes lots of favorites -wish I had been there!
The Journey of the Magi haunts me every time.

Minigranny said...

Can't imagine life without poetry - all those wonderful lines that stick in your mind from primary school onwards! Love The Journey of the Magi.

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

I read poetry out loud in the house. I think poetry is good if spoken out loud.
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