Six more poems coming up

Last term’s poets

It’s Bonfire Night! But, you know, I think poetry every day puts a bomb under received ways of thinking, obliviousness, lazy emotionality. What’s more revolutionary than a really good poem?

The next mini-term of Thursday lunchtime poem readings begins in six days. These are becoming a fixture now and I miss them in the two weeks between mini-terms! Last time I departed from the usual format (‘mix it up’) and bought mainly poems by living poets, and three of those were from new books. In fact even Millay’s was from a new book, Tristram Fane Saunders’ masterful new edition of her work for Carcanet. The sessions coming up will be more mixed again, but obviously with an eye on the weathercock.

Surprisingly, the poem that seemed the most impenetrable in some ways, not least because it was from Anne Carson, a couple of group members have told me was the one that’s stuck with them the most. Here’s the list:

Ed Reiss, King
Jack Gilbert, The Great Fires
Anne Carson, Life
Edna St Vincent Millay, Childhood is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies
Stephen Sexton, The Curfew
Ian Duhig, Aliens

We’d love to see you. This discussion group really has been a gift; even I had no idea! It never fails to give, give, give. Well, that’s the poems. They’re so generous.

We meet on Zoom, from 1-1.45 though sometimes a few minutes more: it’s designed to fit into a lunch hour. And we leave it feeling rich with ideas and connections: in fact, each one does change the world a bit. Drop me a line if you’d like to come along.