Summer Celebration 2022

These are the poets who will be speaking at our Summer Celebration on 28th June 2022.

http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/shortlands.html

https://shortlandspoetrycircle.wordpress.com/

Summer Celebration 22nd. June 2021

We were delighted to receive acceptances from well-known poets Susan Wicks and Michael Swan to read some of their poems to us on Zoom. Much as we would have liked to have their physical presence at our Celebration it was, nevertheless, a very enjoyable occasion that hopefully led to sales of their books even though there was no physical book table. The poets’ details are as follows:-

Susan Wicks

Poet and novelist Susan Wicks was born in Kent, England, in 1947. She is the author of several collections of poetry including Singing Underwater(1992), which won the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Prize, and The Clever Daughter (1996), which was shortlisted for both the T S Eliot and Forward Prizes, and she was included in the Poetry Society’s ‘New Generation Poets’ promotion in 1994. A recent collection, House of Tongues, was published in 2011. She was shortlisted for The Poetry Society’s Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize in 2015 for her translation of Talking Vrouz by Valérie Rouzeau (Arc Visible Poets Series). Her latest collection is ‘Dear Crane’ published this year.

Michael Swan

Michael Swan (in his own words)

I cling to the belief that it is possible to write good poetry that is neither difficult nor boring. I use humour a great deal, sometimes for quite serious purposes. I mostly write free verse, but I can do the hard stuff when necessary. I also translate poetry: an English version of Rilke’s Orpheus, Eurydike, Hermes won the Stephen Spender award in 2005. My collections, When they Come for you (Frogmore Press 2003) and The Shapes of Things(Oversteps Books 2011) were very well reviewed. A selection of my poetry with Romanian translations, Tiger Dreams / vise cu tigri, was published by Niculescu in 2014.

April May and June 2021 Meetings

Meeting of 13th. April 2021 – Open Choice

A good opening to the Summer Term with a great variety of poems known and less well-known read by members, giving an indication of what people have been reading recently or poems that have been long-established favourites.

Before any poems were read, Christine Pope gave an interesting talk on the poet, Walter de la Mare who lived with his family at nearby Beckenham and then at Anerley.

Meeting of 27th. April – Encounters

Poems as diverse as the encounters they described were read. Some examples were ‘The Bear on the Dehli Road’ by Earle Birney, ‘In Paris With Love’ by James Fenton and ‘The Cuckoo Replies to Mr. Wordsworth’ by Noel Petty.

Meeting of 11th. May 2021

Poets from Down Under

These were Clive James, from Australia, Les Murray, also from Australia and Fleur Adcock, (a New Zealander) Both Clive James and Les Murray are now fairly recently deceased.

During the meeting thirteen of Fleur Adcock’s poems were read and eight each by Clive James and Les Murray. Australian poetry was once described as ‘ a knife fight in a phone booth’ but Les Murray and Clive James give the lie to this in the scope and humanity of their poems. ‘The Video’ by Fleur Adcock caused some amusement as it was about the feelings of a small girl watching a video of her sister being born. She is both fascinated and then satisfied when she finds that the video can be wound back, sending the interloper back where it came from.

Meeting of 25th. May 2021 ‘My own country.’

A well-attended meeting with, as expected, a range of poems although the reading list seems to have gone awol. Certainly the most obvious choices were avoided.

Meeting of June 6th. 2021

Poems by Wendell Berry and Robert Frost

Most members seemed to be more familiar with poems by Robert Frost but realised what they had missed when looking at Wendell Berry’s work. All in all, seventeen of Robert Frost’s poems were read and nine by Wendell Berry.

Two Meetings In March 2021

Meeting of March 9th 2021

AGM and one short poem from each attendee.

Meeting of 23rd. March 2021 — Sparks Flying (14 present)

This was one where members had to use their ingenuity. There are only so many poems about arguments or fireworks but we found them. There were also poems about shipbuilding, sections from ‘The Village Blacksmith’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, two on volcanoes and Hilaire Belloc’s ‘Matilda’ — who told lies and was burned to death.

February 2021 Meetings

Meeting of 9th. Feb.

The subject was “Mind and Body’ and the poems chosen ranged widely over these topics.

Meeting of 23rd. Feb.

Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats

During this meeting, members read 16 poems by Keats and 13 by Shelley which included several old favourites such as Keats’ ‘Ode to Melancholy’ and ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ and Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ together with excerpt from some of their longer poems. This date was chosen because this is the bi-centenary of Keats’ who died from tuberculosis on this day in 1821.

Meeting of 26th. Jan. 2021

This meeting was devoted to the poems of Ruth Pitter and Frances Cornford.

Ruth Pitter (1897-1992) was inspired by the natural world and started publishing some of her poems while still at school. During her life she became friendly with some of the important writers of her time including Walter de la Mare, Siegfried

Sassoon and Kathleen Raine. Her poetry was highly regarded by Philip Larkin and in 1955 she became the first woman to receive the Queen’ gold Medal for Poetry.

Frances Cornford (1886- 1960 )was a granddaughter of Charles Darwin. She wrote in simple and direct language and her poems were greatly admired in her lifetime. Many of her poem

Elizabeth Jennings (in full) Elizabeth Joan Jennings was born July 18, 1926, in Boston Lincolnshire, England and died October 26, 2001 in Bampton, Oxfordshire. Her work relates intensely personal matters in a plainspoken, traditional, and objective style and her verse frequently reflects her devout Catholicism and her love of Italy.

Meeting of Jan. 12th 2021

Open Choice

If anything, the choice of poems for ‘Open Choice’ is becoming more diverse. The only poets who appeared more than once on the list were Thomas Hardy and Carol Ann Duffy whose ‘Worlds Wife’ poems have always been popular. The list is worth a look.

Meeting of Jan. 12th. 2021

Open Choice Reading List

Ann Barlow Apples, Laurie Lee
RNLI Royal Nat. Lifeboat Inst. , Christine Watson

Michael Bobb

Diane Chorley Hollyhocks, Peter Phillips
Shattered, Barbara Hickson

Sheila Corrin

Jean Ellis A Visit, Elaine Feinstein
Fragments, Ruth Sharma

Maggie Hoyle From ‘The Prophet’ On Friendship, Cahil gibran
On Entering Parliament, Martin Bell

Margaret Glenn Mrs. Aesop, Carol Ann Duffy
Mrs. Darwin, Carol Ann Duffy

Monica King Something Blue, Stilby Nicholls

Jane Knight Tribetharic, John Betjeman
Mrs. Icarus, Carol Ann Dufffy

Pat Jacobs

Liz Maliphant Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley
All Nature Has A Feeling, John Clare

Leslie McLetchie Patron St. of Careless Cyclists, Maggie Butt

Foster Murphy Solitude, Thomas Transromer

Kathleen Mustoe

Paul Norris

Jan Ottley Drifting Off, Seamus Heaney
The Whitewashed Wall, Thomas hardy

Christine Pope Finding Dorothy Wordsworth, Myra Schneider

Adele Radelat If It’s Ever Spring, Thomas Hardy
Dream, Seigfried Sassoon

Mavis Robinson New Year’s Morning, Helen Hunt Jackson
At Tea, Thomas Hardy

Ruth Smith Atlas, UA Fanthorpe
The Table, Maurice Riordan

Anne Stewart Pigeons In Orto St Julien, Dorothy Yamamoto
Hoar Frost, Jenna Hewis

Anne Stooke Wild Swans at Coole, W.B. Yeats
Ducks, F.W. Harvey

Nola Turner Pakir by Fleur Adcock, Christine Webster

November and December Meetings 2020

Meeting of November 10th.

Attendance 16 + 1 guest. Topic: War Poets Ivor Gurney and Siegfried Sassoon

Even though we had probably studied the War poets during our schooldays, the raw power of their testament to the horrors of the First World War still leaves its mark. We could have looked at a number of poets who wrote during this period e.g. Wilfred Owen or Rupert Brooke but it was good to focus on just two. Both poets as it happened, were equally represented in our reading.

Meeting of November 24th.

Attendance 17. Topic: poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Today all three poets were equally represented in our readings. As usual, Lesley McLetchie contributed poems although she was not able to make an appearance on the Zoom app. We wish her better health in the future and hope she will be among us again.

It is becoming hard to imagine us all sitting together in the airy room at Ripley Arts Centre where we usually have our meetings and chatting over a cup of tea afterwards. Luckily there is still room for chat as we make time for it before the Zoom meeting starts.

Meeting of December 8th.

Attendance 17 Topic: High Jinks and the Fun Side

An excuse for high spirits with plenty of Edward Lear, Wendy Cope and also Anon. We look forward to returning on January 12th. with a session of ‘Open Choice’ which will give us a chance to look through our poetry collections or find poets whose work we have yet to enjoy.

Meeting of Oct. 27th. The Weather

Meeting of Oct. 27th. 2020 The Weather

Attendance 16 + 1 guest.

Given our climate, it was not surprising that out of the thirty poems read, eight were about rain. ‘The Banality of Rain’ by Wendy Klein, ‘Durham After the Rain’ by Rachel Burns and ‘London Rain’ by Louis Macneice were a fair sample.

Only two poems were specifically about sun and one of these was by the Australian poet Les Murray. The title of one poem by Peter Crowther was, ‘Don’t Mention The Weather’ highlighting the very English trait of starting a conversation with a comment about the weather.

Meeting of October 13th 2020 With Future Dates

This was our annual ‘Writers’ Portfolio Meeting,’ where the poets among us have an opportunity to share their work. This is published annually in a booklet compiled by Nola Turner. Members who also write poetry but do not belong the Writers’ Group are also encouraged to read a poem of their own. In memory of Jennie Milnes who belonged to the Writers’ Group, two of her poems were read by Jean Ellis. Members can buy a collection of Jennie’s poems entitled ‘Coming home,’ which Jean has put together in an attractive volume

Speaking of publication, we congratulate Anne Stewart who has a poem published in
‘Reflected Lights’ an anthology produced by Joy Howard’s Grey Hen Press.

Ruth Smith has had two poems published in ‘The North’ magazine.

Future dates for this term are :-

27th. October The Weather

10th. November Poems by Ivor Gurney and Siegfried Sassoon

24th. November Poems by Emily Dickinson, Edna St.

Vincent Millay and Elizabeth Bishop

8th. December High Jinks and The Fun Side