At Coate

Yesterday evening I finally caught a Swindon poetry event. They take place at the tiny Richard Jefferies Museum on the SE edge of town, a warm light in a rural darkness that survives nowhere else in Swindon. It's the ancient farm cottage where Richard Jefferies once lived. Every time I go there I imagine how much I'll enjoy reading his books one day, but that day has yet to come.

I'd assumed I was going to an open mic, but instead it turned out that this group was all about sharing the poetry we'd been reading recently. We sat round the big wooden table with mugs of tea, reaching for the plate of lebkuchen. We heard poems by Emily Dickinson, E.E. Cummings, Louis MacNeice, Ted Hughes, Norman MacCaig, Carolyn Kizer, Catherine Fisher and Shireen Madon. My contribution was a possibly-by-Shakespeare speech from The Spanish Tragedy. And we talked about The Craft, a newly published book about poetic forms; more specifically, we talked about the Terrance Hayes-out-of-Gwendolyn-Brooks "Golden Shovel" concept. A nice evening altogether.

There were a couple of poets' names that I missed while I was still getting settled. One poem I barely took in at all; my memory's blurry snapshot is of a balloon in a corridor -- and that's all. Another (about a winter tree -- a snowy field -- bare branches -- wheeling birds -- invisible paths of the departed) was a translation from German; the woman author had had some connection with the camps (survivor? victim? relative of victims?). Of course, I've spent more time thinking about those two irretrievable poems than the ones I can still get to if I want.

I suppose I read a bit of poetry most days, but it's rarely a huge amount. Nevertheless, I always dream of reading it all.

I couldn't find online texts of the Catherine Fisher poems "Solstice" and "On the Third Day", unfortunately. But here are the others that were read out. Along with Catherine Fisher, Shireen Madon was the big discovery for me.

Shireen Madon: "Dear Body"
https://www.rattle.com/dear-body-by-shireen-madon/
[Two other poems by Shireen Madon:
https://www.2river.org/2RView/15_1/poems/madon.html ]

Emily Dickinson: "Of course -- I prayed --"
http://bloggingdickinson.blogspot.com/2015/01/of-course-i-prayed.html
E.E. Cummings: "Buffalo Bill's"
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47244/buffalo-bill-s
Louis MacNeice: "Snow"
http://thestoneandthestar.blogspot.com/2011/11/louis-macneices-snow-poem-about-being.html
Norman MacCaig: "Sleet"
http://a-poem-a-day-project.blogspot.com/2015/12/sleet.html
Ted Hughes: "The Warm and the Cold"
https://allpoetry.com/The-Warm-and-the-Cold
Carolyn Kizer: "Reunion"
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/reunion/