The next book we will be considering is Alice Oswald’s Woods etc. (Tuesday 29 July at Blackwell bookshop, Percy Street, Newcastle – just around the corner from Northern Stage, and next to Campus Coffee.)
Oswald’s background in classics and gardening informs her confident and original poetry. Her work has won many prizes and in 2004 she was named as one of the Poetry Society’s ‘Next Generation’ poets. Woods etc (Faber, 2005) is her third collection – preceded by The Thing in the Gap-stone Stile (OUP, 1996) and Dart (Faber, 2002). All her poems are rooted in the natural world and illuminated with an almost pantheistic spiritual awareness.
Her subjects are the elements – sea, trees, stones and sky – and how human beings make a life for themselves alongside them. The voice is lyrical, playful and celebratory, imbued with a taut balance of fragility and strength.
You might like to look at these poems in particular:
Wood Not Yet Out
A Winged Seed
Danaides
Ideogram for Green
Poem for Carrying a Baby out of Hospital
Hymn to Iris
River
The mud-spattered recollections of a woman who lived her life backwards
Come along on a summer’s evening and discover the delights of this refreshing and inspiring poet.
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!
