In a period such as this when one has not ordered any new books or records, it's possible to feel as bereft as the Wulf and Eadwacer poet, coming home knowing that nothing new is expected indoors, below the letterbox. Never mind, I'm sure September will bring plenty.
It's not that I need anything. Six Four is fine to drift through although I'm not yet compelled by it or its central position in the world vogue for noir. I did wonder whether to take another sabbatical from it in favour of Waterland, thus far a shameful omission, or History of the World in 101/2 Chapters. No, let's re-kindle the old stamina and determination of the 12 Hour cyclist and see this out, unless anything else demands attention more urgently.
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In fact September will bring Elizabeth Jennings by Dana Greene, which will, I trust, provide plenty of material with which to furnish an evening next March with the Portsmouth Poetry Society. Please see the new programme on the link over there >>>> once my technical department have uploaded it.
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Another presentation I might be offering will sadly be restricted to work colleagues only.
Long-standing readers - and thanks for being there if you are- may remember a couple of years ago a Learning At Work Day, held in a liberal enough spirit to include extra-curricular subjects, on which I presented an hour and a half on Latin for Beginners, which took us from the nominative and accusative cases and first conjugation verbs to Ovid and Catullus. Enthrallingly.
For this year's forthcoming day I have offered a few alternatives, the most promising of which might be Reading Poetry by which I mean a brief discusdsion, if anybody is bold enough to make it a discussion rather than a monologue, on what constitutes 'poetry' followed by a few poems to look at. I'm thinking four poems.
Edward Thomas is of local interest having lived not far from here. Adlestrop might not be as local as some but it's a sure-fire hit that nobody will miss the point of.
One is always aware of diversity issues in work although I tend not to find it necssary to worry. If you tell it how it is rather than make inane policy statements, you can't go wrong. As such, anybody would surely include Elizabeth Bishop in any list of paragon examples and looking at the vilanelle, One Art, would deal with lots of issues like autobiography, form, rhyme and how the fashion has changed from insistence on the text and the 'intentional fallacy' to something that considers the author, sometimes perhaps more than it needs to.
Also of local interest and a poet I could hardly leave out would be An Arundel Tomb. This might be a good place to reflect on two things that poetry is thought to do, hopefully both at the same time, which is say something profound and also be an artwork of interest in itself.
Which, if we have time for a fourth poem, leaves every other poem in the language as candidates to be it.
Perhaps we should do something earlier than C20th. Tennyson's of local interest. Perhaps we should do something earlier than that. Maybe even Wulf and Eadwacer itself. Or perhaps something C21st, Muldoon, Duffy, or something 'weird'. I have an idea what I'd like to do, which is recent and might illustrate the idea of 'objective correlative'. We'll see.