Episode 3
Ruth Padel works with a group of poets who meet at Stalybridge Station buffet bar, testing their poems as they go, in a spirit of supportive criticism; tough love for poems.
Ruth Padel works with a group of poets who meet at Stalybridge Station buffet bar in Manchester. Testing their poems as they go, in a spirit of supportive criticism; tough love for poems.
Poetry Workshops are gathering all over the country. In the back rooms of pubs like this one, and in libraries and in front rooms, poets meet to sharpen their verse.
Ruth and the group work on three very different poems on the theme of 'journeys' - both symbolic and actual. One poem takes us to Zante via Watford Gap, one considers perspective and scale from on high, whilst another has a much darker tone. The group will pay particular attention this week to metaphor.
The group consider the use of metaphor in their poems that are touching, funny and perceptive. Ruthless support is applied as they chuck out each other's words and test and prune as they go.
They discuss the techniques, inspiration, wordplay and imagination that make poetry so enjoyable and rewarding. As well as working on their own poems, they also consider a poem by Carol Ann Duffy called Close.
Producer: Sarah Langan.
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I Heart Watford Gap by Rachel Davies
Your tee-shirt says 鈥業 鈥榟eart鈥� Zante鈥� and on the back
鈥業n Zante without panties鈥�
听
and I think of the trip we took after our exam results,
driving at speed in boyfriends鈥� cars
along the new M1 to Watford Gap services
for a frothy coffee, feeding the jukebox
and Lesley Gore singing 鈥業t鈥檚 My Party鈥�
and the boys calling us their birds and us
preening our feathers and chirping to be fed,
how we used to before we read de Bauvoir
and Greer, before we burned our bras
听
and I smile to think of a sixties tee shirt saying
鈥業 鈥榟eart鈥� Watford Gap鈥� but that was how we
cut the umbilical cord, severed the school tie,
travelled from schoolgirl to student as you鈥檙e doing now
so I know where you鈥檙e coming from
and I read your slogan not as a creed but as a cover up
for the myth of the sexual revolution.
听
But hey, it鈥檚 your party now.
In Flight by Joyce Reed
The river can take its time.
From above, lazy, washing field margins
in stillness of aircraft flight.
听
And farms, flattened in patterned lanes
with minutiae of dotted stock.
听
The river takes its time,
in no hurry to achieve the estuary
we shall not see.听 But then
an edge of land, shattered,
resisting the ocean that we do not hear.
听
And the ribbon wakes of boats and ships
frothing the sea with its flattened waves.
听
Maybe they see us taking our time,
brushing the canvas sky 鈥�
a contrail already erased
from where we distantly began.
Missed by Rod Whitworth
The first thing to go missing was the beat.
The engine skipped and then stopped
in the middle of the sandy road.
听
The next thing to go missing was the breath.
Hot and airless atmosphere
(if that鈥檚 not an oxymoron)
vacuumed life from lungs.
听
The next thing to go missing was me.
听
So who the hell鈥檚 telling this story,
this death valley serenade?
听
It must be you
or him
or her
or maybe it鈥檚 them:
the chorus.
You know.
They鈥檙e always there
putting in their two pennorthBroadcasts
- Sun 18 Nov 2012 16:30麻豆社 Radio 4
- Sat 24 Nov 2012 23:30麻豆社 Radio 4
