Firstly, apologies to Robert Alabaster who should have been accredited the author of last month’s report.
This month’s theme was REVOLUTION! - a tricky one for which to resource material. It called for thinking outside of the cake tin! Interestingly, a disproportionate number of findings were in the form of song, that great conduit for protest.
We started with Annus Mirabilis, Philip Larkin’s lament that the sexual revolution “Between the end of the Chatterley ban/ And the Beatles’ first LP…” that came too late for him. You can hear it spoken by Larkin here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ll3XXPOW_k
Two poems about the fight against slavery in the USA followed: the first a marching song of African-American soldiers from the Civil War, credited to Bob Dylan (the music) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KHDWpnDjg, the second a poem written by Eloise Greenfield about the courageous Harriet Tubman and her work to bring slaves to freedom in the North.
Who knew that Robert Frost could be a bit of a wag? Well here is proof in his satirical verse A Semi-Revolution. The trouble with a total revolution?/ (Ask any reputable Rosicrucian)/ Is that it brings the same class up on top…” (you’ll need to look up Rosicrucian to get it). Prayer for Revolutionary Love by Denise Levertov needs thinking about, but knowing something of Levertov’s personal story of radical activism that took precedence over her relationships gives some clarity.
How incredible is the voice and passion of Dick Gaughan? Hearing him sing The World Turned Upside Down by Leon Rosselson took me back to Whitby Folk Festival in the early eighties when Gaughan would not leave an eye dry in the house. Play it on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFLTtyY6hc4.
Two poems from Russia 1917 – the Bolshevik Revolution – show the bitterness of two women poets: the first What Have We Done To it? by Zinaida Gippius who abandoned the country and the second Green Island by Anna Akhmatova who berates those who left.
Our spirits thoroughly laid low with the misery of it all, Roger McGough came to the rescue with his fabulous poem At lunchtime. A story of love. This gave rise to a fantasy of re-enactment by the bus-pass fraternity on the Scarlet Band out of Barnard Castle where a sudden application of the brakes might lead to close encounters of an amorous kind that can only happen if you think the world is going to end at lunchtime. This was very cheering.
Annie Clouston