POETRY GROUP
Our intrepid poetry lovers fought their way through the searing heat of a Barnard Castle morning to meet at Group HQ and discuss “Birds”.
Maya Angelou
The song of the caged bird is deceptive.
It is not a sign of happiness but a cry for freedom:
And his tune is heard
on the distant hill.
For the caged bird
sings of freedom.
In The Yellowhammer’s Nest John Clare sensitively describes the overwhelming detail of a rural scene
and the destruction of a yellowhammer’s nest by a snake:
For snakes are known with chill and deadly coil
to watch such nests and seize the helpless young
….leaving a houseless home, a ruined nest.
Mary Oliver Wild Geese
Urges us to be ourselves like the wild geese:
You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft
animal of your body
love what it loves”…
Meg Peacocke
Warns against thinking of birds as metaphor, or subordinate:
Kestrel, small, masterful falcon; I’d have you
Nothing beyond yourself. Let me not see you
as symbol, no minion your shoulder
on the tilting air, never the posture
of a servant before his lord.
Brian Turner describes birds bathing:
A conflagration of birds feasting, fighting and bathing
in their personal lake.
Should it matter that an artist is not a nice person?
Does that invalidate their art? Ted Hughes survived two toxic relationships and wrote some poetry of unflinching honesty:
Thrushes
Terrifying are the attent, sleek thrushes on the lawn
Triggered to stirrings beyond sense - with a start,
a bounce, a stab
Overtake the instant and drag out some writhing thing.
Thomas Hardy The Darkling Thrush:
In a full hearted evensong
of joy illimited
an aged thrush frail, gaunt and small,
in blast beruffled plume
had chosen thus to fling his soul
upon the growing gloom.
To end with a bit of Silliness:
Christopher Isherwood:
The common cormorant or shag
lays eggs inside a paper bag.
The reason you will see no doubt
is to keep the lightning out.
But what these unobservant birds
have never noticed is that herds
of wandering bears may come with buns
and steal the bags to hold the crumbs.
Next month our band of sans culottes will man the barricades on Galgate
and plot The Overthrow Of The System…
(theme - “Revolution”)