The Poem's the Thing

The second visits to The Poem's the Thing in Kirkwall and Stromness last week saw us looking at three poems about pigs Why? I hear you ask!

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. WN Herbert's latest book of poetry had just come in to the library. It's called Omnesia and as I was flicking through it a poem Facts About Pigs caught my eye. Aha, I thought, I know other poems about pigs. There's Ted Hughes's View of a Pig and Les Murray's Pigs. That'll do. 

WN Herbert

A very diverting discussion ensued. Which poet got under the crackling to view the pig from the pig's point of view? Which was distancing himself from the pig - and from something else - death, perhaps? What about the relationship between humans and pigs? Hard to say anything but, Awhh, to the picture above. My colleague Louise found it and posted it on the Orkney Library & Archive facebook page. But the poems we read were somewhat darker, though not without humour. 

Ted Hughes

But to go back to the original question, why pigs. Without really thinking it through, was I trying to demonstrate that poetry can be about ANYTHING? Possibly.

Les Murray

So what could we follow the pig poems with? Seagull, anyone? We read Edwin Morgan's Gull, a chilling, spine tingling poem about a gull landing on the poet's window sill.

... He eyed my furniture, my plants, an apple.

   Perhaps he was a mutation, a supergull.

   Perhaps he was, instead, a visitation

   which only used that tight firm forward body

   to bring the waste and dread of open waters,

   foundered voyages, matchless predators,

   into a dry room. I knew nothing ...

Edwin Morgan

A scary gull for sure and much admired in the group. A cousin perhaps of this bold thief?

We also read Kathleen Jamie's poem, The Longhouse. You can read it here. 

... This is what happens.
This is why we loosed our grip and fled

like the wind-driven smoke
from the single lum
in the crooked roof that covers
both women and beasts, a roof
low and broken like a cry

It was a sombre set of poems, I guess! But the discussion was far from sombre. 

Kathleen Jamie

  

In Stromness we ended our discussion 

of the pig poems with one member's reading

of DH Lawrence's poem Snake. 

A suitably intense end to an interesting and

engaging discussion. 

Check out the Scottish Poetry Library's excellent
website for information about Scottish poets and
poetry. 

Reeling & Writhing with Orkney Reader

Alice with the Mock Turtle & the Gryphon

It's turned out a busy week for yours truly. Reeling and Writhing seems to describe it fairly accurately. As the Mock Turtle said to Alice, when she asked what he learned at school: 

'Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with ... and then the different branches of Arithmetic--Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'

I know how he feels! 

A busy week, but all good things, I hasten to add.

Alice in Wonderland came to mind because I've been asked to take part in an event on Thursday with Glasgow Women's Library in their soon-to-be premises in Bridgeton, Glasgow, to talk along with Magi Gibson, their Reader in Residence, and Wendy Kirk, their Librarian, about books that changed our lives. 

Alice in Wonderland is one I have loved since before I could read - not perhaps for the best of reasons: I thought the book was called Alison Wonderland and was about a fellow Alison! It was influential for me though, when I eventually did read it, because it showed me how much I could identify with a character in a book; how much I could go through Alice's experiences with her, worry when she worried, feel sad when she was sad, happy and defiant when she found the courage to stand up to the strange, unsettling creatures she found around her and survive her unnerving adventures intact.

Magi and I will be speaking about one work of fiction, one of poetry and one non-fiction that have resonated strongly with us at different points in our lives.

Yesterday, Monday the 11th March, I appeared on BBC Radio Scotland's Book Cafe to talk about my involvement with Glasgow Women's Library's 21 Revolutions with authors Louise Welsh and Denise Mina. Still haven't heard it myself, but I believe it is on again on Sunday 17 March at 3.02 pm.

Louise Welsh

Denise Mina

Tomorrow we have the second meetings of the two new poetry reading groups:

The Poem's the Thing 

The afternoon one meets in Kirkwall Library from 1.00-2.00 pm and the evening one in Stromness Library from 6.00-7.00 pm.

Last month, it being the eve of Valentine's Day, we read Carol Ann Duffy's poem, Valentine; and because it was near the anniversary of the death of Sylvia Plath, we read Mad Girl's Love Song, which is also the title of the latest biography of Plath. And we read The Overhaul, the title poem of Kathleen Jamie's new collection, winner of the Costa poetry prize and shortlisted for the TS Eliot prize. You can download a PDF of it and two other poems from the collection by clicking the link in the line above.

Kathleen Jamie

Tomorrow we'll read - ah, well, come along and see!  As a clue, let me quote Winston Churchill:

'I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.'

(Just noticed that 'equals' is an anagram of 'squeal'!)