Thanks so much to everyone who read at our open mic night on Thursday. We had cake, wine, crisps and readings from this splendid bunch:
Ben Doeh
Charlotte Geater
Christopher Jones
Dorian Van Braâm
Elizabeth Wenger
Eloise Stonborough
Geoffrey Lim
Geraldine Clarkson
James Lowe
Madeline Wright
Mark Mayes
Minoo Dinshaw
Nannette O’Brien
Paul Kelly
Peter Lomax
Richard O’Brien
Robert Rapoport
Ross Smith
Sammy Jay
Sean Hughes
Sophie McGrath
Stephen Bochonek
Will Davies
William Harris &
Yuan Yang
Only two weeks of term left now - don't forget MATTHEW HOLLIS on Thursday of 7th* and then DALJIT NAGRA** (!) the next week on Dec 4th, including the OUPS CHRISTMAS RAFFLE. Expect great things.
Also remember we're trying to collect a poem each from the people who read on Thursday so we can put them up here. Email me with your poems! - laura.marsh@chch.ox.ac.uk
*Nov 27th, the Pontigny Room at Teddy Hall, 8pm
**Dec 4th, Lecture Rm 1, Christ Church, 8pm
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Thursday, 20 November 2008
A Thought on Donald Rumsfeld
You remember that thing about known unknowns and unknown unknowns? No?
The Unknown (Donald Rumsfeld)
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
It sparked a whole genre of political found poetry.
"On Good and Evil" (Sarah Palin)
It is obvious to me
Who the good guys are in this one
And who the bad guys are.
The bad guys are the ones
Who say Israel is a stinking corpse,
And should be wiped off
The face of the earth.
That's not a good guy.
Okay, so here's my question: what about unknown knowns? Things we don't know we know, but nonetheless we know them. It's kind of like Proust says, "We possess all our memories, but not the faculty of recalling them... What, then, is a memory which we do not recall?"
The Unknown (Donald Rumsfeld)
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
It sparked a whole genre of political found poetry.
"On Good and Evil" (Sarah Palin)
It is obvious to me
Who the good guys are in this one
And who the bad guys are.
The bad guys are the ones
Who say Israel is a stinking corpse,
And should be wiped off
The face of the earth.
That's not a good guy.
Okay, so here's my question: what about unknown knowns? Things we don't know we know, but nonetheless we know them. It's kind of like Proust says, "We possess all our memories, but not the faculty of recalling them... What, then, is a memory which we do not recall?"
Wednesday Workshops
Executive Summary of this Post:
1. Free Workshop every Wednesday 8pm in the Mitre on High Street.
2. Look for the person in the photo (Tom), or a table with a poetry book on it.
3. Bring five to ten copies of your poem to read, so we can all have one.
4. Come, get feedback on your own work, and steal ideas from others!
As well as weekly readings on Thursdays, Poetry Society holds a free workshop every Wednesday which is open to everyone, whether or not you're a member. They are held at the Mitre, which is on the north side of the High Street on the corner with Turl Street. They start at 8pm. At these workshops, everyone brings a poem they have written or are working on, and reads it, and we talk about it a little bit. You don't even have to bring a poem if you don't want, you can just come and listen t what your peers are writing, and then criticise (or praise) them!
We hold it in the pub, despite some downsides, because (1) it's easy to find and no organisation is required to book it, (2) we want the evening to be totally informal, relaxed and unintimidating, and (3) we like to drink beer and even have the occasional ice-cream sundae. This does cause a slight problem: when you come to the Mitre at 8pm on a Wednesday, you need to know where Poetry Society is! Sometimes lots of people come, sometimes hardly any, so it's no use looking for a big group louldy declaiming verse, especially if you arrive on time (which you should do!) when we're unlikely to have actually started reading yet.
In order to solve this problem, we are instituting some SIGNS and GUIDES. Firstly, look at the photograph at the top of this post. That is me, Tom Cutterham (Society Treasurer). Either I or Ben Doehy (photo to appear shortly - he has curly hair!) will pretty much be there every week, so look out for us! Secondly, in case my face isn't handsomely memorable enough, I will be bringing some kind of poetry-related book along every week from now on, so look out for a table with a book on it! Most of the Mitre's clientele are pub-golfers and tourists, so except for guidebooks there's unlikely to be much other reading material around to confuse you.
I really hope this will make it easier for people to come. And you should, because it's a fun way to get feedback on poems you're working on, and to hear what other people in Oxford are doing. I promise everyone will be very friendly and you absolutely mustn't be embarrassed to come and read! There's one other thing you should know: please try to bring multiple copies (between five and ten, say) of the poem you want to read, so that everyone can look at it; that really helps.
Thanks,
Tom
1. Free Workshop every Wednesday 8pm in the Mitre on High Street.
2. Look for the person in the photo (Tom), or a table with a poetry book on it.
3. Bring five to ten copies of your poem to read, so we can all have one.
4. Come, get feedback on your own work, and steal ideas from others!
As well as weekly readings on Thursdays, Poetry Society holds a free workshop every Wednesday which is open to everyone, whether or not you're a member. They are held at the Mitre, which is on the north side of the High Street on the corner with Turl Street. They start at 8pm. At these workshops, everyone brings a poem they have written or are working on, and reads it, and we talk about it a little bit. You don't even have to bring a poem if you don't want, you can just come and listen t what your peers are writing, and then criticise (or praise) them!We hold it in the pub, despite some downsides, because (1) it's easy to find and no organisation is required to book it, (2) we want the evening to be totally informal, relaxed and unintimidating, and (3) we like to drink beer and even have the occasional ice-cream sundae. This does cause a slight problem: when you come to the Mitre at 8pm on a Wednesday, you need to know where Poetry Society is! Sometimes lots of people come, sometimes hardly any, so it's no use looking for a big group louldy declaiming verse, especially if you arrive on time (which you should do!) when we're unlikely to have actually started reading yet.
In order to solve this problem, we are instituting some SIGNS and GUIDES. Firstly, look at the photograph at the top of this post. That is me, Tom Cutterham (Society Treasurer). Either I or Ben Doehy (photo to appear shortly - he has curly hair!) will pretty much be there every week, so look out for us! Secondly, in case my face isn't handsomely memorable enough, I will be bringing some kind of poetry-related book along every week from now on, so look out for a table with a book on it! Most of the Mitre's clientele are pub-golfers and tourists, so except for guidebooks there's unlikely to be much other reading material around to confuse you.
I really hope this will make it easier for people to come. And you should, because it's a fun way to get feedback on poems you're working on, and to hear what other people in Oxford are doing. I promise everyone will be very friendly and you absolutely mustn't be embarrassed to come and read! There's one other thing you should know: please try to bring multiple copies (between five and ten, say) of the poem you want to read, so that everyone can look at it; that really helps.
Thanks,
Tom
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
A Reading from Geoffrey Hill
IX from The Triumph of Love
On chance occasions –
and others have observed this – you can see the wind,
as it moves, barely a separate thing,
the inner wall, the cell, of an hourglass, humming
vortices, bright particles in dissolution,
a roiling plug of sand picked up
as a small dancing funnel. It is how
the purest apprehension might appear
to take corporeal shape.
I love Hill’s sensitivity to the weight of words, how the mental (and real) tongue and ear lift and drop sounds, how the eyes imagine clusters and densities of letters, and attribute physicality to shifting speech particles. The aural-syntactical quality of this poem appeals to my ear, so I decided to record a vocal interpretation of it:
Click the title of this blog to hear it.
On chance occasions –
and others have observed this – you can see the wind,
as it moves, barely a separate thing,
the inner wall, the cell, of an hourglass, humming
vortices, bright particles in dissolution,
a roiling plug of sand picked up
as a small dancing funnel. It is how
the purest apprehension might appear
to take corporeal shape.
I love Hill’s sensitivity to the weight of words, how the mental (and real) tongue and ear lift and drop sounds, how the eyes imagine clusters and densities of letters, and attribute physicality to shifting speech particles. The aural-syntactical quality of this poem appeals to my ear, so I decided to record a vocal interpretation of it:
Click the title of this blog to hear it.
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Termcard
Hello poetic Oxonians!
This term we have a very exciting programme of readings planned:
WEEK 3 (30/10): Paul Farley (winner of Whitbread Award and twice a Forward Prize winner)
WEEK 4 (06/11): Todd Swift
WEEK 5 (13/11): Colette Bryce (winner of the National Poetry Competition in 2003)
WEEK 6 (20/11): Open Mic
WEEK 7 (27/11): Matthew Hollis (poetry editor at Faber and Faber)
WEEK 8 (04/12): Daljit Nagra (author of the acclaimed 'Look We Have Coming to Dover!')
The first of these will take place at Christ Church in Lecture Room 1 (actually a very cosy room despite the name) on Thursday 30th at 8.30pm. Free for members/ £3 to join on the night. Arrive between 8 and 8.30pm to get good seats/soak up the poetic atmosphere (there will be lots of this).
*
If you want to do some extra clicking, you can watch a video of Paul doing a tour of Tate Liverpool, talking about the Liverpool he grew up in and 1964 as "a pop cultural year zero" here:
http://mesn.museumpods.com/video/video/show?id=917795:Video:3056
or listen to him reading some of his poems at the wonderful Poetry Archive:
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=27
*
Hope you can make it!
Laura
p.s.
Find the event on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=14484989969
This term we have a very exciting programme of readings planned:
WEEK 3 (30/10): Paul Farley (winner of Whitbread Award and twice a Forward Prize winner)
WEEK 4 (06/11): Todd Swift
WEEK 5 (13/11): Colette Bryce (winner of the National Poetry Competition in 2003)
WEEK 6 (20/11): Open Mic
WEEK 7 (27/11): Matthew Hollis (poetry editor at Faber and Faber)
WEEK 8 (04/12): Daljit Nagra (author of the acclaimed 'Look We Have Coming to Dover!')
The first of these will take place at Christ Church in Lecture Room 1 (actually a very cosy room despite the name) on Thursday 30th at 8.30pm. Free for members/ £3 to join on the night. Arrive between 8 and 8.30pm to get good seats/soak up the poetic atmosphere (there will be lots of this).
*
If you want to do some extra clicking, you can watch a video of Paul doing a tour of Tate Liverpool, talking about the Liverpool he grew up in and 1964 as "a pop cultural year zero" here:
http://mesn.museumpods.com/video/video/show?id=917795:Video:3056
or listen to him reading some of his poems at the wonderful Poetry Archive:
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=27
*
Hope you can make it!
Laura
p.s.
Find the event on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=14484989969
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Roses are red, / violets are blue, / some poems rhyme...
My resolution for this term is to write more rhyming poetry. I thought, most of the poems I like most rhyme; so why doesn't the poetry I write? Well the first reason must be that it is so hard. But practice makes better! So that is my task - one poem every week that rhymes.
Trying to write something that rhymed made me realise that this means I have to take a little more account of form. This is something I don't know much about (I'm not an English student so hopefully that partially excuses me). I was therefore wondering if anyone had any suggestions about cool forms that I might try? Preferably fairly short, like less than fifty lines. Please tell me in the comments!
On the subject of forms, I love this self-referential poem (by Anthony Hecht? Or maybe not?), which once caused me a whole summer of attempting to write double dactyl poems:
Trying to write something that rhymed made me realise that this means I have to take a little more account of form. This is something I don't know much about (I'm not an English student so hopefully that partially excuses me). I was therefore wondering if anyone had any suggestions about cool forms that I might try? Preferably fairly short, like less than fifty lines. Please tell me in the comments!
On the subject of forms, I love this self-referential poem (by Anthony Hecht? Or maybe not?), which once caused me a whole summer of attempting to write double dactyl poems:
Higgledy-Piggledy
Dactyls in dimeter,
Verse form with choriambs
(Masculine rhyme):
One sentence (two stanzas)
Hexasyllabically
Challenges poets who
Don't have the time.
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
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