If I should dye, think only this of me…..
Yes, Calcutt Poetry Group’s August session was on the theme of Colour.
DH Lawrence’s ‘Almond Trees’ sets a scene that’s dark, cold and hard out of which, with a surge of the life-force, emerges the triumphant pink almond blossom, blood red at the core.
The US poet Kimiko Hahn’s ‘Jack-in-the-pulpit’ – purple turning to red – references a William Carlos Williams poem ‘Queen Anne’s Lace’, which was also read. Each describes a common plant, which in Williams’ poem seems to be compared with a woman whose skin is ‘not so white’ as the flower.
David Aldred’s ‘Vermilion’ was a riot of bloody imagery.
Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Colour’ has the form of a folk song and indeed is said to be based on one.
In ‘Degas: Woman combing’, R S Thomas compliments – and complements – the painting with its browns, blues and greens.
Gerald Manley Hopkins ‘Pied Beauty’ never fails to amaze. Its wordplay is anything but straightforward, yet the images leap out so vividly.
The ‘Correspondances’ in Baudelaire’s poem from Les Fleurs du Mal are links between colours, perfumes and sounds – synaesthesia. Compare translations for their adherence to its rhyme scheme.
In ‘Vowels’, Rimbaud’s surrealist flights of fancy see each vowel as a colour.
In ‘Red Geranium and Godly Mignonette’, D H Lawrence considers that not even God could have deliberately imagined and created the sensual red of geranium and scent of mignonette.
George Macbeth’s Red Herring is just that, but entertaining nevertheless.
Our own Tonia Bowden’s ‘Locked in Syndrome‘ spoke of the mind wandering free during the physical restrictions, allowing memories to flood back.
Other short colour poems suggested are ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’ (William Carlos Williams), ‘Green’ (D H Lawrence), and ‘Blue Coffee’ (Adrian Mitchell).
Finally, all four attendees read their poetic responses to a challenge – ‘Cross words‘ – issued at the last meeting. Click on the titles to read their poems: ‘Actress in grey‘, ‘Homage to the homonym‘, ‘A sunset’, and ‘The Ballad of Corduroy Roy‘.