Our mood was dampened by John’s absence, particularly as he had suggested the tricky theme of ‘Moods’. However, the first poem, Rumi’s ‘The guest house’ (translated by Coleman Barks) – which two members had chosen – raised our spirits with its inspiring positivity. It teaches us to respond disarmingly to the aggressive moods of others.
Another poem inviting us to embrace difficulties comes somewhat unexpectedly from the experimental poet Guillaume Apollinaire, in translation by Christopher Logue – ‘Come to the edge’.
This engendered an inconclusive discussion about the definition of Symbolism. We certainly couldn’t find an apt metaphor to explain it, so further investigation is required.
Wendell Berry in ‘The peace of wild things’ finds nature is a simple antidote to a mood of anxiety. Strikingly, the poet feels above him in the daytime sky the ‘day-blind’ stars.
The wild things are anything but peaceful in Walt Whitman’s ‘Patroling Barnegat’. The mood is tense, in the vivid depiction of a dramatically stormy night with sailors in peril. In typical Whitman style we get a breathless list or procession of present participles. In similar fashion, though contrasting mood of joyousness, is Whitman’s ‘We two boys together clinging’ which I hope to read on another occasion.
In TS Eliot’s ‘The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, from which we had a short extract, the protagonist’s mood seems to be of disconnection and lack of self-confidence. The landmark modernist poem contains many memorable and quotable lines which we enjoyed re-visiting.
The extraordinary ‘Snow’ by Louis MacNeice has been read before in our session on the theme of ‘House and home’. It recalls Gerard Manley Hopkins in its exuberance, alliteration and jarring juxtapositions. Though there are rhymes, they are oddly irregular. The mood perhaps is one of wonder.
MacNeice’s ‘The sunlight on the garden’ suggests a mood of resignation and is said to reflect the portentous atmosphere of the 1930s. Its highly technical scheme of end rhymes and internal rhymes is immediately apparent. The reference to ‘We are dying, Egypt, dying’ echoes Antony’s words in Shakespeare’s play.
Another short poem featuring light effects: The beginning of Emily Dickinson’s ‘There’s a certain slant of light…’ is a simple observation of the natural world, but the poet sees in it mysterious and threatening signs.
The mood of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 is perhaps rueful, dealing as the poem does with inevitable decline into death and extinction, and the melancholy but vivid image of winter trees as ‘bare ruin’d choirs’, which naturally also featured in our session on ‘Trees’.
In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Frost at midnight’ the little flickers of the dying fire recall the similar image of past youth in the Shakespeare sonnet. The mood is at first melancholy as the poet recalls his constrained childhood, but then optimistic for the more sensitive upbringing of his one child.
Edna St Vincent Millay’s ‘Time does not bring relief’ is an exquisite expression of sadness and loss. It features an interesting hybrid of classical sonnet rhyme schemes.
We heard a Welsh 17c poem ‘Hiraeth’ (‘The longing’) hauntingly sung by David to a melody of his own. Hiraeth is a specially Welsh feeling of nostalgia for the homeland, and as in the Millay poem, the mood is of painful loss.
Two Great War poems express a similar mood of desperation leavened with black humour; Siegfried Sassoon’s ‘Stand-to: Good Friday morning’ and Isaac Rosenberg’s ‘The Immortals’.
We heard a poem by KW Gransden, evoking a mood of dark thoughts.
Lavinia Greenlaw in ‘The break’ seems to be describing the poet’s conflicted feelings about how she is dealing with a serious illness. A reference to doctors as gods calls to mind an Ann Sexton poem that we heard in last month’s session on Uniforms.
With Roger McGough’s villanelle ‘A joy to be old’, a clue to its mood is in the title, but the joy is surely more than a little ironic. The comic rhymes, nevertheless, are truly joyful.
From an old newspaper clipping we heard the same poet’s funeral tribute to his father-in-law, George Clough, sometime JP and mayor of Knaresborough. The mood is appropriately affectionate and celebratory of a West Riding worthy.
Lovely encapsulation of the evening Chris! (as always).
A really enjoyable selection of poems. My favourites were ‘Sunlight on the Garden’ and Millay’s ‘ Time does not bring Relief’. David’s rendition of the old welsh poem was hauntingly beautiful as well. Best wishes to John and thanks once again to Chris for his organisation and first class accounts of our literary get-togethers.
Ken