Poetic People (14): Peter Thabit Jones, Kristine Doll, August Bover

I went to a wonderful workshop at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea this morning. It was chaired by Swansea poet, Peter Thabit Jones, editor of The Seventh Quarry. Kristine Doll from the USA, and August Bover from Catalonia led us through the fascinating process of writing Haiku 俳句, and Tanka 短歌 about animals. We were introduced to Concrete Poetry and to poetry in which the shape on the page and the sound of the words fused in a kind of melodic unity.

I am still working on my pieces, but the subjects of my poems were:

• frogs (Basho would have approved, I think)
• dolphins
• cats

It was fascinating to learn a little about Spanish poetry, and perhaps particularly to listen to the musicality of the language. It was also good to have the chance to think about syllables, rhyme (or no rhyme), the place and power of emotion, adjectives (or few adjectives), Open Field poetry and many other items in the poet's kit-bag.

We touched on the work of a number of poets including Vicente Huidobro (from Chile), Les Murray (from Australia), Gavin Ewart, Helen Vendler and Charles Olson (from USA).

Thank you to David Woolley of the Dylan Thomas Centre, to Peter, Kristine and August for a thought-provoking, stimulating and thoroughly enjoyable morning.