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| Fin whale jaw at Clachtoll in Assynt, Scotland |
We marked UNESCO World Poetry Day last night with a reading event at the University of Suffolk, attended by students and local (and not-so-local) poets. Suffolk Poetry Society hosted the evening, and our guest readers were members of Poetrywivenhoe. Huge thanks are due to those who organised the event, providing refreshments, amplification and so much more.
Our theme, 'the natural world', produced poems on edgelands, coastlines (including a magical depiction of the essence of low tide from Pam Job) - and wildlife along railway tracks. There were seasonal references and a few slant-allusions to climate change and conservation initiatives. Subjects ranged from a female eel-catcher (Alex Toms) to a view from the train of the iconic swans at Manningtree (David).
I bought a copy of Ornith-ology from the book table. This beautiful anthology of birds in poetry and art was edited by Tim Cunningham for Poetrywivenhoe and the Mosaic stanza. M.W. Bewick, one of the Wivenhoe readers, brought copies of three Dunlin Press books, including his striking poetry collection, Scarecrow, which has just been launched.
I read a couple of my poems, 'Moonshine', about the appearance of a Snowy Owl in Cornwall in 2009, and 'Notes from a Netting Station' about the fin whale bone in the photo above that lies, rotting, in the north of Scotland, near the old salmon netting station at Clachtoll in Assynt.
Poetry gatherings often find their own organic themes when no theme is proffered, but I felt the subject last night provided a sufficiently wide canvas to allow plenty of scope for interpretation, while, at the same time, making us feel we were travelling together on a journey of discovery.
'Nature is ever at work...' John Muir
