The Meanest Flower – Mimi Khalvati

·         There are a lot of notes on individual poems at the back of the book. Did you look at these whilst you were reading the poems or afterwards? Do you think you needed these notes? Did they detract from your enjoyment of the book in any way?

·         Khalvati is obviously skilled at writing in traditional forms – using forms like ghazal, sonnet, sestina etc. Were there any cases where you felt that the form was a distraction from the subject matter of the poem? Or did you think that there was a good balance?

·         The title poem “The Meanest Flower” seems to be primarily about aging and the way the mind yearns to revisit childhood and is written using the metaphor of flowers – do you think that this works?

·         There are a large number of ghazals (pronounced guzzle!) in the collection – did you understand this form and why the author used it? Did you like/dislike it?

·         The theme of this book is flowers – do you think the author has approached this subject matter in a fresh way? Are the flower poems successful?

·         Are there any poems that you liked more/less than others? Why?

·         There are a lot of references to literature and authors in the collection (eg Shylock, Shelley, La boheme, Lorca etc) – does this add to/detract from the quality of the work? Is she trying to be too clever?

·         What do you think of Kalvati’s use of repetition and rhyme?

·         The poem “The Mediterranean of the Mind” is written in memory of the poet Michael Donaghy – did you find the poem moving? Did you understand why the author has included quotes from Lorca? Do you think these quotes are adding anything important to the poem?

Look We Have Coming to Dover by Daljit Nagra

page numbers refer to the Faber paperback edition.

1)      What did you think about the collection? Did you enjoy it? If not why not?

2)      Nagra has said that he was very aware of writing in “false” voices when he wrote this collection – in particular in voices of people who in reality would not be able to speak English, or who’s English would be very poor, instead of trying to translate them directly he has tried to capture the spirit of what they might say – how do you think this works? Is it convincing?

3)      Nagra has said that he tried to write the poem Singh Song (p51) as an Indian version of a British Music Hall song. Do you think he has achieved this?

4)      Nagra was born and raised in West London do you think he successfully portrays the problems of being brought up with two cultures?

5)      Bearing in mind that he was born in Britain is it problematical that he is writing in the voices of those born in India? Does he do this successfully? If not why not?

6)      Some of the poems (for example Kabba Questions the Ontology of Representation… (p42) and The Furtherance of Mr Bulram’s Education (p36) are laid out in quite unusual ways. Did you understand why they were laid out in this way? Did the form add or detract from the content of the poems?

7)      What do you think of the way that Nagra uses language in the poems?

8)      Does Nagra do anything to break down our stereotypical views of Indians in Britain or do his poems perpetuate them?

Karela  (p12) – also called bitter gourd or bitter melon is a tropical and sub-tropical vine grown in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean for its edible pod shaped fruit. It is one of the bitterest fruits known.

Ladoo or Laddu (p20) – is a sweet popular in South Asian countries.  It is often prepared for festivals and weddings.

Putney (p51) – in Punjabi this means wife.

Read a little of Daljit Nagra talking about the collection here: http://www.sheerpoetry.co.uk/gcse/daljit-nagra/singh-song

Rain - Don Paterson

This month's book is Rain by Don Paterson. Rain won the Forward poetry Prize for best collection in 2009, whilst the poem Love Poem For Natalie 'Tusja' Beridze won the Forward prize for best individual poem in 2008.  

Questions

The book contains some loose translations of other poets – Vallejo, Cavafy, Desnos, Machado, etc. How do you feel about these translations? – Should there be more indication that that is what they are?

Love Poem For Natalie 'Tusja' Beridze won the Forward Prize for best single poem in 2008. The poem has extremely long lines and uses a great deal of technical jargon – how did you feel about this? Was it accessible to the reader? Was it too dense/impenetrable? Why do you think it won the Forward prize?

The themes of loss and yearning run through the book (loss of his friend Michael Donaghy, loss of a child, yearning for a singer beyond his reach). How do you think Paterson deals with these themes? Could you relate to them?

Paterson uses a lot of rhyme in his poetry – how do you feel that he handled rhyme in this book? Did you like it? Did you feel it was overdone, just enough or would you have liked more?

What was your favourite/least favourite poem in the collection? Why?

What do you think of the way Paterson uses form – for example in Renku?

Notes on Poems

Love Poem For Natalie 'Tusja' Beridze  (p.17) – Natalie Beridze is a singer from Georgia (Eastern Europe)

Renku: My Last Thirty-five Deaths (p.22) – Renku is a Japanese form of linked verse poetry (usually collaborative) which was formerly known as haikai no renga. At renga gatherings poets would take it in turns to provide alternating verses of 17 syllables and 14 syllables. The poems initially were coarse and witty but later developed into Haiku.

Unfold (p.31) – Akira Yoshizawa (1911 – 2005) was considered to be the grandmaster of origami. He created over 50,000 models and wrote 18 books.

The Bathysphere (p.33) - A bathysphere is a spherical deep-sea 

submersible which is unpowered and is lowered into the ocean on a cable. (Wikipedia)

Parallax (p.38) - Parallax – is an apparent change in the direction of an object, caused by a change in observational position that provides a new line of sight. (The Online Free Dictionary)

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and Critical Theorist. Michael Longley is an Irish poet and was Professor of Poetry for Ireland (2007 – 2010).

The Poetry (p.43) – Li Po (701 – 762) is also known as Li Bo or Li Bai and was a major Chinese poet of the Chang Dynasty.

Sky Song (p.44) – Robert Desnos (1900 – 1945) was a French surrealist poet.

March Wind (p.45) – Salvatore Quasimodo (1901 – 1968) was an Italian poet who won The Nobel prize for Literature in 1959.

The Wind (p.46) – Antonio Machado (1875 – 1939) was a Spanish poet and a leader in the literary movement Generation of 98.

The Bowl Maker (p.48) - Constantine P. Cavafy was a Greek poet (1863 – 1933).

Miguel (p.49) - César Vallejo was a Peruvian poet (1892 – 1938). He is considered one of the great poetic innovators of the 20th century in any language.

 (the page references refer to the Faber and Faber hardback edition)

Book Group Notes for "Dart" by Alice Oswald

Discussion points for “Dart” by Alice Oswald

1)     What did you think about the form of the poem? Did you like it/dislike it? Would you have felt differently if it had been set out in a more conventional way?

2)     What did you notice about Oswald’s use of language?

3)     How did the writing make you feel?

4)     Did the book leave you with any overriding sense of place?

5)     Does the use of multiple voices within one long poem work? Did you find it easy to follow who was speaking?

6)     How did you find the mixture of real voice and fictional voice? Did this work? Could you tell which was which? Did it matter.

7)     Did the tiny subheadings work? Would they have been better as titles?

8)     Did you have a favourite/least favourite part of the poem?

9)     What did you think of Oswald’s use of rhyme? Did you notice it? Would you have like more/less?

10) What did you think about the length of the poem?

11) There are some short passages, which can only really be described as prose – did these fit in? Could they have been more poetic? Why do you think that she left them as prose?

12) How did you feel about the religious references? Did they fit with the overall tone of the book?

Difficult/unusual words

Clitters (p11) - make a shrill creaking noise by rubbing together special bodily structures (i.e. cricket’s legs)

Hylas (p12) – son of Hercules he was kidnapped by a nymph Dryope, he fell in love with the nymphs and stayed with them.

Salamacis (p12) – a naiad – the only nymph rapist in Greek mythology (she tried to rape Hermaphroditus).

Syrinx and Ligea (p18) – Syrinx was beautiful river nymph who was pursued by Pan, the gods heard her cries for help and turned her into a reed. Ligeia – one of the three nsirens who sang to the Argonauts.

Theodore Scwenke (p20) – Theodor Schwenk – an anthropologist and pioneering water researcher – wrote the book “Sensitive Chaos”.

Slammicking  (p21) – long limbed and ungainly.

Shrammed (p21) – shrivelled or huddled up with cold.

Bivvering (p21) – shaking and trembling

Scrudging (p33) – squeezing

Proteus (last page) – an early sea god – Homer calls him “Old Man of the Sea”.

If you liked Dart you might also like:

River – Ted Hughes

The Water Table – Philip Gross

Sleepwalk on the Severn – Alice Oswald

The Thing in the Gap Stone Stile – Alice Oswald

Wood Etc. – Alice Oswald

Weeds and Wild Flowers – Alice Oswald

The Wrecking Light - Robin Robertson (reading group resource)

The Wrecking Light – Robin Robertson

(These notes are by no means comprehensive - they are notes that I made to use with my own reading group, please feel free to use them and add to them - and let me know if you like them or spot any glaring errors)

Robertson, a native of northeastern Scotland, has said "I grew up with a very strong sense of place, in a landscape that seemed freighted with significance, mystery and power. Everything since has seemed a displacement, a deracination."

(Adam Newey, The Guardian)

deracinate - to remove or separate from a native environment or culture; especially : to remove the racial or ethnic characteristics or influences from.

Notes about the poems:


(page numbers refer to Picador paperback version)

By Clachan Bridge (p.6)  - Alasdair Roberts is a Scottish folk musician.

The Plague Year (p.9) - A Journal of the Plague Year is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in March 1722.

Strindberg in Berlin (p.20) - Johan August Strindberg (22 January 1849 – 14 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, and essayist.

Venery  (p.22) – practice of hunting game animals or the practice and pursuit of sexual pleasure.

Leaving St Kilda (p.25) St Kilda is the remotest part of the British Isles, west of Benbecula in Scotland's Outer Hebrides. 

Kalighat  (p.34) is a locality of Kolkata, India. One of the oldest neighbourhoods in South Kolkata, Kalighat is also densely populated and vibrant - with a rich history of cultural intermingling with the various foreign incursions into the area over time. It is also the name of a temple in this district.

(The word Calcutta derived from it)

Kalighat home for the dying is a hospice for the sick, destitute and dying established by Mother Theresa.

Pentheus and Dionysus (p.37) - Dionysus is the son of Zeus and Semele – he is the only god to have a mortal parent.

Pentheus banned the worship of the god Dionysus (his cousin) who was the son of his aunt Semele, and did not allow the women of Cadmeia to join in his rites.

An angered Dionysus who caused Pentheus' mother and his aunts, along with all the other women of Thebes, to rush to Mount Cithaeron in a bacchic frenzy. Because of this, Pentheus imprisoned Dionysus, but his chains fell off and the jail doors opened for him.

Dionysus then lured Pentheus out to spy on the rites. The daughters of Cadmus saw him in a tree and thought him to be a wild animal (a  mountain Lion). Pentheus was pulled down and torn limb from limb by them causing them to be exiled from Thebes.

The Daughters of Minyas (p.46) - Ovid Metamorphoses - THE MINYADES were daughters of King Minyas of Orkhomenos who scorned the worship of the god Dionysos by refusing to participate in his orgies. As punishment for their crime, the god inflicted them with madness causing them to dismember one of their sons and then transformed the three into bats and owls.

Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market (p.53) - Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) was the pen name of the Chilean poet and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda. He was exiled to Greece.

Albatross in Co. Antrim (p.57) - Charles Baudelaire (April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe.

The Great Midwinter Sacrifice, Uppsala (p.58) - Uppsala (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈɵpsɑːla]: older spelling Upsala) is the capital of Uppsala County and the fourth largest city of Sweden with 144,839 inhabitants.

Calling Home (p.72) - Tomas Tranströmer (born 15 April 1931 in Stockholm) is a Swedish writer, poet and translator, whose poetry has been deeply influential in Sweden, as well as around the world.  Tranströmer suffered from a stroke in 1990 which affected his speech and left him partially paralysed on his right side.

Ictus (p.73) - ictus, in music and conducting, the instant when a beat occurs.

ictus, in poetry, a way of indicating a stressed syllable.

The Unwritten Letter (p.74) - Eugenio Montale (October 12, 1896 — September 12, 1981) was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975.

During Dinner (p.76) - Santa Maddalena is a writers’ retreat, about 30km south east of Florence in the Tuscan hills. It has been the home of Beatrice Monti della Corte and her late husband, the writer Gregor von Rezzori, since the 1960s. Santa Maddalena’s mission is to support poets, writers of literary fiction and writers on botany. They do this by offering free writing retreats to selected authors.

Easter, Liguria (p.81) - Liguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and food.

At Roane Head (p.87) – John Burnside is a Scottish poet.

Roanhead – is a real place on the Cumbrian Coast.

Selkies (also known as silkies or selchies) are mythological creatures that are found in Faroese, Icelandic, Irish, and Scottish folklore.

Selkies are seals that can shed their skin to become humans. The legend apparently originated on the Orkney and Shetland Islands, where selch or selk(ie) is the Scots word for seal (from Old English seolh).

Selkies are able to become human by taking off their seal skins, and can return to seal form by putting it back on. Stories concerning selkies are generally romantic tragedies. Sometimes the human will not know that their lover is a selkie, and wakes to find them gone. Other times the human will hide the selkie's skin, thus preventing them from returning to seal form. A selkie can only make contact with one particular human for a short amount of time before they must return to the sea. 

There is a film about Selkies called “The Secret Of Roan Inish”

Words

Hirpling – limping (to hirple)

Chittering – shivering

Beglamoured – to impress or deceive with glamour.

Smoor – to suffocate or smother.

Questions (you can ask these when the conversation dries up - it helps get things going again)

• Does anyone have any thoughts on why the book is divided into three sections and what the titles of these sections might mean?

• How do you feel about the violent elements of the book? (for example in the poem “Law of the Island” a man is tied to a raft with fish on his eyes for the gannets to peck)

• Was there too much violence/just enough/too little?

• Several of the poems were retelling of the Greek Myths – how did you feel about these poems? Were they successful? Engaging?

• Robertson uses quite a lot of Scottish colloquial and unusual words – does this add to or detract from your enjoyment of the poems? Does it make the work less accessible?

• Does anyone have any opinion on the form of the poems?

• Robertson has addressed several of the poems to other people – did this add to or detract from your enjoyment of them? Did it make you feel differently about them?

• Some of the poems are new translations of or written in the style of other poets – would you have liked to have known more about the originals? 

• Does anyone have a particular favourite or poem they disliked? Why?

• The book is quite dark (some might say depressing) does anyone have any thoughts/opinions on this?

Why a Poetry Book Group

I had always liked the idea of book groups but had never really had the time to join one. This summer, however, our local Writer's Centre set up a book group for the summer called "Summer Reads" - I went along and really enjoyed it. 

Then I got to thinking why wasn't there something like that for poetry. I am a poet but I have always read poetry, right from when I was a child. It is surprising though how many people never read poetry. Many of my friends say they would like to read more but they don't know where to begin. The more I thought about it, the more appealing the idea was. Why not have a poetry book group - not just a group for writers of poetry - but for anyone who wants to read? A group where we come together and discuss the content of the poems - the seed was sown and I started the group but I soon discovered that although there was lots of material on the internet for prose reading groups, the resources for poetry groups was sparse. I decided to do some research and devise my own resource material and that is what you will find here. Feel free to use it for your own book group...