The Soho Leopard by Ruth Padel

1.    What was your favourite/least favourite poem? Why?

2.    Why do you think the book was divided into sections? Do the sections make sense?

3.    How did you feel about the collection overall? Did you like/dislike it? Why?

4.    Many of the poems are based on myths or stories – did you like this? Did they work as poems?

5.    Did you notice any particularly striking uses of simile/metaphor?

6.    Could you relate to the subject matter of the poems?

7.    Animals feature very strongly in this collection - did you have any favourite animal poems? Did you like the theme? Was it too much?

8.    Did you notice any particular moods or feelings within the writing?

9.    The book is very “wordy” did you like this rich language?

10. What did you think of the title poem? Did you like/dislike it? Why do you think it was the title poem?

11. Did you find the notes at the end of the book helpful?

12. Did you have any other thoughts about individual poems or the collection as a whole?

Kid by Simon Armitage

1. What was your favourite/least favourite poem? Why?
2.  How did you feel about the collection overall? Did you like/dislike it? Why?
3. Did you notice any particularly striking uses of simile/metaphor?
4. Could you relate to the subject matter of the poems?
5. How did you feel about the language used in the collection? Is it accessible?
6. There is quite a lot of humour in the collection – did you like/dislike this? Was it always successful?
7. There is a sequence about Robinson dotted through the collection, did you get a feeling as to the character of Robinson? What type of person was he? Do you think he is a type? Is he a character with universal attributes? Or is he perhaps based in part on the author?
8. There seems to be a sense of discontent within the collection – did you notice this? How did you feel about it? Did it seem to be related to one particular theme or was it more general?
9. Did you get much sense of the author or narrator from reading these poems?
10. Did you notice any recurring themes and ideas within the collection? 
11. How did you feel about the title poem?
12. What did you think was happening in the poem “Shrove Tuesday”?
13. Not the Furniture Game is a list poem – what is the cumulative effect of the statements in the list? What feeling do the statements give you about the character? Does the list give you a sense of the physical shape of the man an/or his emotional state? What effect do the final two stanzas have and would the poem be as effective without them? What sense did you get of the relationship between the he and the she in the poem?
14.  Who do you think the she is, who is referred to in “Lines though to have been Written…”?
15. What do you think is the mysterious thing that has happened in the poem “8 p.m. and Raining…”?
16. Eighteen Plays on Golfing as a Watchword pays homage to Wallace Stevens’ Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, do you see any similarities between the poems (apart from the numbering and the title)? Is it a successful poem? Is it ironic?
17. What did you think of the final poem in the collection “About His Person”? Did the list draw a picture of the character that owned them? What do you think happened to the character? Does the poem say anything about what we value or the meaning of life? Did it make you think about what might be found on your person?
18. Do you think Armitage’s job, as a parole officer is evident as an influence in this collection?
19. Would you seek out more of the author's work?

Grace – Esther Morgan

1)      What the main or recurring themes in this collection? Were there words or ideas that kept cropping up?

2)      In the title poem Grace what do you think it is that the narrator is waiting for?

3)      What do you think the poet means by Grace? Does the title poem and the collection as a whole fit with these ideas?

4)      There are several poems in the collection that are inspired by works of art – do these work well as stand-alone poems? Did you feel the need to look at the artwork? If so did this change or enhance your reading of the poem?

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

6)      Morgan mainly writes in two and three line stanzas – did you feel that this spare form suited the themes that she is writing about?

7)      There is a feeling of unexplored potential or of things not quite resolved in these poems – how did this make you feel? Did you want more resolution? Or were you happy to be left with a sense of unknowing?

8)      This collection has been described as being slightly bleak and religious in tone – would you agree with this?

9)      What was your impression of the collection as a whole? How did it make you feel? What do you remember most about it?

10)  Have you read any of Morgan’s other work? Would you seek it out having read Grace?

Ariel by Sylvia Plath

1)      What was your impression of the collection as a whole? Have you read it before/studied it? Did your impressions change or opinions differ on re-reading? Did you gain any new insights?

2)      How do you feel Plath depicts motherhood (in poems like “Morning Star”). Do you think she sees it as a positive or negative experience?

3)      Do you feel that the content and themes of these poems bears any relation or relevance to life today?

4)      Did you notice any particular images of the “feminine” in the poems - mythological women or women from history for instance? Robert Lowell stated that, in these poems, "almost everything we customarily think of as feminine is turned on its head"? Do you agree with this?

5)      Is it possible to read the collection without being influenced by what we know of Plath’s life and death? Or is this an integral part of understanding the collection?

6)      Death is a defining presence in the collection - in what guises does death appear?

Is death counter-balanced in any way with images of birth, rebirth or renewal?

7)      There are numerous allusions to Nazi brutality and the Holocaust, in "Lady Lazarus" and some other poems, are these justified? What do you think is their purpose?

8)      Is there a single poem that you think embodies Plaths’ poetic voice more than any other?

9)      Did you have a favourite/least favourite poem? Why?

10)  Images of illness, disintegration appear frequently within the collection - what is the overall effect of this? What impression does it give?

11)  Daddy is a character that appears several times in this collection - what do you think was Plath’s relationship to her father? Hughes said in “Birthday Letters” that "a god / That was not your [Plath's] father / Was a false god." Do you agree with this?

12)  Plath writes often about nature and the elements - do you think these poems are effective? Do they fit with her other themes?

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)

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?