Maggot by Paul Muldoon

1)      What do you think were the main recurring themes in this collection? How does the poet handled these themes?

2)      This book has been described in reviews as “rich and grim” with poems “like fairground rides.” Do you think that these are accurate analogies? In what ways are the poems rich or grim?

3)      Muldoon lives in America – can you see the influence of American culture in this collection? Can you discern the influence of his Irish background in his writing?

4)      Did you notice the use of particular forms or sound patterns, rhyme schemes? How do these patterns affect your reading of the poems?

5)      Could you see any patterns and connections between the poems in the collection?

6)      This book has been described as “an experimental bestiary” (Laura Marsh) – how did animals feature in the collection?

7)      Maggot is punctuated by longer sequence poems. These poems are less concrete and more abstract than some of the other poems in the collection – were these poems accessible to the reader? Did you connect with these poems?

8)      Some of the poems in the collection have direct or indirect references to cancer – how do you feel Muldoon handles this subject? How does it compare to other poet’s handling of the subject (i.e. Jo Shapcott’s Of Mutability)?

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

10)  In her review for Voyager Sarah Bennett refers to the frequency of casual sexual references throughout the collection – did you notice these references? Did they bother you?

11)  Did you feel like you had to do “research” to fully understand all the references? Did this add to or detract from your reading experience? Did you feel that the collection would have benefitted from a glossary?

12)  It has been said that “the philosophical meaning” of these poems “may be hard for the casual reader to discern.” (Lesley McDowell, The Independent) Would you agree/disagree with this statement?

13)  Muldoon has been described as “an allusive and riddling poet” and some of the poems in this collection have an almost Lear like quality to their language – do you think meaning is sacrificed for the quality of sound? Does this matter?

Of Mutability by Jo Shapcott

1. Jo Shapcott has said that the presiding spirit in this collection is that of the artist Helen Chadwick. Did you see her influence in the collection beyond the poem “Piss Flower? 
2. What did you think were the main or recurring themes in the collection? 
3. The poem “Piss Flower” is inspired by a work of art by artist Helen Chadwick – do you think the poem works as a stand-alone poem or do you need to be familiar with the artwork? Why do you think that he author chose this as the last poem in the collection? 
4. One of the themes of the collection is that of Shapcott’s diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer – how did you feel that the author dealt with this difficult topic? Did you find these poems depressing or uplifting? How did they make you feel?
5. The title poem “Of Mutability” takes its title from an artwork by Helen Chadwick and also takes as its inspiration the sonnet “Mutability” by Shelley. The poem is about the author’s diagnosis of cancer (although it doesn't mention it directly). Were all these themes and influences evident on reading the poem? Do we, as readers, need to know what influenced the poem? 
6. Shapcott never refers to her cancer directly – does this matter? How do you feel about the power of understatement in poetry – is it a useful too? Does it make the work any more or less powerful or affecting? 
7. What was your favourite/least favourite poem in the collection? Why? 
8. It has been said that Shapcott’s writing is very tightly controlled – would you agree with this? Did you enjoy the author’s style of writing? 
9. Would you recommend this collection to someone who was ill? 
10. The poem “Night Flight to Muncaster” addresses the reader directly and asks us to imagine that we are an owl flying over the land to the sea. Did you like/dislike this device? Why? Does it work? 

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?

Fiere by Jackie Kay

1)      Fiere was written as a companion piece or counterpart to Kay’s memoir Red Dust Road, do you think you needed to know this? Did it work as a stand-alone collection?

2)      Many of the poems in the collection are about her experiences of finding her birth parents – did you feel any emotional connection with the writer and her quest?

3)      The two major themes of this collection are friendship and connectedness – how did you feel that the author handled these themes? Did you feel any sense of recognition or affinity to the poems and the way that these subjects were addressed? Did these poems ring true?

4)      What was your overall impression of the collection as a whole? Did you like/dislike it? Why?

5)      Did you understand the Scot’s dialect used in some of the poems?

6)      Did you use the glossary at the back of the book whilst reading or look at it afterwards? Did using the glossary effect your enjoyment of the book? Would you have preferred these definitions as footnotes?

7)      What do you think was the reason for putting the glossary at the back?

8)      What did you think of Kay’s use of rhyme? Did you notice it?

9)      Did you notice any particular use of poetic forms?

10)  What was your opinion of the Fiere sequence? Why do you think the poems were spread out rather than all together? Did this work or would they have been better together? Why?

Birthday Letters – Ted Hughes

1)      The poems in the collection are in chronological order (the order that events happened) as opposed to the order in which Hughes might have written them. What effect does this ordering have on the collection? Does it enrich the experience in any way? Does it make sense?

2)      Who is the subject of these poems? Did it feel like they were all about the same person?

3)      What sense did you get about the “I”, the narrator of the poems? How did you feel about him? Did you like him/dislike him? Did he feel real/human? Did you feel sympathy for him? What were his failings?

4)      What was the overall tone of the book? How did it make you feel? Was the tone too light, too heavy or about right?

5)      How did the writing make you feel about the person they were about? Did you think she was treated fairly/unfairly? Did you feel differently about her by the end?

6)      Were you able to separate the collection from what you already knew about Plath and Hughes and their relationship? Does the collection work without prior knowledge of what happened?

7)      Hughes uses language and references to Plath’s language and poetry throughout the collection (moon, Yew tree etc.) Did you need to know this? Does prior knowledge of Plath’s work add extra depth to the work or did you find the reference annoying?

8)      It feels like almost every poem in the collection is coloured by the death to come – how did you feel about this? Were the many references to death to heavy, jarring? Did you want less of them or more? Do you think that in light of what happened that Hughes was reading too much into everyday occurrence and behaviour – imbuing them with some deeper significance that might not have been there?

9)      Hughes makes many references to Plath’s Americanness (“Fulbright Scholars,” “Your Paris,” “Stubbing  Wharfe”), what significance do you think he attaches to it? How does it contrast with his Englishness?  Do the poems set in America differ from the ones set in Europe?

10)  How does Hughes use animals within the collection? (“Sam,” “The Owl,” “The Chipmunk,” “9 Willow Street,” “The 59th Bear,” “Epiphany,” “The Rabbit Catcher,” “The Dogs Are Eating Your Mother”).  What do the different animals symbolise?

11)  Did you notice the allusions to any other writers in the poems?  Donne  (“18 Rugby Street), ”Shakespeare (“A Pink Wool Knitted Dress,”  “Setebos”)  Chaucer  (“St. Botolph’s,” “Chaucer”)  and Emily Brontë  (“Wuthering Heights”) as well as to Plath’s own poems. What function do these references serve?  Does knowing the work s alluded to deepen your understanding of these poems in any way? Does it make Hughes’s poems any more or less accessible?

12)  Hughes makes reference to oracles and portents in several of the poems (e.g. Ouija board, horoscopes etc). What purpose (if any) are these serving in the narrative?

13)  Does Hughes intimate that what happened to Plath was unavoidable? Did you feel like he took any responsibility?

14)  What was your overall feeling about the collection? Did you like or dislike it? Why?

15)  What was your favourite/ least favourite poem? Why?   

The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin

1)      What was the overall tone/mood of the collection?

2)      Thinking about the title poem “The Whitsun Weddings” – who is the speaker in the poem? What is your impression of the speaker? How would you describe his attitude to what he sees? Did the layout and the stanza breaks add anything to your reading of the poem?

3)      What function do you think Mr Bleaney performs in the poem Mr Bleaney?

4)      What impression did you get of Larkin’s views of humanity? Marriage?

5)      What was your favourite/least favourite poem? Why?

6)      Did you notice anything about the forms of the poems or the rhyme schemes?

7)      How did you feel about Larkin’s use of language?

8)      What do you think Larkin was trying to achieve in the poem about the shop “The Large Cool Store”? Are the shop and the clothes it sells analogies for something else?

9)      Did you notice any pre-occupations or emerging themes within the collection?

10)  Poems like “The Whitsun weddings” and “Nothing to be Said” give a sense of changing ways of life and the passing of time, how life ultimately leads to death – do you think Larkin does this effectively? Are lines like “Life is a slow dying” too melodramatic?

11)  Does the collection give away anything about the writer’s state of mind?

12)  Did you enjoy the collection as a whole? What did you particularly like/dislike about it? Did the order of poems work for you? 

13)  Larkin is widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century – would you agree with this? Why?

The Water Table by Philip Gross

1.      Gross lays many of the poems out in unusual or irregular form (e.g. Amphora and The grounds). Did you understand why he chose each particular form? Do you think these poems are successful? Did you think that it worked better for some poems than others? Which (if any) did you think were more/less successful?

2.      Who or what did you think First Dog was in the poem First Things?

3.      The poem To Build a Bridge is a villanelle; did you notice any other traditional forms amongst the poems? Why do you think Gross chose a villanelle for this particular subject matter?

4.      There is a sequence called Betweenland that is spread out through the book – would you have  rather seen these poems together or do you think they work better spread out? Did you enjoy the sequence?Why? What was the gist of the sequence? Did you understand why the poems were connected?

5.      Gross often mixes the colloquial with the scientific e.g. "we've punched clean into heaven: snow- // dazzle plains of stratocumulus around us, the paleo-arctic…(Ice Man Dreaming); do you think this works? Did you like it?

6.      The Water Table won the prestigious T.S. Eliot Prize in 2009, do you think it was a good choice? Why?

Glossary

Jeremy Hooker  (Stilt City) – an English poet who lived for eleven years in Wales.

Amphora - An amphora (plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of vase-shaped ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body. 

Visigoth (The Presence) - A member of the western Goths that invaded the Roman Empire in the fourth century a.d. and settled in France and Spain.

Gillian Clarke (Globe) – a Welsh poet and playwright.

The Rosetta Stone (Thinks Bubble) – an ancient Egytian piece of granite inscribed with words in two languages – Egyptian and Greek.

Petroglyphs – rock engravings.