Responding to a request from the group, in this session we thought about those often unexpected moments where things change – we understand something perhaps, or are moved to deep feelings, or we are shocked or hurt by the impact of another’s words or by an action or event in the world.
Our first poem was a sonnet by William Wordsworth, ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802’.
Even though Wordsworth is often ambivalent or concerned about the hustle of city life, in this poem he looks at London at daybreak from a bridge whose location remains the same today, and is moved by its grandeur and wonder.
Earth has not any thing to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Changing direction then, we next considered a viscerally-powerful poem by the American poet Ruth Stone, called ‘The Wound’. We talked about the ways in which this poem captures different scenarios, such as receiving a devastating medical diagnosis, or the hurtful words of a friend or loved one, and how in each case, words can sow a seed that can develop and fester and struggle to heal.
Opinion was then divided about our third poem, ‘The Telephone Call’ by Fleur Adcock. We considered how it asked us to think honestly about how we value experiences in comparison to money or material things, but we also worried about the motif of trickery and of lack of agency in the poem, not just because of the idea of the lottery of life but also because the poem describes a deliberate act of leading callers astray. We did think though too about how our attitudes towards and relationships with telephones have changed since the poem was written over 20 years ago and also about the speakers wonderful imaginative capacities.
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