A lively day

[sheenaghpugh]

For the first time, on Tuesday, I read at a Poetry Live! event at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff). These are all-day events organised for A-level and AS-level students where they get to hear poets on their syllabus actually read the stuff they're studying. They also ask questions and hear people from the examining board talk about the best way to prepare for the exams.

That might sound dire, but actually they were really enthusiastic (I suppose a day out of school is always welcome). The main auditorium of that theatre is a hell of an impressive place and going out on the stage to hear 1600 people yell enthusiastically in the expectation of being entertained is a thing that doesn't happen very often to poets.

Things that stuck in the memory:

• meeting the Indian poet Imtiaz Dharker. She's very handsome, and wore gorgeous silver jewellery from Bombay (yes I know the BBC calls it Mumbai but all the people I know who live there or come from there insist it's Bombay). But she was also one of nature's motherly types; she'd gravitated to being in charge of the tea and coffee and was making everyone feel at home backstage.
  
• the foolishness of the theatre management in compelling the kids, on a day of uncertain autumn weather, to eat their lunchtime sandwiches outside in case they made a mess. Ever heard of vacuum cleaners, lads? This is your potential audience you're making unwelcome here - silly, silly.
  
• finding out about some of the weirder questions that get asked (not that day, thank god). One poet had been asked "Do you know Jesus is your personal saviour?" - to which I think the only possible answer would be "You hum it and I'll play it". Another evidently disaffected brat had once asked "Why are poems so boring?" (I think I'd have had to quote my granny; only boring people are ever bored).
  
• meeting my daughter afterwards and going to the Norwegian Church for lunch (ie cake). It was one of their better days, when you gaze at dark and white chocolate tarts, lemon meringue, Victoria sponge, chocolate and raspberry roulade, drool, drool, and wonder what on earth you are going to choose.

Fortunately it is now possible to walk across the Cardiff Bay barrage afterwards and counteract some of the calories.

Comments

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

They sound like really good events. I know I'd have loved something like that as a student, but it's good to hear that the day can work well for the poets, as well.

And being able to add cake onto the end is a real bonus!

[sheenaghpugh]

I know I'd have loved something like that as a student

It's certainly an argument for studying living writers. i let students ask questions via my web site and one once remarked that she preferred me to Jane Austen because Jane wasn't ever going to answer email:)

I trust you had plenty of cake in Edinburgh, a good town for it IIRC.

If you're ever in the West Country, specifically Bristol, Bath or Exeter, there's a nice tea shop chain called the Boston Tea Party that does heavenly orange loaf cake...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

to which I think the only possible answer would be "You hum it and I'll play it"

Or "Who wrote it?" :-)

That lunch place sounds wonderful.

I've been meaning to ask about poetry punctuation. Why does each line start with a capital even when it's the middle of a sentence or phrase? Is this just a convention, or does it make the pacing of a recitation easier? I am also sometimes puzzled about breaks between verses in some poems, often within sentences or thoughts. Is this to keep the reader on the hop, to provide phrasing again, or even to give a visually attractive structure? I freely admit my ignorance in the poem gallery.

[sheenaghpugh]

Why does each line start with a capital even when it's the middle of a sentence or phrase?

They often don't, now. It was a convention but many modern poets use caps exactly where prose would.

Line and verse breaks can have all sorts of rationales (and sometimes none) I've just got back from an all-day job and am not thinking straight but tomorrow I'll do a proper post about them.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thank you; I'd appreciate that.

I'd use normal caps in a poem (and have, in the few haiku I've written). It just seems more logical.