March 2015

#poetryread

Poetry is the expression of intense emotion – pain, love, longing, joy. Poetry can be visual, natural or man-made, as well as literary – spouted by beret-wearing, disaffected youth. Whatever emotion you want to explore, there is some poetry to help you plumb the depths, reach the heights and fill the breadth of emotional experience.

 

Revisit the classics, Shakespeare’s sonnets (swoon), Scotland’s favourite son, Robbie Burns or the poetry of the Great War with Owen and Sassoon. Or relive your childhood through the rhymes (sometimes revolting) of Roald Dahl, Pam Ayres, Dr Seuss and All Right Vegemite.

 

Songs are poetry to music so consider a concert or your playlists on iTunes as #poetryread, and watching fits the theme, too, with the poetry of landscape paintings and photography.

 

Poetry can be beautifully esoteric, but need not be; limericks are easily understood! It need not be bite sized, either, with novels in verse, such as those by Dorothy Porter or Stephen Herrick and many novelists use hauntingly poetic language. You can find many poems within novels, too, in Tolkien and Possession.

 

You can make your own poetry with the spines of books from your bookshelf, with Lego or the old favourite, fridge magnets.

However you do poetry, join in the discussion this month.

 

There will be a #poetryread twitter discussion on 31 March starting at 8.00pm Australian Eastern Daylight Savings (Summer) Time. 9.00pm New Zealand Time, 6.00pm Singapore Standard Time, 12.00 noon Central European Summer Time, 9am – 11am; 2pm – 4pm; 6pm – 8pm BST. Note this is a staggered discussion.  Use the tags #poetryread and #rwpchat as you discuss #poetryread reading, watching playing so others can join in the conversation.