Poetry Club

Poetry Club Bellingham

Hosted by Ron Leatherbarrow, retired poetry professor, 4th Sat, 10-12, at a Bellingham café. Classic poetry discussed, original poetry read.

Facebook Group Site: https://www.facebook.com/Poetryclubbellingham/

After taking Ron’s Intro to Poetry class Spring quarter I fell in love with this kind, intelligent, antidote-filled instructor.  I’m not the only one.  I organized a Saturday morning coffee follow-up with the other students and Ron; just a one day get-together.  Ron suggested, “How about people bring their own poetry to read, we can discuss a classic poem and maybe meet once a month.  Do you think people would like to do that?”  YES.

Poetry Club is now in it’s third month.  This is how easy it is to start a group.  If you are a writer who is looking for people who also suffer the affliction to write, start a group!  Make it open and public, hold it in a cafe, coffee house, book store, some place with nibbles & drinks. Set rules about giving constructive feedback and let participants know straight up that a “bully” will not be tolerated.  Create a “safe space.”  Writing and sharing is intimate.  Don’t underestimate the power of community!  Plant the seed, water it, and let it grow!

Here are the classic poems we will discuss for December:

 

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim
Fresh-firecoal chestnut falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change;
Praise him.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89)

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

The shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
–Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)