Our poetry topic is either a free choice or the works of a particular poet, or poems on a theme, decided on the month before.

We bring some photo-copies to share as it is helpful to look at the poems as well as hear them.

We range from the high to the low-brow; from Shakespeare's sonnets to the poetry of Pam Ayres, and enjoy some lively discussion.

Our August Meeting

^{Our chosen poet for August was William Blake, largely unrecognized during his lifetime being considered "mad" by most of his contemporaries. Born at the outset of the Industrial Revolution in humble circumstances, Blake aspired to become a watercolour painter but through poverty was apprenticed to an engraver by which he earned his livelihood. Blake is now known as a major visionary poet, one of the "Big Six" English Romantic poets, famed for his lyric poems from Songs Of innocence and Of Experience such as The Lamb and The Tyger. Subjects chosen by Blake ranged from prophecies to religious and social satire with poems commenting on poverty, child labour (the chimney sweep poems), racial inequality, and the hypocrisy of the church. Aided by his loving wife Catherine Boucher, he produced his own illuminated books of poetry but died poor and isolated. A memorial was eventually erected in 1957 in Westminster Abbey.}