Once again Chapters Bookshop kindly hosted a Seven Towers reading at 6.30pm. These evening readings are monthly, 3rd Thursday. The theme was ‘Autumn’ and the weather obliged by clearing up and providing a clear sunny day. O’Connell Street looked a lot better than last time (see my post for Wed 2nd Sept.) and everyone felt a bit cheerier.
Such is the influence of the weather! Ross Hattaway read from his collection ‘The Gentle Art of Rotting’ (published by Seven Towers) and some new work including another tanka (‘Black and Tanka’), a form he is experimenting with at the moment.
He also read a poem by a recent guest at Cassidy’s Bar in Westmoreland Street, Lynne Knight from San Francisco. ‘De Kooning’s Woman’ (that’s the name of the poem, not a description of Lynne!) is from her latest collection ‘Again’.
Bob Shakeshaft obliged with, among others, an untitled poem which included the very apt Autumn line ‘… where hoarded gold is amongst the trees’: spot-on for today’s theme.
Bernie O’Reilly read from her collection ‘Gentle Touch’ and Eoin Hegarty read, amongst other poems, a series of three short pieces (‘Rain’, ‘Rock’, ‘The Old Plant’) on the theme of Autumn.
All these poets appeal to me in with their economic use of words. I am also very attracted to other forms (like Rap poetry, for instance) which overflow with stunning imagery and cascades of intricate, rhymed phrases.
But I still prefer the ‘weighted’ delivery. I subscribe to the idea that too many adjectives can weaken the power of the noun. On this occasion I did MC and read a few of my own and finished off with Keats’s ‘To Autumn’. He wrote it 190 years ago this month and died a year and a half later, just 26 years old. Read this wonderful poem at http://www.everypoet.com
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