Meeting Notes 2025
Social evening
This was a lively and enjoyable meeting. There was a warm welcome as always and a whole-hearted engagement with the reading of favourite poems. There were 8 MVPs present – 4 online and 4 in person. There were three rounds of readings interspersed with two presentations on aspects of the writing life. Readings included 'Making Peace' by Denise Levertov and 'Let There Be Peace' by Lemn Sissay, 'Snow' and 'Profusion' by Simon Armitage, 'Wind' by Ted Hughes, 'Green Bee-Eater' by Pascale Petit and 'Painting might be better' by Diana Webb as well as 'The Journey of the Magi' by TS Eliot and 'Everyone Sang' by Siegfried Sassoon. There were lines that sank into the soul.
Notes by Helen Overell.
Don't sit down in the first room – Exploring beyond our boundaries. Presented by Richard Lister
In the session on 'Exploring beyond our boundaries' we looked at both the value of boundaries and of travelling beyond them. 'Growth happens when you dare to push boundaries and explore uncharted territory' Shivani on threads.net. We discussed three examples 1) EE Cummings; 2) moving from free verse to a concrete form and 3) moving from free verse to a sonnet form. These conversations provided a springboard for exploratory exercises.
Notes by Richard Lister.
'All nature has a feeling' : a portrait of John Clare. Presented by Sue Lewis
The story of John Clare, who was born in 1793 to poor country people who were almost illiterate, is an extraordinary and moving one. Largely self-taught and self-made, he eventually succeeded in getting his poetry published and was in vogue for a while as The Northampton Peasant Poet. Largely forgotten at his death, he is considered now as one of the finest of the English Romantic nature poets.
He was devastated by the impact of the Enclosures Act on the land he loved and which had inspired much of his beautifully vivid nature poetry. He was eventually committed to the Northampton Lunatic Asylum where he spent the last 23 years of his life. Yet still he wrote his poetry: the session finished with his poignant last poem 'I am', which was written there.
Notes by Sue Lewis.
Haibun workshop: In a Different Light. Presented by Diana Webb
Diana led an interesting and insightful haibun workshop 'In a Different Light'. The title was inspired by views of the Houses of Parliament painted by Monet. A haibun consists of prose and one or more haiku and has a title. The combination of prose and haiku needs to meld together, move the reader and be musical. We read some haibun including work by Salil Chaturvedi and looked at haibun-like poems including work by Colette Bryce. We were invited to write in response to various prompts as well as to works of art by Claude Monet, John Constable and George Frederick Watts. We considered aspects of creativity including thoughts from Hildegard of Bingen and Albert Einstein and the way these can transform the world.
Notes by Helen Overell.
Eavan Boland – Changing the story. Presented by Liz Barton
This was an enlightening introduction to the work of Eavan Boland who searched for the inner authority to write as a woman and spoke of the need to change the past so as to change ourselves. Her poems include concrete domestic details and draw on Greek myth and on the political landscape.
Notes by Helen Overell.
Wilderness. Presented by Mark Boor
A presentation that was inspired by the MVP Wild Poet Walks, and the reflection that in recent years there has been a codifying of the "power" of nature for physical and mental health – but also the soul. Something that artists, writers, and poets have known for years, with wilderness and nature an inspiration for generations.
Exploring how different poets, including Kathleen Raine, Edna St Vincent Millay, Robert Graves and Charles Bukowski used wilderness or nature in a way that was not a nature poem, but as the organising creative thought. A broad sweep of themes and approaches were considered, from how wilderness can give power to personal emotions, how one sees oneself, to give meaning and connection and used to reframe well known stories.
Notes by Mark Boor.
Inspired by Dickinson: On Hope, Feathered and Otherwise. Presented by Paul Fallon
Hope is one of those words that arrives already worn down, already stained with greeting-card sentiment or political misuse. But when Emily Dickinson writes of it, she makes it strange again.
The purpose of the project was to investigate: how do modern American poets speak of hope? After the upheavals and reckonings, after grief has sat beside us long enough to leave marks. Is hope still feathered? Is it still song? And if so, what kind?
We discussed specific poems by Tracy K Smith, Kay Ryan, Natalie Diaz and Lucille Clifton. Some sang with Dickinson. Some contradicted her. Some buried the bird entirely and built something more human, more bodily, more defiant in its place. Each has its own take on listening – for hope – a sound that keeps going.
Notes by Paul Fallon.
Rose Garden poetry reading
In a special collaboration with the National Trust, Mole Valley Poets shared poems about, or inspired by, roses in all their glory on the West Lawn at Polesden Lacey. The first of these readings took place out of doors and as the weather was somewhat inclement, the second reading was held indoors. There were 7 MVPs taking part.
Notes by Helen Overell.
Picnics and Poems at the Friends Meeting House
Picnics and Poems, a collaboration between Circular Dorking, the Quakers, the Narnia group, Guerrilla Poets and Mole Valley Poets took place in the beautiful surroundings of Dorking's Friends Meeting House and Gardens. This was a welcome opportunity to relax and listen to poetry on a lovely sunny afternoon. There were eight readers of whom three were MVPs.
Notes by Helen Overell.
Refuge Poetry readings and open mic at Leith Hill Place
Leith Hill Place, a Georgian house in a beautiful setting in the Surrey hills, was once the home of Vaughan Williams. The event began with an introduction by Catherine McCusker who gave us a fascinating talk about the history of the house and her plans for an artistic future. The readings were held in a room with a magnificent view over the hills. There were 9 MVPs as well as representations from other writing groups. This was a most enjoyable event.
Notes by Helen Overell.
Donald Davie. Presented by Tony Earnshaw
We looked at the life and work of Donald Davie (1922 – 1995), expert on the work and influence of Ezra Pound, critical apologist for the 'movement', defining poet-critic of his generation and prolific poet.
Poems considered included examples of his religious poetry,
'Do you believe in a God
who can change the course of events
on earth?'
'No, just
the ordinary one'
love poetry, and poems about his parents and Barnsley, where he grew up – noting the influence of his Yorkshire Baptist upbringing and his development over his long writing life.
Notes by Tony Earnshaw.
Public Event: Sofa Poet. Presented by Robert Hampson
It was good to welcome Robert Hampson – there were 12 people altogether including 9 MVPs and two visitors. In the first part of the evening Robert Hampson read from his work. This included commemorative 3 line stanzas, poems in response to safety announcements while travelling by plane and odes based on material gathered and scrutinised during the Covid lockdown. In the second part of the evening we were invited to use cut-outs from the newspaper or magazine articles we had brought with us so as to combine text from two sources. These lines could then form the basis of a poem. This gave rise to a lively and interesting discussion.
Notes by Helen Overell.
Public Event: Summer School: Birdsong. Presented by Helen Overell
The Summer School was held in-person at the Dorking Quaker Meeting House and there were seven people in total. We considered the theme 'Birdsong' and read poems by Siegfried Sassoon, Mary Oliver, Pascale Petit, Emily Dickinson and Seamus Heaney as well as four poems by Helen Overell. The writing exercises included responses to listening to a bird singing and to imagining what it might be like to be a bird. There was the opportunity to share what had been written and there were images of 'the song that fills my heart', 'rising on great wingbeats', 'moments that matter to me' and 'musical shadows along the hedgerows'.
Notes by Helen Overell.
Poems for National Poetry Day at Leith Hill Place
Our open mic event took place in the lovely setting of Leith Hill Place in anticipation of National Poetry Day on the first Thursday of October, the theme this year being 'Play'. Simon Edmunds was Master of Ceremonies. There were 8 MVPs together with 5 representatives from other local writing groups. The theme was addressed in a variety of ways from childhood skipping games to play as a means of making palatable difficult situations.
Notes by Helen Overell.
Time. Presented by Tony Marcoff
Tony spoke about the passage of time: how we experience it, how it behaves, and what it may amount to. He showed how 'The Wild Swans at Coole' by Yeats manifested a Japanese aesthetic (Yugen – or 'mysterious beauty') learned from Ezra Pound, and also skilfully expressed the tense-structure of experience; the way past, present and future are bound up in our lives. Tony continued with analysis of a haiku, and then introduced a book by R S Thomas, 'Counterpoint', which the poet laid out according to the linear model of time in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. He pointed out another dimension within this, that of 'figura', a foreshadowing of things in ways that link events otherwise separated by great periods of sacred history.
In Eliot's 'Four Quartets', which deals primarily with the nature of time, Tony focussed on 'the still point at the centre of the turning world'. After a heart-felt Thomas Hardy poem which lamented the brutal effects of ageing, and after looking at Messiaen's 'Quartet for the End of Time', a work inspired by the book of 'Revelation' in 'the Bible', and written while the composer was a prisoner of the Germans, Tony went on to read Allen Curnow's 'Time' (Curnow was a NZ poet), and then Takahashi's 'Beach Rainbow', a poem which demonstrated the poet's mastery of Zen.
Wordsworth's concept of 'spots of time' (from 'The Prelude') was equated with 'the haiku moment', moments of special significance which stand out from our lives, and which can generate poetry. Haiku and tanka and much about Chinese and Japanese beliefs and poetics were shared by Tony, as he told the group how tanka had become the way in which he now sings the world. Now is a moment in the time it takes to sing. And the Japanese concept of 'ukiyo' (the Floating World), concerns 'living in the moment'.
He then summarised Hesse's 'Siddhartha', an account of a spiritual quest for truth, and quoted a passage in which it is said that for a river, there is no time; for a river is everywhere at once – in the rapids, in the waterfall, at its source, in the mountains, in the sea, all at the same time. Tony concluded with a passionate reading from Eliot's 'Four Quartets', but not before he said that like Siddhartha, he too had (in a quiet way) been learning to 'listen to the river', for the last 30 years of his life. He finished with this recent tanka:
dawn
a swan appears on the water
like a pink cloud
it is everywhere & nowhere
time to let the river sing
Notes by Tony Marcoff.
Public Event: Poetry Pub.
Thank you to everyone who took part in Poetry Pub – there was a good atmosphere and there were many and varied poems. There were 32 people altogether made up of MVPs, loyal supporters, representatives from Arts Alive together with new faces. There were 19 readers in total of whom 14 were MVPs. Thank you to Tony Earnshaw who organised the readers and especial thanks to Liz Barton, the editor of the Mole Valley Poets Silver Jubilee Anthology 2025 'Otherworlds'. In his Oxford lecture The Redress of Poetry, Seamus Heaney argued that poetry can act as a counterweight to the pressures of reality, providing a glimpsed alternative, a revelation of potential. In the first half, there were readings from the anthology, speaking to our world and beyond, as well as from other work. In the second half there were fewer readers, each reading one poem.
Notes by Helen Overell.
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