POETRY CLUB READINGS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28821, 16 February 1959, Page 17

POETRY CLUB READINGS

St. Valentine’s Day Verses Members of the Christchurch Poetry Club, whose first meeting of the year fell on the eve of St. Valentine’s Day, took the opportunity of celebrating the event with a programme of appropriate verse. The choice of poems was appreciated by the audience, although it was clear that most of what was read applied to spring in the Northern Hemisphere. The poems described, in the traditional way, the beginning of love. As was fitting, the programme opened with the rondel from Chaucer’s “Parliament of Fowls.” This was followed by an extract from Spenser’s “Epithalamium” and a group of shorter pieces by Marlowe, Raleigh, Donne and Marvell. The Poetry Club then listened to an account of a celebrated proposal of marriage, this time expressed in prose. Mr de la Bere read, with admirable effect, a shortened version of Unele Toby’s fatal interview with the Widow Wadman. from Sterne’s “Tristram Shandy. Donne’s marriage song for the Princess Elizabeth was then read. By reason Of its intricacy the poem is hard to interpret to an audience; nevertheless the originality of the thought is rewarding, as was plainly shown last evening. It may be added that the suburban humours of John Betjeman’s verses, immediately afterwards, provided a startling contrast with what had just been heard. The principal readers were the president of the club, Mr J. C. W. de la Bere and Mrs de la Bere; Mr W. Hart-Smith and the Bev. P. W. D. Parr. —cxs.

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