A young Zoe reading poetry at the Young Arts Centre
I have always believed that poetry is primarily a spoken art. It certainly is for me and has always been. My mother told me that I composed poetry before I knew how to write it down and the same is true of poetry historically or should I say prehistorically.
I still like to see the poem on the page and indeed usually buy a book if I have enjoyed a reading, but listening to a good reader of poetry can be an awesome and illuminating experience. Alas not all poets know how to read well. A good reader will reveal the poem's structure and music, giving it another dimension.
Now that I am back on the poetry scene, I have started reading to audiences again. The other day at Buzzwords, Anna Saunders complemented me on how I read and I replied that I learned young. Last Friday I went to Alison Brackenbury's party to launch her new book Gallop*, where we met up with an old friend, Christine Whittemore. Both Christine and I read in the open mic and frankly you could tell that we both had been trained in reading. When I say "trained", I don't mean taught in the conventional way. We both went to Cheltenham's Young Arts Centre, where we were active members of the EOS poetry group. Every year the group would put on at least two public poetry readings. Those readings would include our own poems and those of famous poets. I don't recall being taught how to read or project my voice, but then the Centre's director, Elizabeth Webster, was a teacher with such skill you weren't aware that you were learning from her.
When I moved to London, I started reading with Michael Horovitz's Grandchildren of Albion crowd, which included some amazing poet readers. And now here I am again reading and loving it. Anna has asked me to read at next year's Cheltenham Poetry Festival. I am so looking forward to it. You can hear me reading four poems here.
*Alison is an excellent reader and Gallop, a selection of some of the best poems over her long career, should be on everyone's Christmas list. There is currently a discount on it on Carcanet's website: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781784106959
