Shore Poets

Rob and Colin have both posted on this already. It was my first visit to the event, and I seem to have chosen a good night. The event included the Mark Ogle Memorial Poem More about it on this clickable link.

I enjoyed the evening, I particularly liked Jacob Polley's first poem, I think it was called Smoke. In it he brilliantly captures the detail of clearing and laying an open fire. I especially liked his line about carrying the dust pan almost reverentially so as not to disturb the fine ash.

You'll see from the details on the Mark Ogle Memorial poem that the choice for this year was English Rain, and the commissioned poem in response to it was about Uist rain. The incongruous thing about the Shore Poets is that it is held in a Thai restaurant and the room has four carved pillars completely smothered in elephants. I wrote this draft poem about the evening when I got home..........


Shore Poets at the Mai Thai

Shore Poets at the Mai Thai

Four pillars carved with elephants,
each trunk a curve caressed. Wrinkled
hides that surely know the silky touch
of river mud, the monsoon sting of rain.
Tented ears flicked forward to catch

the soft smirr of summer English rain
on greenwood and five-bar meadow
gate, the drum and thrum of Hebridean
rain, blown in on a westerly gale
to bubble and boil in hooped

and banded butt. And soon the whole
room is filled to overflowing with love
and friendship, life and loss.