On the long road back to normality, we have passed another benchmark this week.  We resumed our lunchtime Poetry Group and were finally able to host another Poetry Workshop in the Church Centre, the first since early March 2020.  To our great delight, we welcomed a visiting poet, AngieD, who was born and bred in North London and Enfield.   She now lives in a town near Milton Keynes from where she drove over to enjoy some homemade soup before sharing a selection of her poetry with us. 

We were entertained as we listened to her poems, which covered a wide range of topics from a poetic list of annoyances entitled ‘It gets my goat’ to a reflection about when it is acceptable to tell a small lie ’To lie or not to lie’.  Angie explained that her light-hearted verses are aimed at making us smile and relieving stress.  She led a discussion about the purpose of poetry and how it is based around observations of everyday life.  She told us that she has notebooks full of jottings, particularly useful when the ideas come thick and fast.  Many of her poems are humorous, such as the poem on the topic of snoring: ‘Do I or not, that is the question?’ which, of course, everyone denies!  But her poems also address more sombre issues such as living through the hardships of the pandemic, and here is a serious topic with which we can all identify.

I reprint with her permission ‘Unwanted Quietness’, which identifies the uncanny emptiness that we remember so clearly from the first lockdown of 2020 when the world stopped in its tracks, we remained in our houses and we waited with bated breath to see what would happen next.

Unwanted Quietness

Looking through my window

All is so still

No construction noise

No faint shrill

Of birds returning

To a country so fair

All is so still

No buzz in the air

Looking through my window

There’s nothing so appealing

As that silence so loud

An eerie eerie feeling

Not a silence of peace

Not relaxed or serene

But a sense of fear

Never before seen

The trouble we’re in Lord

Only You can mend

And all over the world we’re praying

That you’ll have mercy and send

Blessings from above

And from on high descend

And heal all your people

Strangers, family and friends

From this which has surrounded

And confined us all

Please Oh Lord

Hear us as we call

Intervene we pray

Most earnestly

And cleanse our world from this dilemma

Lord please hear our plea.

Amen

(Reprinted from A Little Bit O’ This And A Little Bit O’ That by AngieD)

We particularly enjoyed Angie’s sense of humour and the way in which she interacted with her audience.  It was just what we needed to cheer us up on a rather overcast November afternoon.   Angie plans to support another poetry event next year at St Mary’s Banbury, so we await her return with eager anticipation.

Sarah Bourne, Chaplain for the Arts – 10^th Nov 2021           sarahbourne@banburystmary.org.uk