After a tip off from
A-Little Bird, I booked a ticket and went to see Seamus Heaney, among others, read some of their poems at the Southbank Centre on Wednesday night. I don't read poetry all that often, but go through phases of dipping into old favourites such as Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes (so difficult to be interested in one of the latter two, without the other).
Rightly or wrongly, my mind seems to be forever connected by some kind of thread to clothes - one of my favourite Ted Hughes poems is an incredibly touching recollection of his wedding day to Plath
'A Pink Wool Knitted Dress'. Coincidentally, on Wednesday night I particularly enjoyed Michael Longley's reading of his poem about rediscovering the pattern for his wife's wedding dress -
The Pattern. Another highlight and in the same vein was another of Longley's,
The Linen Industry. The poem describes fields nearby Longley's home in Ireland being covered with lengths of raw linen drying in the sun.
Time to get myself to a bookshop. I would particularly like to re-read Heaney, as he was the star of the show by far.
I think this might be my first ever post that doesn't entirely revolve around images. So here are a couple for those who couldn't be bothered to read any of the above:
Who knew such a volume of verse existed?! For sale now, on Shepherd's Bush Green
And the beautiful cover of Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters, (painted by Hughes' daughter, Frida) that I am always stealing from the bookshelves in the living room.
