Report+from+2014+Poetry+Group



Can reading poetry to each other and then analyzing the poems be classed as fun? Yes – our U3A poetry appreciation group had a lot of fun. We laughed at the nonsense poems, of which there were many, and we took other poems very seriously. The course was divided into three periods, the first being the ‘Romantic Period’ (18th century) where we read and discussed the poems of Percy Shelley, William Wordsworth, John Keats, William Blake and Lord Byron. Then came the second period, the ‘Victorian Age’ (19th century). Here we read and discussed the poems of Alfred Tennyson, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the nonsense poems of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. The third period was the ‘20th century’, a rather grim time reflected in war poetry. We read Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, William Butler Yeats, TS Eliot, and Stevie Smith. Our venues, apart from being at the U3A Centre, were at various members’ homes, especially one idyllic property, where we read William Wordsworth’s poems in a beautiful rural setting; something I feel Wordsworth would have approved of. In 2015 we will re-visit all these poets, read different poems, and look at some Australian and American poets of earlier years.  Return to Reports
 * Appreciation of Classical English Poetry with Liz Watson - U3A – Term 4 – 2014 **