Stanza Mar Menor Poetry Group

Whenever members of the poetry group, with the grand title of Stanza Mar Menor, meet I always write it up and send it to the participants.  It is not only about what is written, read and discussed and there is very often discussions on what else is being written and our views on it.  We are only a small group and for the past twelve months we have been dispersed across Europe, but the writing has continued by means of emails.  It works.  So please read on.

Members of Stanza Mar Menor meet again now that we are together in Spain.  We cannot think of a better way to share a few hours than doing what we do.  There is much value in the time that we spend together which is to encourage, evaluate and to make suggestions.  As a group it is self led and the work in the meetings just flows from one item to the next.  It is so easy.

Douglas has his own way of obtaining ideas of what subject to write upon.  His sonnets are of before, during and after, and now that he has recovered we get more words.  This afternoon there was one more entitled 'Re-Awakened' with the last two lines detailing a deep thought: 'Here I am, so here am I once more/Once dying, now reborn, still to the fore'.

His second piece was with reference to the nursing care where he talks of 'The True Reality' of it and found many individuals that were not that caring.  This prompted several lines of thought and one in  particular was that experiences of this nature needs to be said.  The question is where and how?  It made me consider what we could do.  

Moving on, he then has tackled the premature death of Charles Kennedy with the appropriate title of 'Bonnie Charlie's Noo Awa', taken from the first line of a song.  It was his tribute and begins with 'The Hielan' gentleman has left the room'.  Incredibly appropriate and timely and isn't this is what writing should be about?

Margaret contributed 'Commuters' that dealt with the 'scrolling brigade' of the silent screen tapping silent ones.  There is always more in her lines than one theme and the final stanza dealt with the non-commuters, the beggars and the homeless.  Her 'Passing By' dealt with the serious matter of child abuse and with a line that made listeners 'sit up and take notice': 'he strokes her cheek with his knuckle'.  This was inspired by a local book club book of the other month by Corban Addison, ' A Walk Across the Sun'.

David, who only two days ago returned from Murmansk with a 'truck load' of experiences, ideas and images in his mind had nothing for us to comment upon.  Apart from carrying on with his children's stories, and maybe continuing them on into animation he says that he has seen so much of the natural world that wildlife is a subject that he intends to write upon.

Iarla and this scribe listened, observed and commented.  Margaret Rowland had introduced her book 'Give Voice to Verse' (ISBN 9781511567763).  Poetry that was inspired, in part, by 'open mics' and her desire to write poems that should be said out aloud.  She has every reason to be very proud of this collection. 

What next shall we do?  Margaret is the third member of this group to publish after David Leslie Urion's 'In Praise of Rails' (ISBN 10 14959116510) and Douglas Wilson Hill's  'Streams of Conscience' (ISBN 9781499189254) and so we need to continue with our writing and to see what other projects we can complete.

The idea of gathering together in 'an open mic event' is to be considered and discussed further. After all poetry and prose has always been said out loud and is never just to be read in isolation.

Poetry, prose and lyric writers are people that we know.  We could also add music to our event.This is for the cooler months. 

Douglas with his poems and David with his short stories have been involved with 'Poetic Republic' where the results will be known shortly.  This is something that we all know about and something to plan for.

It was wonderful for us to meet up and to share time together.

John Edwards 8th June, 2015.