Poetry Prom, Snape Proms, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Wednesday 27 August 2008

With no introduction, Alistair Reid, author of more than forty books of poetry and prose, walked modestly onto the stage at Snape Maltings Concert Hall and began reading some of his poems in his gentle Scottish accent, with just a wheeziness betraying his status as an octogenarian. His poems led us on a journey through the many places he had lived, in Scotland and abroad. “Lessons in Music” was written while in a flat above a piano teacher, “Mediterranean” while renting a home in Spain that overlooked a beautiful garden and (with an apology to the organisers for including prose at a poetry evening) he read to us “Misadventure”, the very funny story of the reaction of local fishermen to the catalogue pictures of a rowing machine they spotted on his balcony in the Dominican Republic. Childhood memories, his father, cats and more were included in his readings. The favourite poem of the evening was probably “The O-Filler”, written after seeing two security guards escort, from a library in Switzerland, the long-sought person who shaded in the letter “o” in every one of their books.

The second poet to read was world-renowned Margaret Atwood, who has published more than thirty-five books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Arriving on stage with an enormous handbag on her arm she read, in her dry, slightly flat, Canadian accent “a selection of ‘less recent’ rather than ‘old’ poems”, as she put it.

The audience rocked with laughter as she told us of her much loved cat remembered in “Blackie in Antarctica.” Margaret’s sister tearfully phoned to relate the news that Blackie had died and to say she had wrapped him in red silk and put him in the freezer to await burial on Margaret’s return..

Beside the frozen hamburger
and chicken wings: a paradise
for carnivore. Lying in red silk
and state, like Pharaoh
in a white metallic temple, or
a thin-boned Antarctic
explorer in a gelid parka,
on who didn’t make it. Or
(let's face it) a package
of fish. I hope nobody
en route to dinner
unwraps you by mistake.

We may have laughed at some the poems read, but there were others that left us quietly reflecting: “Dancing” about her dying ball-room dancing father and “The Door,” which reminded us that we will all one day go through a door ….and not return.

Once again the 800 poetry-lovers at the Poetry Proms were, thanks to The Poetry Trust, in partnership with Aldeburgh Music, delighted with the calibre of the visiting poets – two world-class writers sharing their work in a relaxed, informal way. I am off to the library to discover more of Margaret Atwood and Alastair Reid works - both poetry and prose.

Rachel Sloane
August 2008