Poetry Society
The Poetry Society meets irregularly to enjoy poetry in all its facets. Members bring along a pound and a poem: the former to subsidise a glass of wine, essential stimulant to the Muse, and the latter to read aloud. Poems are sometimes old favourites, occasionally new finds, and on the more exciting occasions, original work.
Meetings will sometimes be themed: Christmas poetry accompanied by mince pies, Irish poetry around St Patrick's day (in which case a glass of stout replaces the wine), or the poetry of travel; or a particular poem might be the focus of the evening, such as a reading of Keats' The Eve of St Agnes if the meeting falls on the 20 January. Practising poets such as Vernon Scannell and Les Murray have visited and read their work.
On Midsummer's Day 2005, we held the first Ampleforth Poetry Festival. Over a hundred students from the College and other schools in North Yorkshire participated in workshops and listened to readings by the poets Ruth Padel and Helen Farish (recently winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection). There was a poetry competition (won by Laura Attridge of Bootham School in York) but sadly the poetry pic-nic in the valley was rained off. It is hoped that the Poetry Festival will become an annual event.
In August 2006, the BBC broadcast a half-hour programme about Ampleforth’s Poetry Society as part of Radio 4’s Poetry Societies series, presented by Judith Palmer and produced by Christine Hall. One interesting result of this was an invitation to participate in a traditional Mushaira, an Islamic festival of poetry, in Bolton, hosted by the Gujarati Writers’ Guild, about whom one of the other programmes in the BBC series had been made. James Moroney, the Society’s secretary, and Andrew Carter went and read some of their poetry, which was first read to a full and appreciative audience in Gujarati translations!
The Poetry Society continues to meet regularly, with an increasing amount of new poetry being read at meetings, and an exciting recent development has been the first issues of Published, a magazine of poetry edited by students and including work by both students and staff.