U3A is an organization, the University of the Third Age, which promotes learning in older people, mostly those who have retired and reached ‘a certain age’. Classes are taught and attended by the members, only expenses are paid, no fees. So for example, I teach two writing classes, but I also attend classes as well.New classes are starting all the time, a friend is about to start a Shakespearian class, discussing the plays as well as just reading them – there is already a class which does that.
There are two poetry-reading groups, but I would like to go to one which discusses the poems and the poet who write them and the context, social and historical… I don’t feel as if I am knowledgeable enough to do that – I might have been once when i was doing my degree… but all the technical stuff has fled!
I love poetry, which you may have realised from the number of poems I write about, and my particular favourite is John Masefield; a fascinating man with a most interesting and sometimes tragic life, who had a wonderful vivid imagination. His ‘children’s’ poems create amazing, fabulous images and I am sure they contributes to my creativity.
John wrote a long series of sonnets when he was a young man; all beautifully crafted, some more accessible than others, but all with the brilliant imagery he later used in his other work… It’s Sunday, and as I think this poem is discussing a sense of god, it’s probably appropriate that I share it here. Some of the phrases are so vivid – I know I’ve used that word already, but no other will do, ‘tiger Mind’, ‘outlasting brass’, ‘some leopard thought’… and look how he describes the way one’s imagination and thoughts dart about from thing to thing: ‘restless brains have wrought and schemed, padding their cage’ and a few lines further on: ‘some leopard thought is pawing at the brink, chaos below, and, up above, the sky.’
How many ways, how many different times
The tiger Mind has clutched at what it sought,
Only to prove supposéd virtues crimes,
The imagined godhead but a form of thought.
How many restless brains have wrought and schemed,
Padding their cage, or built, or brought to law,
Made in outlasting brass the something dreamed,
Only to prove themselves the things of awe,
Yet, in the happy moment’s lightning blink,
Comes scent, or track, or trace, the game goes by,
Some leopard thought is pawing at the brink,
Chaos below, and, up above, the sky.
Then the keen nostrils scent, about, about,
To prove the Thing Within a Thing Without.
Lois Elsden 