Another full auditorium at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre greeted the second session of Poetry Doubles this week. Fronting the evening was Tom Leonard, a hugely influential poet and writer whose work includes Intimate Voices: Poems 1965-83, access to the silence: poems and posters 1984-2004 and a pamphlet, Being A Human Being, 2006. He was ably supported by Dumfries & Galloway’s Angus Macmillan, who read in the very first Poetry Doubles event 3 years ago.
Tom Leonard did not disappoint his audience, delivering his terse, spare poems with restless intelligence, humour and energy. The poems, some long published, others from his latest pamphlet, Being A Human Being, took the audience all the way from roars of laughter to a politicised sense of solidarity, a belief in the importance of taking a stand.
Tom Leonard, rocking on his feet, swaying, punching the air as he spoke, was a mesmerising performer, angry and wry, vulnerable and indignant – “I like those days/when you know your own story” and “I suppose they just have to keep files on people like me/if I was one of them, I imagine I would”.
Angus Macmillan, with his soft island voice and piercing observation, was a fine partner to Tom Leonard. Many of his poems had a strong sense of place in the Hebrides - “brine in the blood”. The audience responded warmly to Hugh’s wry humour, particularly in the poem Pandrop, when a small child in church under the lengthy sermon of a Wee Free minister “fumbled the pandrops”, bad enough, but in the ensuing ghastly silence one of them escaped completely – “and it rolled, and it rolled/all the way from Mount Ararat to Gethsemane”.
“Another great night!” said Andrew Forster, Literature Development Officer for Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association, “it’s particularly good to see many new faces in the audience, and see them laughing and enthusiastic about live poetry.”
The next Poetry Doubles evening is on Monday 3 September at 7pm, and features Carola Luther and Jean Atkin. Tickets and full programme from Andrew Forster on 01387 253383 or Andrew@dgaa.net.
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