A Poetry Breakfast in the evening

An evening of Music and Poetry at Dudley Library, with poet Chris Tutton and harpist Lucy Nolan

This was the second time that I had fallen under their spell. As Tutton remarked, poet and harpist have worked together for ten thousand years, enchanting audiences with drifting melodies that follow and flow away from the poetic line, revolving the words in the listeners’ minds. My memory though is of this poet’s use of a single word, declaimed, its power augmented by the rapid notes.

Chris Tutton’s verse differs from his exuberant dryly-humorous character in its exploration of the function of memory, and the way love changes and settles, never to recover that early brilliance. So that ‘Imaginary Landscapes’ – the title of the set – calls forth a pristine beauty, a gaze upon another that is founded in simplicity, recalling Byron.

Everyone I spoke to said their experience was similar to mine, one of transcendence. Something of that was there in the second half, dream-poems from both Elaine and Amanda. The experience of the evening rolled into the next day. Art can make you feel most-alive.

Jay Lewis adds:

Then, there was a superb hour of open mic performances from Richard, Sundari, Mogs, Robert Simmons, Saida Chowdhury, Michael, Mandy, Lorna, Kirsten, Laura Jane Round, Elaine, Anne and lastly… Lee Benson.

(And apologies Dan Bagley, for not getting a pic of you).

A splendid time was had by all.