The Martin Wimbush talk on Betjeman and Larkin took place in the Community Hall last Sunday, 25th September. He punctuated
his dramatic deliveries with readings from Bennett’s book:
Six
Poets: Hardy to Larkin, quoting verbatim from Bennett’s linking pieces.
It was well done, but reinforced my feeling about performance
poetry. I agree with Andrew Motion that the poem and the reader make a
private compact, and that a poem will always be understood individually,
rather than collectively. That said, I could hear well Larkin’s debt to
Hardy, and whilst I know Betjeman was a
fine chronicler of his times, I liked the Larkin poetry so much more.
But that’s a personal view. The audience seemed very pleased, and
Martin Wimbush was completely professional in his delivery, and
word-perfect.
Joan Bakewell, on Wednesday 27th,
talked about ageing and the up, rather than the downside, of it. She
was enormously engaging,
funny, and made sure that what she said would be well received by most
of the people attending. Things that got better as one aged were the
availability of music, relationships with grandchildren and an awful lot
more. Things she lamented were the dying art
of handwriting, the fact of small children being the total focus of
family life, rather than the family unit itself, and the increasing if
slow loss of hearing and eyesight. She drew in the audience very
quickly, and there were a number of questions including
one about her status in the BBC, which she responded to seriously and
informatively. Everyone enjoyed her talk, and there was a rush to buy
her book, being sold at the front by Lizzie from the Rye bookshop, and
signed by Joan herself.
