Books Beyond Words, Dorchester; Poetry Night; Julian Nangle

Once a month (on the first Thursday of each month) a group of poets, writers and listeners has been gathering at Julian Nangle's bookshop, Books Beyond Words, to enjoy an evening of stimulating and varied entertainment, which ranges from the comic to the tragic.

Those who want to read are invited to do so for about five minutes each in the first half, and there is often time, after the break for refreshments, to offer a further poem or two. People of all ages and interests come from other towns like Bridport and Crewkerne, as well as from Dorchester.

I've been happy to make a regular contribution.

Last Thursday I read "In the Kindergarten Night", an 'unfinished' poem that came to me when I was twenty years old and a university undergraduate. I explained that I still didn't know what on earth the poem meant. I have tinkered with it over the years, but it's not at all typical of my style. Here it is:


In the Kindergarten Night

In the kindergarten night
when every letter
seems a runic symbol, a shape
without a corresponding sound -
fricative, explosive,
or gutteral,
as in the garden of the world;
in the kindergarten night
when the children have not yet learned to dance
round Maypole or Forbidden Tree,
nor to chant in unison
both the War-Cry and the Creed;
in the kindergarten night
we learn to place the lettered play-bricks
one upon the other
until the towers, too tall, collapse,
topple over in confusion
into our unsuspecting laps.
In the kindergarten night
we spell out with the letters of innocence
some primeval runic curse.



It's still a puzzle to me! Does it make any sense 'beyond the words'? I'm not sure.

An earlier version had "unawakened laps" instead of "unsuspecting laps", which changes the meaning somewhat.

Do look in at the bookshop, which has an extraordinarily rich stock of rare titles.