Writing the Wilderness
FULLY BOOKED
VERONA BASS* SUE BOYLE* GEOFFREY BREEZE* ANITA BREEZE* MARILYN FRANCIS* CAROLINE FROUD* DIANA HILL*AMANDA SAUNDERS* JUNE WENTLAND* CHRISTOPHER ISAAC * NICK KEARNEY
also invited CHARLOTTE BROWNE
Programme will include
Magazine and competition successes since Saturday 15th February
BRLSI Convenor SUE BOYLE will flag up her forthcoming May 14th Big Read talk on Helen Macdonald’s prize-winning novel H is for Hawk.
Helen Macdonald’s powerful and beautifully written account of her relationship with her goshawk Mabel was a Sunday Times best seller, winner of the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction and Costa Book of the Year in 2014. A multi-faceted story about love, loss and grief, Macdonald’s book also explores the dark understory in TH White’s book, The Goshawk, and forces us to ask over and over again whether the wild and the wilderness are really outside us, or are they just as much the often unexplored hinterland of what lies within.
NICK KEARNEY will read Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes.
Bath poet, storyteller and green activist VERONA BASS will introduce the theme of Writing the Wilderness.
The peace of wild things by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Verona’s suggested reading
Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk [ Pan Books 1984 in UK]
Robert Macfarlane, Underland, a Deep Time Journey [Wainwright Prize 2019]
Richard Powers, The Overstory [publ Vintage 2018; Pulitzer prize 2019]
Richard Deakin, Waterlog, a Swimmer’s Journey through Britain [1999, Vintage 2000]
Henry D Thoreau, Walden or Life in the Woods, [1854; Dover edn. 1995]
Group Discussions and Presentations
topic : YOUR GROUP IS PREPARING A WILDERNESS THEMED EVENT USING THE MATERIALS ON YOUR TABLE. HOW WILL YOU FOCUS IT AND WHICH OF THE PIECES WILL YOU HIGHLIGHT?
followed by final wilderness reading
DIANA HILL will read The Horses by Edwin Muir
LINK HERE https://allpoetry.com/poem/8496359-The-Horses-by-Edwin-Muir
*Presentations of Wilderness sets, if they haven’t been completed before tea.
*Readbacks of favourite poems from February to include
MARILYN FRANCIS Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
CHRISTOPHER ISAAC First They Came for the Jews by Pastor Martin Niemoller
CAROLINE FROUD Postscript by Seamus Heaney
Discussion of Stanza 25 & Secret Salon workshop designs
Following her February set, MIRANDA PENDER online has gifted us another song YOU’RE AYE THE MAN FOR ME
GEOFFREY BREEZE Bath & Bristol’s dynamic rising star will talk about his journey into Performance Poetry and introduce some of his work including the highly pertinent poem GLIMPSES OF GLORY by special request from the Stanza25 group.
Introduced by AMANDA SAUNDERS
LOOKING FORWARD
June 21st 2025 workshop
with CAROLINE HEATON *AMANDA SAUNDERS *ZOE MORGAN*ALAN DAVIES *CAROLINE FROUD*GREG SPIRO*JUNE WENTLAND*MIRANDA PENDER*SUE BOYLE*NICK KEARNEY (10)
CORE THEME
Politics and Poetry / The Politics of Poetry
These few offered contributions are an invitation to all workshop participants to think about and suggest other writers and other ways they would like to explore this theme.
to include a tribute to poet Michael Longley who died in January 2025
readings from WB Yeats by Luke Hardy who trained at the National Theatre and contributed readings to the Bath Writers & Artists World War One commemoration events
and
discussion IN THE LIGHT OF OUR FEBRUARY WORKSHOP ON PROSE, POETRY AND SONG of a recent poem by Substack contributor Drew Dellinger reproduced here without the line breaks to save space
To the Quislings, to the Quislings, to the cowards, to those thirsting after power, heaven and history will record what you do. To the obsequious, to the toadies, to the lackeys, to the yes-men, to the go-along-to-get-along return on your investment in the fall of Rome you call your home, heaven and history are witnessing. To the Bezos and Zucks,
to the Murdochs and Musks controlling our thoughts with trolls and bots, to the fascists who would ruin all the world to rule the ashes, To the vote suppressors, disenfranchisers, and Jim Crow juniors, heaven and history are recording what you do. To those filled with rage who can’t tell this will not age well,
to the tuned out apathetic both sidesers in the middle who won’t do a thing because you can only do a little, to the 80 million folks with better things to do than vote, but especially to all of you in powerful positions, the editors-in-chief, the billionaires, the politicians, heaven and history are recording what you do.
The whole world is watching and the little ones too. History and heaven are recording your example and the downtrodden, trampled upon masses never stay trampled. So to the powers of the hour, don’t be shocked to see 100 million folks standing up for democracy. We can win. We can win. We’ve got to begin, though.
The climate’s cooked, the window’s closing. Now is the time. We need dreaming, not dozing. To everyone around the world who won’t cease to work for workers, solidarity, the planet, justice, peace, heaven and history are supporting what you do. To those who in the spirit of love are steadfast and brave, history and heaven will remember your name.
Drew Dellinger, Ph.D.
SPEAKER | POET | WRITER | TEACHER
Drew is an internationally sought-after speaker, poet, writer, and teacher who has inspired minds and hearts around the world, performing poetry and keynoting on justice, ecology, cosmology, and compassion. He is also a consultant, publisher, and founder of Planetize the Movement.
- Poetry on the Edge
- Calendar of Stanza 25events
- Summer Concert of Readings 21st June 2025
- Almost Our Very Own Festival of Poetry?
- An Afternoon of Good Poetry at Bridge House
Stanza 25 
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