Flaming June, Frederick Leighton, 1895

If you all cast your minds back to last December, you will recall that I set myself the daunting challenge of writing a seasonal posting every day during Advent. Somewhat to my surprise, I did indeed manage to do just that very thing. Ever since then I have in mind to attempt a similar challenge later in the year. Well, dear reader(s) that time has now arrived with the advent of spring (or what passes for spring in these parts at any rate).

To a great fanfare (well you’ll just have to imagine that bit) I am hereby announcing that the month of June will be Poetry Month (#PoetryinJune) on The Landing. I have been scouring the shelves here and blowing the dust off a few volumes that I have not looked at in a while. My intention is to put together a mixture of old and new(ish) poems, which will include a few childhood favourites too. My grand plan is to work out a complete list ready for June 1st but I may end up flying by the seat of my pants part of the way through the month.

I belatedly caught up with the poetry readings at the National Gallery of Ireland, which are run in association with Poetry Ireland. This has also helped to spur me into action and to include a sizeable chunk of poetry on the blog. Yesterday I was listening to Peter Sirr reading from both his own poems and his translations. One of the translations he read was Maison á Vendre (House for Sale) by André Frénaud both versions of which you can find on Sirr’s blog The Cat Flap.

I will have to apologise in advance if my choices for next month are not your choices but I will try to put together a reasonable mixture culled from our shelves. In fact, I have to come clean and admit that I never manage to read as much poetry as I would like. I am much more likely to pick up a novel or short story collection if I’m browsing and in need of something to read. Last year was supposed to be my year of reading more poetry so I picked up a couple of Faber volumes in a book sale to try and broaden my range but they are still languishing on the shelf.

Next month may then prove to be a voyage of discovery for me as there are clearly poetry books on our shelves that I have barely even opened. However, I will certainly feature a few poems from my childhood that have been read many times over and that are still enjoyed. This will, I hope even the balance a little and perhaps remind me of a time when I was more poetry minded than I am now. I used to have a Puffin collection of children’s poems and a Children’s Treasury containing stories and poetry. The latter still survives so I will choose a favourite memory from its rather battered pages for one of my blog entries.

At last Wednesday’s Poetry Ireland reading by Michael Krüger I jotted down his assertion that ‘a day without reading a poem is a lost day’. Let’s see what I can do about that during the course of next month.

Let me know about your favourites if you have time to drop me a line (use #Poetryinjune on Twitter).

(Picture Credit: Wikipedia – original painting in the Ponce Museum of Art, Puerto Rico)