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Emma Windsor-Liscombe
Lower Sixth
Hallward's House

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Poetry Evening

Last week, on Wednesday evening, all Sixth Form students taking a language course gathered in the Newbolt Room, in fact I was one of them. We’d been informed a couple of weeks before of this night of nights, and had also been told we were to find a poem and present it– preferably, having memorised it. And, knowing the many language courses there seem to be at Clifton, it was natural to hear students who had prepared German, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian or, in one case, Mandarin poems.

Each nerve-racked youth who entered that room would first behold the table to their left, laden with various forms of hors d’oeuvres, and the glass of wine each student had been ‘allowed’. Then there was the miniature stage, to the right of the entrance, and far away, it seemed. I was not nervous but somehow felt tired at the thought of having to perform, when I first saw the stage. However we eventually gathered into those blue cloth-covered chairs placed in rows, just close enough apart so that one can’t rest their foot on the seat in front, somewhat tedious, and soon everyone was quiet. My mother was there, with my aunt; she’d been placed in the back row, where I am sure she took in the scene in much the same way I did.

Soon Miss Davis and Mr Trivic were upon that stage of such Lilliputian qualities, scoping out, it would seem, who had and who hadn’t turned up. They didn’t talk too long, thankfully; not because they haven’t anything to say, but because I could feel the nervousness of many of those kids around the room and I’m sure, if that was the case, they would want to get on with the evening. However to begin the whole production, Mr Trivic was the first to read. His poem was in Serbian, and, as he explained to us, he had at one point lived in Serbia; always good to know about our teachers. He read well, left the stage, and paved the way for the rest of us.

There were of course those students who clearly felt some kind of discomfiture; but isn’t this natural? Those who did, though, were able to get through their poems clearly, and in good timing, and I must say it was quite impressive how well everyone read. Some people regaled us with a song, some had chosen controversial poems, and others had collected in groups to read their piece. The audience was, I would think, satisfactorily silent for the teacher’s liking, and no one dawdled onto or off the stage. Military ways mixed with poetry.

It ended sooner than I had expected, considering the amount of people who came. In fact, I had in truth felt a little annoyance at having to go, but I will admit I found it intriguing, in the end, to listen to the poems people had chosen. Then, we all stood up, and created a clotted kind of vein as each person decided to get out of their seat at the same time, and leave through the door together. Or if the call of home was not what created so much traffic, perhaps it was the array of empty wine glasses, which I am sure many people saw as a tempting spectacle. My mom and aunt and I milled about for a little, talking to a couple of teachers if they chanced by, and arguing in a pleasant tone about if I could get out of going to the netball tournament in order to spend time with them – who, by the way, had travelled from home, in Canada. They were impressed, they said; certainly I had come to a good school, they thought. Then, we ambled out, into the quad, back to Hallwards and; that was the Clifton College Poetry Evening.

17 March 2010

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