Zest! 19th March 2012

A night of excellent poems: Bob made me feel I was really wading through the muck and yuk at a Stone Roses gig: Katy celebrated her thirtieth birthday with an elegy for her twenties; Ray read a very moving poem on the loss of a child; Janet considered the possibilty of a UFO landing in her backyard; Jean, a newcomer to Zest! gave a splendidly confident reading of her poem; Edwin eulogised the Brontes in yet another Bronte poem (how many has the man written??!!); Maureen gave her all to a reading of Yeats' "Down by the Salley Gardens"; Zest! team member Judy actually read twice and team member Leih read a fine poem about a hidden well under the floor; Graham entertained us with a list of all the chores he left undone; Harry fantasised about Eastern promise; Emma celebrated Chester's canal. In short it was a very full, rich night of hugely varied poems, and the icing on the cake was a very good reading from newest Zest! team member Angela Topping. If I have missed anyone out, and I know I will have, I still want you all to know that your poems are so much apreciated. Zest! is an extraordinary night; none of us ever know what's coming and the sheer spread of subject matter in your poems is astonishing. Warm thanks to all of you who contributed. And not only your own poems but poems from Mary Oliver, Seamus Heaney, Whitman, Larkin and Esther Morgan. A really marvellous night. Can't wait for the next one to hear more of these wonderful offerings!