Ongoing.
After a month of war. Ongoing. After ambulances were set on fire in Golders Green in the middle of the night last week and friends could hear the booms from their windows. Thomas Hardy’s poem ‘Channel Firing’ has been on my mind. The poem is written from the point of view of the buried dead woken up (again) by sounds of war. My favorite aspect of this poem has always been the ending. The simple list of place names. Why do you think the poem simply ends with this list? What does the reticence, the lack of a final explicit ‘message’ suggest? And why these places?
Prompt: End a poem with a list of place names. Include dialogue in the poem. Write the poem in quatrains.
Upcoming classes:
Starting 6 May (10 weeks): Determination and Necessity: Writing Poetic Urgency online at The Poetry School
Two sessions in July: Grief and Comfort: Generative Poetry Workshops online at Ritual Well
2 August: Jewish Love Poems online at Yetzirah
24 December 2026: Winter Poems: a Generative Poetry Writing Workshop online at Yetzirah
OFFER: new paid subscribers will receive a copy of my recent book, Boat of Letters. Current paid subscribers should contact me for a free one to one session. Please be in touch for details.
‘Eve Grubin’s Boat of Letters is an ongoing conversation with silence.’ – PN Review
In Boat of Letters, ‘Grubin explores spiritual observations and nuances of language as she contemplates meaning in the everyday.’ – .Jewish Book Council