Poetry Social - 2 May 2017

On 2 May, poetry and prose met haiku at the Culture Club for a night of verse and a little alcohol.
In a convivial event, four writers read poems in very different styles. Mathura is from Estonia and writes in English. I am impressed enough by those who write in a second language, but quite blown away by those who write poetry in their non-native tongue, and Mathura impressed with a lyric poem.
This was followed by Gili Haimovich, who read a piece she described as "a work in progress", but which sounded as finished as anything I've ever written (poetry or otherwise) - I guess it shows that poets set a higher standard.
We were then treated to an "introduction" by Sam (Suraj Samtani), a lovely device in which the poem was the poet's own introduction, and although not comic verse, very funny.
The last piece was commissioned by TEDEX for their recent Tedifying in Hong Kong, and you can listen to it here, which emphasised that poetry of all the written arts, is the one most intimately tied to actual performance. 
We wrapped the evening up with a haiku competition. Haiku is a Japanese style of poetry (there's a good explanation here), and we all threw a few ideas into the pot. The winners shared in common that they were all surprised to have won, and the champagne was duly shared amongst all to wrap up the evening.
-- Chris Maden, Beta Readers Group Secretary