Discourses: Poems for the Royal Institution edited by Jo
Shapcott, Royal Institution, 拢5, ISBN 0903496070 Reviewed by Roy Herbert
THE lectures at London鈥檚 Royal Institution aren鈥檛 just famous, they鈥檙e fabled. They are given by experts on subjects of their own choosing, mostly science or technology, and one of the attractions is the ingenuity and spectacle of the demonstrations that accompany them. Merely 鈥渋nterested鈥� audiences are rare at these lectures. Usually they are spellbound.
The RI has maintained links with poets since it first commissioned a series of lectures by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1808. This collection of poems is the result of inviting nine poets to attend one of a selection of evening discourses and use their art to reveal their reactions to it.
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It is an intriguing idea. Each poem is preceded by a summary of the lecture that inspired it, a scheme that puts the reader far closer to the poet鈥檚 thoughts and feelings than is normally the case. Those whose definition of poetry demands rhyme might be disappointed, but try reading them aloud and you鈥檒l know they鈥檙e not prose.