Week Two – 16th February 2023 – 6.30-8.30pm – Leftbank Leeds
Thank you for signing up for the poetry group at Leftbank Leeds. We’re excited to have you with us!
Key details:
Wednesday 16th February
6.30-8.30pm
Leftbank Leeds
Poem: ‘Hold It Down’ by Gina Myers – Go straight to poem.
More about the group:
‘23 Poems That Changed The World‘ is an exploration of the power and possibility of poetry. Together, we will analyse poems and poets, their meaning and their impact in a bi-weekly poetry group. The group members will co-create the poetry programme throughout the year.
Your hosts
Sarah Autumn and Denetta Copeland run Between The Lines, a community arts organisation specialising in using creative art and media projects to address important issues and give voice to underrepresented communities.
We host a Spoken Word Radio show called LOUDSPEAKER which you can listen to on Chapel FM and we have hosted live poetry events and delivered creative writing workshops. You can find out more about Denetta and Sarah here.
The meet-ups
This is an informal poetry discussion group which will evolve throughout the year. We have and will continue to run creative writing workshops. However, our work on the radio show and live poetry events has taught us that analysis and discussion of poetry can be incredibly valuable in and of itself for poets, aspiring poets and poetry lovers alike. So we wanted to hold space and time for that which brought us to this group.
How to participate
Some group members may be inspired to create art in response to the poetry. Others will choose to join in with the discussion, and bring questions and comments. Some may prefer to listen to the readings and discussion. You can participate at whatever level you’re comfortable with. All you need to do is come along.
The poems
The group will select poems together throughout the year and we encourage suggestions!
Week Two Selection
As the weeks go on, we would like to discuss poems suggested by the group. We’ve had several poems suggested so far which we will discuss at the end of week two and select as a group. The poem we’ve chosen this time is ‘Hold It Down’ by Gina Myers.
‘Hold It Down’ was published in Myers’ collection of the same name in 2013. ‘Hold It Down’ chronicles the endless effort to keep a lid on hope, that feathered thing that must be denied so the rent can be paid. You can access a free PDF of the full collection here.
https://www.youtube.com/live/8rISYdim1ic?feature=share
It’s 70 degrees outside but in the drugstore
Christmas music plays over the speakers as
I stand in line balancing my checkbook
in my head, stretching things thin until
my next paycheck when the rent is due.
The security guard cracks a joke, but
I wasn’t paying attention, so I just smile
& step forward in line. Images move
across the screen. When I think about money
it seems impossible. All over the country
people are moving into the streets
& we’re here in Atlanta starting a new life.
Darkness surrounds the latest revision
of our shared history. Everything clouded.
Yesterday I couldn’t tear myself from the news
& already today the events have been distorted,
the numbers downplayed. It’s late fall
& in the early morning crispness, the leaves
fall from the trees & cover the sidewalks.
This new feeling we lack a name for, struggle
manifested in the streets & in parks & on bridges
across the nation. The headlines read
“Protesters clash with police,” but as we watched
the live stream, we saw aggression only by officers
dressed in riot gear. We saw people tossed
on the ground, hit with batons,
a woman punched in the face, an eighty-four year old
woman’s face drenched in pepper spray.
The images endless in this land of the free.
I’m losing focus, distracted by the newsfeed
on the computer screen, hitting refresh.
The cat paws at my leg, demands its own attention.
This shift entirely unexpected but necessary.
Leaves blot the window. Every so often
I leave & start from scratch, imagine
damaged relationships & sick cities
where there was no damage & no sickness
greater than anywhere else. In Atlanta,
everyone drives. The bartender called us
“hardcore” when we said we’d walked there.
She said, “No one in Atlanta walks anywhere.”
Walking home from work in post-daylight
savings time darkness I pass no one on the
sidewalks. I pass the traffic backed up by
the stoplight. The weekend passes too quickly—
I wish it would last longer, which is what this all
is really about: time & my lack of control
over it, my inability to do what I want with it.
And there’s a greater futility at work
here too—a greater frustration in my inability
to control my environment or to stop my country
from killing its citizens. The police beat people
standing still, linking arms, holding cardboard signs.
Each day I think more & more about the past,
about where things began to go wrong, where I, too,
began to go wrong. Before I moved, before I
got sick, before I unfriended you on Facebook,
before I decided I no longer loved you,
before New York, before college—thinking back
to childhood when we could run fearless
through the neighborhood at night, when
we didn’t think about the future, when we loved
our country because we didn’t know better.
W. W. Gina Myers, “Hold It Down” from Hold It Down. Copyright © 2013 by Gina Myers. Reprinted by permission of Gina Myers. & Company, Inc.
Check out Myers’ bio on The Poetry Foundation, more of her work and latest news on her website,
There are currently a few places left for week one so please do share with friends or family who may be interested. Eventbrite Link
BETWEEN THE LINES 
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