Scaling the heights in search of poetry

Earlier this week I went to the Central Library in Edinburgh to collect my advance copies of the 'Carry a Poem' book for my book group to read - or should I say one of my book groups as I am in two (inability to say 'no'?).

Love to read.

Decided to take the Carry a Poem book into the National Library for Scotland to sit in their cafe and have a few moments to myself to read some of the poems before I got the bus home and then got too involved in work to find the time to read.

Within minutes I had laughed and cried at the poems. Poetry is so intense and if it resonates with you, then it has the capacity to mess with your emotions.

When I was much younger (in my late teens and early twenties), on family occasions I used to read out a poem called "Warning" by Jenny Joseph. It was in a book of 20th century Verse edited by Philip Larkin [as it was published in 1971 did they think that the rest of the 20th century wouldn't produce any good poetry].

The Warning was funny being read out by a 20 year old. Now that I am entering the age it refers to, I'm really starting to look forward to the real thing rather than just the practice. Where did I put those sausages?

No, not in the attic - that was where I had to go to to find the poetry books I'd tidied away a couple of years ago.

There were lots of other treasured books up there too, so when I brought the boxes home the whole family had something exciting to read - daughter discovered a Beryl Cook illustrated book, husband found a book about Walks in Great Britain and son found some James Thurber which will interest him for the cartoons and maybe later the stories. JD Salinger was also there - RIP.