Greetings Symposiasts!
Welcome to our new fortnightly newsletter! Here you will find all sorts of goodies, including updates of recent meetings and events, recommended books and music, snippets of the poetry we’ve shared, weekly writing competitions and more!
We would also like to open these pages to your submissions. If you have books or music artists that you would like to review, a story, picture or poem that you would like to share, please email us at symposiumUQ@gmail.com and you might just see your name in the next issue! Calendar & Updates
The 23rd of February saw a cool summer’s day: perfect for the bustle of Market Day. With a freshly painted banner, armfuls of flyers and books of poetry, the Symposium exec manned the stall in the great court. We earned many new members (43 this year!) and met many lovely people who shared out love of poetry. We even spoke a member of the University’s original poetry society, who reminisced about his own study days.
Last week was our first meeting for 2011; we started the year with the theme the Romantics and enjoyed some lovely poems By Byron, Shelley, Keats and many more. We even heard ‘The Raven’ by Edgar Allen Poe, an epic poem in dark contrast to the others we discussed. Our first meeting was one of the largest thus far, with more members joining at the meeting.
Our next meeting is this Friday at 5pm, building 39A, room 209 with the theme fantasy & myths. Feel free to come along and share some laughs, and some poetry, with the club!
The Entertainment Corner
What We’re Reading
This week’s book recommendation comes from Brian: Looking For Alaska and Paper Towns, both by John Green. Here’s what Brian had to say:
Looking for Alaska, by John Green, tells the story of a teenage boy named Miles (aka Pudge) who falls
in love with a free spirited, yet self destructive young girl named Alaska at an Alabama boarding school.
Together with their friend “the Colonel” they search for a way out of “the labyrinth of suffering”. The
book is punctuated with the last words of famous people throughout history (Miles’s character quirk is
memorising these last words) as well as creative pranks by Miles’s group of friends. The last words are
interesting and are used by the author to explain or simply provide witty commentary on the scene they
are in.
Paper Towns, also by Green, is about another young lad by the name of Q. A few weeks before their
graduation Q’s childhood friend Margo climbs in his window late one night, after many years of not
being close, and takes him on a night-time tour of their town. When Margo disappears after this night
Q is drawn into a web of clues that she has left behind in Walt Whitman’s Song for Myself. Q, along
with his friends, is funny, believable and their whirlwind quest to find Margo is filled with the trials
and adventure of being a young person. Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska depict a group of young
people who realise that the world is not as clear cut and right as they thought it was. This knowledge will
forever change them.
John Green is a very talented young author who writes young adult fiction. I have read three of his
four books, (Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns), and I have nothing
but praise for his engaging characters and witty dialogue. John Green, has a channel on Youtube called
Vlogbrothers with his brother Hank. With this channel they have organised many charity events working
with the Youtube community.
What We’re Hearing
This week’s music recommendation comes from Caitlin, our beloved president. She recommends to us The Crookes, an exuberant band from Sheffield, England. Of their repertoire, Caitlin recommends the songs ‘Bloodshot Days’ and ‘Backsreet Lovers’. Their music is largely influenced by literature—with Virginia Woolf and Shelagh Delaney among some of their inspirations: deffinately worth a listen!
Writing Challenge
Ever fortnight we shall have a writing challenge—with the chance for lolly prizes and to be published in the next issue! This fortnight’s writing challenge is to describe a man in terms of a flower.
POETICA GRATIA POETICAE
Sincerely,
Katelyn
He's very famous, so most of his poems have been translated into English. 'Ithaca' is his most famous one. Last week I read a poem of his, and it was just describing a room, with its shelves and desk, but he wrote in such a way that you knew what had happened in the room, and that it was important, and that the author's love had left, leaving him behind with just the furniture always there, reminding him.