Thresholds and Beginnings is about absorbing the words of others to get us reading and writing better. Stepping into our reading or writing can be like wanting to cross a threshold which some force field or other is preventing us from doing. So it helps us a lot to read of thresholds and boundaries being crossed by others. Often we read how the human being sleeps, even deeply, before a threshold is stepped over, how the spirit hesitates before going in or coming out.

And not only with the foot: the eye, the ear, our sense of smell, can reach beyond the lintel and the windowsill. Or not. Reading poetry or prose can help poets and prose-writers alike.

Extracts selected from Auden, Bishop, Dante, Dickinson, Frost, Heaney, D H Lawrence, Liu Xiao-chuo, Lady Murasaki, Boris Pasternak, Qiu-Wei, Yannis Ritsos, Mark Rutherford, and Tennyson. (The prose writers are in italics).

These sessions are always focussed and informal. Everyone can feel free to express their thoughts and feelings about the poems as they want to. A lot of ground gets covered, poems and readers come alive, and friends are quickly made of the poets and each other.