Maria Kardel - Speak Easy 23/02/10

Next up we have one of the pillars of Speak Easy, the wonderful Maria Kardel (who as Sarah says, comperes after the interval). She just has the one poem for us, but its a good one so who can complain? Context here is the snow Marias poem is about one winter, long ago, but who can forget the drifts and blizzards outside as we made our ways to the hubs? Speak Easy readers are rather excellent at being current.

The poem Maria reads is a little darker than most of what were used to at the event, but its also very poetic. She uses simile and metaphor to really get across the scale of the winter she experienced coupled with the fact that we were still shivering from when we got there it was very effective. Another clever feature that she uses the snow seems to be the action, and her own experiences of it are rather more of a background. The snow is acting, and the people are acted upon, which is exactly how we felt in the big freeze. Brilliant. More of Maria in the second half.