Todmorden’s Kava café became 18th century Paris’s Hotel Rambouillet  on Thursday as Anthony Costello and Shirley-Anne Kennedy hosted the latest of their events that reflect the philosophy of the salon, with its combination of discourse, declamation and discussion.

Of Italian origin, the salon was a theatre of conversation and exchange, of poetry readings and, according to some, a challenge to the court.  Sadly, the latter was little in evidence, but of the rest an embarrassment of richesses was to be had as we were treated to the wonderful Forward prize winner Ian Duhig - pictured with guest poet Wendy Pratt -  ironically taking a retrospective look at his life in a talk entitled, The Blind Man’s Road,  a memory lane along which he paraded a cast of characters  from Blind Jack O’ Knaresborough, through Claudia Rankine, Robert Frost, Ewan MacColl and Patrick Kavanagh – down whose Raglan Road we were diverted to follow the Guinness into Leeds’ Chapeltown.

Ian’s trip moved through a fair chunk of his writing journey, and journeys, setting off with a tip from Sterne’s Tristram Shandy: I begin writing the first sentence and trusting to Almighty God for the second, a technique we were assured worked just as well for the atheist Duhig.

Guest poet Wendy Pratt had journeyed from Scarborough, a fair distance too, and a sage decision to have her as guest poet, her work clearly a true love of the Tod bods, as her words, to misquote her, could spin diamonds out of a sea fret.

The favourite poem* slot was taken by Eileen Earnshaw. A co-host at Write Out Loud Middleton, Eileen had chosen one by Australian Robyn Rowland from her recently-launched book This Intimate War.  A collection which, Eileen explained, was inspired by the terrible events at Gallipoli, and whose poems appear in both English and Turkish, as the experiences of war are not unique to one side, nor to one gender. The poem tells of the Canary Girls, munitions workers of the time who filled the shells, “their yellow skin shining/ brighter than flares, orange hair a badge of courage/ as TNT poisoning sank its toxic glow into their flesh,” and which finishes by wondering what might have been different had they refused to carry out such work.

The favourite poem slot’s purpose is sharing of the piece and a discussion thereon, photocopies of the work being circulated among the audience. Using a poem as stimulus for debate is a novel one for popular poetry nights, as is the lecture and the guest poet. The programme also has an open-mic section which, naturally, has limited availability, and on this occasion suffered from that open-mic killer, the disappearing audience. Worst, I suggest, are those open-mic poets who clear off once they have read, leaving fellow readers depleted appreciation and a sense of being the evening’s also-rans, regardless of babysitters, bus times or, on this occasion, rumours of a road closure. Is it their fault or the programme’s time limitations?

Anthony and Shirley-Anne are to be commended for their bravery in bringing The Salon to the Calder valley. Whether all these admirable elements - lecture, guest poet, favourite poem, discussion and an open-mic that does justice to the poets - can flourish in the same evening, I confess to doubts. I commend them for trying to do something different, though, and hope it continues to draw as big a crowd as it did this evening. I just hope they can find a way of keeping them there for the duration, so future evenings might end with a bang, not a whimper.

Julian Jordon

Kultura is a monthly event in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. Next month’s poetry lecture is given by Clare Shaw and guest poet is Lucy Burnett.

*This Intimate War: Gallipoli/Çanakkale 1915 by Robyn Rowland and translated by Dr Mehmet Ali Çelikel, Five Islands Press