THE hills of West Somerset could soon be alive with the sound of, poetry.

More than 225 years after Samuel Taylor Coleridge penned his famous poem Kubla Khan while staying in West Somerset, the village of Timberscombe could soon have its own poetry group.

Village hall trustee Allan Sutton has floated the idea after residents asked if he could extend work he started for an Advent event last Christmas and other readings in St Petrock’s Church.

Mr Sutton said: “The focus will be on understanding poetry as ‘language in performance’, as something to be read aloud, to be experienced rather than merely understood.

“After all, nobody ever asks the ‘meaning’ of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony or The Girl With a Pearl Earring, but they move us just the same.”

Mr Sutton, who has more than 30 years’ teaching experience, coached for the RADA Shakespeare Qualification, and was involved with the Shakespeare Schools Festival for 10 years.

He said: “I do not know all the answers, but I have a range of useful and effective questions gathered over the years and would be glad to share them as they have enriched my life in good times and bad.”

The new poetry group will be aimed at people with all ranges of experience who will only need ‘an open mind, an ability to feel the power and beauty of language, and a willingness to explore these in a group of like-minded fellows in a beautiful building with a lovely accoustic’.

Gatherings will take place in St Petrock’s on Thursday afternoons and Mr Sutton said anybody interested in taking part should contact him.

He said: “I shall be at the Thursday morning ‘warm welcome’ on the first Thursday of February.

“I shall not be asking for any money for the meetings but St Petrock’s would appreciate a donation for the upkeep and heating of the church.”

Coleridge was one of a group of 18th century poets known as the ‘Romantic movement’, including Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, Shelley, and Blake.

He was living in Porlock when he wrote Kubla Khan and he also lived in Nether Stowey and spent much time wandering in and being inspired by the landscapes of West Somerset and the Quantock Hills with William Wordsworth and fellow poet Robert Southey.

Watchet Harbour has an ‘Ancient Mariner’ statue on its harbourside to commemorate how it helped to inspire Coleridge’s work The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.