Poetry: The poet meets the chattering class

WOLE SOYINKA

POETRY CAFE

COVENT GARDEN, LONDON

I'M HALF-SKIPPING, half-running through the streets of Covent Garden towards the Poetry Cafe. It's 2.25pm. Just five minutes to go before the three-hour-long Poetry Masterclass with Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Prize- winning poet and dramatist from Nigeria! I slow to a fast walk as I approach the door, not wishing to look too ridiculous.

"Poetry masterclass?" asks the woman holding the door and looking, a little nervily, up and down the street. I nod and step inside.

"Drink?" says the woman at the bar, hurrying towards me. Could there be time?

She brings me a cappuccino. Do I look like that sort of a person? I glance around at the other tables as I burn my lips. There are maybe 10 of us in here. The mature man next to me is talking to his young girlfriend. "Or we could do something cultural," he says. "You can walk to three parks from here." Suddenly, he gets up.

"Aren't you going to the masterclass?" I ask him, feeling a little hurt on Wole Soyinka's behalf. "I wish I could," he says, walking away. I glance at my watch - 2.40pm. Then down at the inscription beneath the glass on the cafe table: "Today there is a wide measure of agreement - that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine..."

A few more people drift in, singly. Suddenly, the girl on the door makes an announcement: he's on his way. He's in a taxi now!

Everyone gets up and goes downstairs - we're about 12 now - where chairs get arranged in a rough circle. I plump for a big old grey armchair that I haven't seen since I last visited my Uncle Ronald in 1974.

The Chinese man next to me is on an upright chair. I have to look up to him to talk. He tells me his name, twice. Then, at my request, he writes it down: Liu Hongbin. I tell him mine.

We talk about poetry masterclasses. Has he been to one? Does he know what goes on? No. Nor do I. And how much longer before things get going, anyway?

Suddenly, a black writer in a gorgeous ochre turban drops a leaflet into my lap. "Welcome to the first Writers' Hotspot newsletter!" the front page reads.

"Are you a published poet?" I ask Liu Hongbin, looking up.

"Blake Morrison published my first poems in English, in The Independent on Sunday, nine years ago." It's just coming up to 3 o'clock. Everyone's making friends.

Suddenly, there's a bit of a kerfuffle on the stairs. "He's here!" shouts the Poetry Cafe publicist, almost punching the air.

"I'm so so sorry about the delay," says Wole Soyinka, with winning gravity. He has a slim folder of poems in one hand, a glass of white wine in the other. His hair forms a kind of ring of white candyfloss around his face. His white beard points forward tuftily.

We all introduce ourselves: the bright-eyed, eager, pugnacious editor of African writing; the rather wan and flyblown woman who says: "I mess around really. I'm a dentist"; and the critic from Korea with the mac over his knee, he of the severe, downturned mouth, who tells Mr Soyinka that he's here to get an answer about some invitation to a writers' congress in Seoul. Mr Soyinka seems none-too- pleased by that.

Then Mr Soyinka tells us the really big news. "I must say, right from the start, that I am here under false pretences. I was not aware until last night - I arrived at eight o'clock, straight from Nigeria - that this masterclass was to take place. I thought I had refused to do it. I feel more at ease in theatre workshops. I don't much like talking about my work. I have made no preparations... Still, things shouldn't be too bad. We can talk more informally perhaps..."

I look at Liu Hongbin. He smiles back at me inscrutably - as I would expect him to do.

"What I should like to do," continues Wole Soyinka, "is to put myself into the position of attending a poetry masterclass such as this one. What would be the thing that I needed most?"

He takes a long, appealing-looking drink from the glass.

I agree.