Featured Poet of the Month: Maggie Butt

Maggie Butt is an ex-journalist and BBC TV documentary film maker whose well-reviewed first collection Lipstick was published in 2007 by Greenwich Exchange. Her day job is Head of the Media department at Middlesex University, where she has been teaching Creative Writing since 1990. A pamphlet, Quintana Roo, was published by Acumen in 2003. Her poems have been widely published in magazines and escaped the page onto Radio 4, readings, e-zines, festivals and schools. They have been translated into Romanian and read on Romanian radio. Her website is http://www.lifesoup.net


List

Just a sec, I know they’re here somewhere,
if you’d stop rushing me I’d find them.
Perhaps I might have packed them in a case
or wrapped brown paper, tied with string.
They might be in the loft or shed, or , ah! Look now
my crumpled list of Great Good Things to spend
a life upon. And so they must be here…
Under the bed? Or slipped between the pages of a book,
the minutes of a day? Re-check the list. Oh dear.
No ticks. I lost the list and have been busy with
I don’t know what. But there’s still time. Give me
the list, I’ll start today. What do you mean?
Right now? No time to get my coat?

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Meltwater

my time is coming, smell it on the wind
watch raindrops winnowing down glass

touch ice-cube to your lips and tongue
feel the cool chemistry of meltwater.

see me submerge fields and swallow crops
spill out of wells to infiltrate your graves

raising the dead. firm ground will swamp
to ooze and squelch and slip, mud-symphony.

hear gurgles, trickles, runnels in your sleep
reach for the drifting flotsam of your dreams.

sweep river-sludge and sewage from the rug
swell my boundaries with your salt tears

heave seas, wide breaths to rear up hills
waves come to claim their lost inheritance

listen to the future: rain-rocked, lake-like
nothing divides the waters from the waters.

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Ellis Island

We grip the frozen handrail of the ferry,
watch the waters churn their silver song.

The seagulls teach their young to ride
the wind, hover at head-height, hoping

for scraps, catching them in flight, tasting
anticipation in this welcome-harbour’s air.

Now just us tourists, seeing once-removed
through camera’s lens, knowing how memory

can trick and lie. But every immigrant is here
behind our eyes, dressed in their desperation

and their optimism; watching the raised arm
of liberty (her face the sculptor’s mother’s –

who better to open the door to this new home?)
They search the faces for hints of those left behind:

see how she flicks her hair, the set of his
shoulders, tap of her fingers, curve of his head.

The boat hull bumps and tears at wooden piers
of Ellis Island, they clutch the rails, fling

their old life to the tide, climb gang-plank
to a land which seems to roll and heave,

lift ashore their bundled clothes and words
the recipes and songs, tucking them close

as gold coins sewn into the hems of petticoats
wrapped with memories like an old woollen shawl.

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The Archaeology of Hotel Rooms

It’s almost always August in hotels,
and always present tense. Owned and occupied,
without past or future; our breath fills its space.
Layers fine as mille-feiulle, sweet with sugar dust,
pot-shards and fragments, photo-bright:

The surface is Moroccan silk, harem-scarlet
shot with sunset gold, the hum of air-conditioning,
comforting as money. Storks clack like football rattles
on the roof – sign of good luck, as if I didn’t
smell the deep spice of it – saffron, tumeric, paprika.

Peel back years like faded floral wallpaper,
good fortune pasted on good fortune.
Find a wide room for families, small dormitory
of watchfulness, blue with Italian light
detail of sleeping faces, fine as an old master.

Down to a Paris room where flowerprint grew over
walls and ceiling, door-back, curtains, counterpane.
A room with no way out, where none was wanted;
this space held everything there was, hot-house
of universe and time, love’s here and now.

Sift softly, blow those grains, flick squirrel brush,
back to the first, foreign with the unknown smell
of garlic, which loitered like a stranger on the stairs.
Baroque figures winked down on me in bolstered bed
cloaks flying, into the unknown summers.

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Travelling Fair

The shock of the impossible. It folds!
That strident, swirling, screaming metal
folds like obedient fabric, fitting lorry
like a foot within a shoe. A carousel,
a chair-swing, ghost-train, tunnel
of love, each neatly telescoped
onto the back of gaily painted truck;
so memory folds and wraps the past
its long and lovely pocketed moments.

|Π.Λ:Poets’ Letter:Π.Λ|

Copyrighst @ Maggie Butt

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From Five Years of Poets' Letter Five Poems to say: Poets' Letter

Year 1: 2004

Poets' Letter First Ever Featured Poet: Katherine Michaud

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Year 5

Coming Together in February Issue 2008
 

Claire Askew: Poet in Residence at Poets' Letter January 2008 and at the 4th London Poetry Festival 2008

In the early days, when your feet still struggled,
each morning, to find themselves, you inhabited a city
that only made sense on paper. I, the flitting
white cane that guided you, steered us
through espresso daydreams on yawning streets,
beneath bus-shelters – we were both blind –
doe-eyed and awe-full among stricken gallery frames.
I remember you burning curls of incense
in a paper cup, scrawling on yourself –
your veins seemed to run on the outside of your skin,
liquidising your heart into the palm of your hand.
It was from there that your ash fell in the rain –
you started to smoke like an army man, that night,
as we sheltered against the steel doors
under scaffolding.

We took turns at artistic hysteria. I was your
Dorothy Wordsworth, your emotional proof-reader –
a writer of long-winded, comforting notes; a patient,
smiling model for myriad screwed-up sketches. In turn,
you suggested adjectives from behind newspaper folds;
filled the bathtub with autumn leaves – you fitted
stubborn typewriter ribbons, cursing, and blackened
to the wrist.

Soon, you solved the conundrum of your new
existence – turned correctly at the lights
without my prompt. Just like your escape from a life
lived between the pages of an A – Z, you began
to solve me; recognised my bad traits in the identity parade
of our love. Stupidly, I never thought to try
and trick you; simply buttoned you up with revelations –
talismans for the expedition ahead.
And so, we find ourselves cover-snatching under the jaws
of the night – I wear your shirts, confuse you
with my inexplicable scent. You read aloud to me,
memorise the poetic names of the beers I drink, insist
on paying for groceries. Somewhere, it seems, between the lost
and the finding, we scooped out a mould for ourselves
where the sky touches ground; a groove in the wood –
and somehow, with hands locked like puzzle-pieces, unnoticed,
we fit.

|Π.Λ:Poets’ Letter:Π.Λ|

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March Poet in Residence at Poets' Letter: Aiko Harman

Why I Write Poetry: Aiko Harman

My name is Aiko Harman.  I've just turned 24 and I am a native of Los Angeles, California, in the United States.  However, I'm currently living in Scotland while I pursue an MSc in Creative Writing from Edinburgh University.  I've been quite graciously granted the William Hunter Sharpe memorial scholarship for creative writing, which has allowed me to practise and study my favourite subject -- poetry!

Prior to coming to Edinburgh, I was living in Sendai-city, Japan, where I taught English to Japanese high school students.  My mother is Japanese, and many of our relatives still live in Sendai, so this opportunity was indelible for me.  Not only could I learn and improve my Japanese at a rapid rate, but I had the chance to finally get to know my Japanese family whom I had only met, maybe, once or twice before in my life.  My experiences in Japan - living on my own, getting acquainted with my new family, and being submerged completely in a new culture - have made a huge mark on me, and I am more in tune and interested in representing my mixed Japanese-American heritage in my poetry today. 

For me, poetry is an opportunity to share one's unique worldview.  It is incredible how many different cultures and peoples there are in the world, and it seems so silly that quite often a person can spend his whole life in touch with only one culture.  What a wealth of spirit and history gone to waste on account of a simple lack of exploring. 

So, as I become more and more involved in any community or culture, I hope to share a bit of my perspective via poetry, so that others might have an opportunity to see the world through my eyes.

I am really inspired by Philip Larkin's poem 'The Importance of Elsewhere'.  (If you haven't seen it, I found it online here:  http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-importance-of-elsewhere

I think that, especially, from the viewpoint of 'elsewhere' one can gain a different perspective of one's own 'home', and likewise, the ability to see someone else's home in a new and unique way.  As an American living in Japan, or in the United Kingdom, I can see each country with new eyes, and perhaps, am able to notice more or different things than a local notices.  I only hope I can write this 'elsewhere' vision into my poetry. 
 

Fireflies

Before you loved me,
we played Scrabble in Dainohara Park
beside a small lake covered in lily pads.

I take ages on my turn, calculating,
and catch you staring out over the water,
hands clasped around the lingering warmth
of your vending machine Royal Milk Tea.

I lay down the tiles for “SPARKLE.” Seven letters.
“Impressive,” you mutter, and grinning
I wrestle new letters from the bag.

Our hands pass more rapidly
over the board. You set M beside E.
and I put U beside versatile S
until there are no words left
and the afternoon has faded into night.

It is the first time I beat you.

Later, we search for fireflies in the darkness
and find them, like shooting stars.
We tread off the lit paths and cast
our bodies into one another – in a gazebo,
against the cold painted steel of a playground slide,
tangled in a tire swing dangling from an old pine.

I think you love me then.

Copyrights @ Aiko Harman

Congratulations to Aiko on Winning the Grierson Verse Prize for 2009!

The Grierson Verse Prize, estimated value £650, is awarded to a matriculated student of the University of Aberdeen or the University of Edinburgh. The topic for 2009 was " Deception". Candidates were required to use any recognised verse form but not ‘free verse’. Entries must be not more than 80 lines in typescript.

Aiko's 'Mimicry' is a sestina has won this award for 2009.

Congratulations Aiko. Well done.

Aiko Reading

Aiko is reading on March 11th in The Conference Room, ground floor David Hume Tower, University of Edinburgh, at 6pm at the prize giving event for the University Writing Competitions. Do come along, have a glass of wine and hear the winning entries PLUS readings and visuals from Duo, a collaboration between MSc Creative Students and the Ediburgh College of Art.

Also on March 11th from 8pm-12midnight students from the MSc Creative Writing program will read their poetry at the Meadow Bar in Edinburgh. Seven poets and one fiction writer are lined up so far. To be followed by the sweet sounds of Literary DJ, Matt Werner.

The event will take place in the upstairs room of the Meadow Bar, Wednesday, March 11. The reading will begin at 8:00, so come by around 7:30 to get a drink before hand.

Read more of Aiko Harman's Poetry and Why She writes poetry visit her Poet in Residence Page.

|Π.Λ:Poets’ Letter:Π.Λ|

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Poetry More Poetry More Poetry More

Laura Bartholomew: Rings

Seeking rings round music
And skies clearing
Preparing for death
Earth shattering skies
To overhaul all trouble.

To create the second coming
In one's own mind
And to act upon it
IMAGINE
The power of atunement
Enlightenment.

To venture into lives
As yet untold
To be a scribe
For some person.

To inhabit their
PERSONALITY
Through one's own hand.

To climb sky scrapers
In one's minds eye
To leave all lies
In the shower.

To stand above
The spray
And to know
One is clean
SPRINGING THROUGH
And in love
Grateful and happy
To all Mothers
THE CREATORS OF LIFE.

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Bryan Oliver: Dead Weight

Who’s going to type the fuckers up?
All the poems
All the thoughts
And does it really matter
If no one even reads them?

But then what’s the point?
Who is this all for?

Someone
Somewhere
Rolls over and reaches for
A partner
Who is no longer there.

An empty space
A warm stain
A trickle down the pan
A last gasp
A sudden realisation
An eternal pause.

Who’s going to type the fucker up?

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Juli Jeana: blue still life

three eggs on a plate

off set on a flat table

a glass of milk seen side on

and a dead flat pan

it does not gell into a face

the one circle dark

the other not focused

the glass line off centre

and yet in close up

it could be you one eye closed

nose disturbingly askew

the gaze expressionless

after a painting by William Scott 1975

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Short From the Print Magazine

Clarenden: Sharon Harriott  published in Poets' Letter Print Magazine

It would rain at the same time every afternoon. You said it would be great if you could time the rain in England like that, that way you’d never be dashing out to the line, nearly breaking a leg to save the washing.

Nan and Granddad’s house sat snug in the Jamaican hills of Clarenden, Manchester. Surrounded by trees and foliage it was set well back from the potholed road which ran from Mandeville at the bottom to Christiana at the top. Only affording lengthily spaced visits, we’d stay for four weeks, which Roy Jnr, Dawn and I would spend in the hills, and gullies of Clarenden turning from honey brown to caramel.

Stepping out from the shaded veranda after the rain shower, the air would envelope me in a warm damp blanket, making my skin prickle with perspiration. It also made my hair extra thick and woolly. It strained at the elastic I’d forced it into, refusing to take any shape I wanted it to. It was only after the cousins took me to the local hair dresser and stood for two hours with me while my hair was plaited into neat rows that I could forget the money I’d spent on chemicals to make my hair as straight as yours.  

Being one of only two white women in the family, I’d watched you all morning bustling with my aunts around the stove, then on the veranda peeling vegetables. It was at gatherings like these you’d learned about our family. Some of which we could pass on our way to the supermarket and never know. You learned to cream our skins every day with cocoa butter to keep away the ash. This was actually a great relief to me as it saved nightly bath-time tantrums as Dad chased Dawn and I around the house, his labourers’ hands full of Vaseline. You’d noted that putting the rice in the kidney bean water gave the rice and peas that distinctive ‘soul food’ colouring. Your ackee and salt fish was never better. I was never sure if it was because the food was fresh from the earth, or that it was prepared with love and laughter, or if it was simply the fact that conglomerate supermarkets were kept ignorant of a secret something, but everything had flavour.  

London’s a tasteless place by comparison. Even in the midst of such variety, the hotpot was bland. Either everything was from the same mould, or else so different as to be ridiculous. Life was a constant tube ride, faces whizzing past from stop to stop and constantly moving to one’s destination as fast as was economically viable.  

It was nearing the end of our holiday. That time when you could feel the encroaching wrench, but didn’t want to dwell on it so as to spoil the days that were left. Dawn and I had walked up the gravel path to the gate to watch the men traipsing down the potholed hill.  It was seven in the morning, a time that if I were in London I would be bashing my snooze button. The air was cool and slightly damp with dew. It would warm up and dry out in a few hours. And by midday, if you stood on the road and looked down the hill, you could see the heat-haze from the odd corrugated iron roof making spots like portals to another universe.  

The young men were walking to work. They were going to the fields with their machetes to cut down banana or dig up Coco and Yam. Some were going to the market with sacks of fresh food or animals slung over their donkey. Every so often they’d wave to another veranda, with a hail of “Mornin’ Sis!” and “A ‘right Neville!” even the ones obscured by Avocado trees, or Pimento.  

After a breakfast of cornmeal porridge Dad, Roy Jnr, Granddad and the uncles gathered under the house smoking, chopping the root from yam and the legs off chickens. When the man arrived with the goat, you took us for a walk. With the sound of the Aunts laughter behind us, we followed your sturdy sandals down the side of the house and through the huge yellowing green leaves of the banana trees. Years ago, dodging invisible lizards, dad had pointed out the boundaries of Granddad’s land to us, the top of a hill there, a tree there; and the gully at the bottom with an unmeasured crack in the earth. Dad had frightened us with stories of other caves in the area that had swallowed curious children who were never found again. But hidden, we could only see green for miles and miles. And as we gazed up into the canopy of the trees we spotted huge Jack fruits hanging like prickly pillows. We imagined the birds and insects waiting amongst the trees for the first signs of its ripeness.  

I saw you flinch slightly at the scream. It jarred against the green cocoon around us. I knew you had been dreading the sound, and imagined the animal in pain. If you could, you would fill the house with hoboes, mending feathers and laying out mince. In fact, it was the sound of a skilled hand. The sound had a shortened quality to it, as if it had been cut off mid frequency. Although it was fearful, it was painless.  

For those that hadn’t believed you’d stay the test, you could now thumb your nose at them. Whether it was a deep founded loathing for all things white, or just ignorance of your personality, it didn’t matter. For every one of the thirty years of your marriage, you’d seen the respect grow and the bigotry subside. You believed they’d accepted you, and to a point, I agreed. But, what of your father? What of his aversion to his black grandchildren?

I met you for lunch one day with it playing on my mind. “So you’ve had him for, how long since Nan died?” I’d asked.  

“Fifteen years,” you said.  

“And not once has he said thank you for sleeping on the floor for two years, for converting your whole house, and life. You’ve never made it an issue and just cooked and cleaned for him. Even though he made your childhood a misery while trying to bash you over the head with a bible.”

You just shrugged at me, dipping your bread in your prawn cocktail sauce. But your eyes were glassy.  

“He’s my father,” you said, simply.  

I could see the way he looked at your sister. Her with her blond hair and blue eyes, her blond-haired ‘angels’ and the-divorce-never-to-be-mentioned. You could almost say his look was comical when she made the effort to visit. His eyes blinking and his grin so wide I thought his false teeth would pop out.  

“Do you still wonder?” I’d asked. “Why she’s the favourite, even though she’s the divorced one, and the one with three kids with two dads? I mean, as he’s on such a moral high ground and all?”  

You’d not taken your coat off, and you sat straight, one hand in your lap. “I’ll find out when he’s dead. Not before.”  

I could imagine that without him to look after, and the bills to pay and three unruly children taking their toll, you’d have held your looks. Your black hair was peppered grey now. In pictures of the seventies you’d worn it long, falling down your back. Your high cheekbones and pretty eyes were lovely. Your face was softer now. And it wasn’t in your nature to colour your hair, preferring to spend the money on the family. Your brown eyes and your brown skinned children were so different from your sister’s.

He knew your loyalty. I think my own anger stemmed from the complacency of his knowledge. Growing up, and being the oldest child, you were always the dependable one. Carol was the rebel, and proud of it even now. It was her that told me about slipping out after bed to go clubbing in Streatham. But, for some reason the favour was shifted. You fell in love with a black man. I guess when it came down to it he never forgave you.  

Maybe he never actually tried to hide his hatred. When you were courting dad he made him wait at the gate, not wanting a black man in his house. But as English as we were, we kept silent and bore his patriarchy. But only for you. His ignorant beliefs kept him silent at the dinner table, his mouth slightly askew. I would like to believe it was also a fear of losing you.  

I’d made sure I’d packed our boots when I drove you and dad to the cemetery. In some parts the water went up to my ankles, the mud sucking at my heels. I counted nine of us: Dad and you, Dawn and Roy, Carol and her three, David, Tracey and Robert. You could find out now.  

“Will you do it?” I’d asked at the graveside. Dad would normally have taken one of the gravedigger’s shovels and tipped dirt on top of the coffin. He’d already done it for his own mother, and two of his sisters. The gesture of it had suddenly dawned on me.  

You just nodded. You’d photocopied and framed an old picture of Nan and Granddad to put on the grave. They were standing stiffly outside a teahouse, Nan in a royal blue coat, her grey hair swept back from her face. She held a shiny black bag in the crock of her arm and I could see liver spots on her cheeks and the back of her hand. Granddad stood just as stiffly. His coat was smooth and straight, leather gloves covering his hands. His eyes where hidden behind dark sunglasses.  You were nothing like them.  

As I felt the glow of the sunshine on my shoulders, I suddenly didn’t want to leave this time. We’d been captured by honest smiles, soul food and 30 degrees heat. We’d let ourselves be pulled into their slow slipstream, feeling our knuckles unclench.  

Later, you poured thick goat curry over rice and peas for me. The meat was spicy and tender, melting on my teeth. Some people sat in the living room, some sat in the kitchen. But we took our favourite spot on the veranda. We could hear Dad and my uncles playing dominos at the back of the house. Every so often the air was filled with the smash of fists on wood and hoots of laughter. As it got later, and the Red Stripe lubricated the knuckles, the taxi driver pulled out his guitar and start singing songs. Ones I didn’t recognise, but would have my foot tapping.  

Night fell like a silk scarf in front of the veranda. First came a warm, stroking breeze and then the loping gait of the men, muddied and burnt, some with a donkey tagging behind them. And then the sound of the insects, clipped but musical, somehow becoming part of the night.  

Slowly, the sound became lights, appearing in one, then a few orange trees, until there was only light to be seen in the blackness. Although, when I set my head back against the wall of the veranda and looked up, the stars were so vast I felt swallowed by them.

Copyrights @ Sharon Harriott

|Π.Λ:Poets’ Letter:Π.Λ|

Featured Poet of the Month: Cyndi Dawson

Cyndi Dawson is a Spoken Word Artist. She has worked as an actress in TV and Film and as a Performance Artist whose work with Venezualen, Soho based artist Rene was well received in the 1980's. Cyndi has stood in for Madonna, appeared on Law and Order, Advil commercials and numerous films and TV series. Cyndi's poetry has been published in many, many anthologies and publications such as 'Heroin Love Songs', 'The Aquarian', 'Images of the Mystic Truth', 'Gloom Cupboard', 'Light Trauma', 'Journey of the 'Poet/Prophet', Poetz and 'The Livingston medium'Her spoken word has been featured in the 'Going Down Swinging' CD and has been heard on radio stations around the world. She has been featured in The Pulse Entertainment Magazine, The Star Ledger, The Home News Tribune and The Reporter. She is the author of two books of poetry, 'Dream Sequences' and 'Inside of Outside' and curator of the weekly Poetry and Music open mic series Poets and Angels at Via Dolce. She has read all over NY/NJ at venues such as The Bowery Poetry Cafe in NYC, Grassroots Arts Facility in Jersey City, Tribal Spears Gallery in Harlem, NYC and St. Marks Church in NYC. She recently read at the Poetry Cafe in London and the Henry IV in Eton. Her third book of poetry, 'Outside Girl', is currently in the works.
 

Daddy left and took the Dog

I stood frozen watching a spider crawl up your face.
Not even a scream rose from that deadened place inside.
Daddy took the dog and got in his car holding one small suitcase Drove down the driveway where the spider had me captivated....
He beeped his horn, waved... and that was that.
We were a house of five, but he took my sister and now we were
A house of three with boxes stacked against the wall.

Mother practiced beauty school hair styles on her wigs inside.
They sat on grey shapes meant to be womens heads...
This house, where I chased lightening bugs in the big field
Felt like the jar where I imprisoned them until their lights dimmed.
It was you, Stevie, who cried for your mother to rescue you.
Yes she would, she was the kind who would not be busy.
She was not the kind to send her husband away, not like this.

The spider stopped and its legs spanned the width of your cheek.
I began to laugh, so hard your screams withered out to the field.
I would not let your mother out-do my mother.
I would not let her run to you, with her apron and cookie smells
And rescue this spider off your face which I now imagined was
Eating your eyes so you could not see my family split apart.

I stood frozen as the spider nestled into your hair and your tears
Ran like fireflies glistening for seconds in the light of dusk
I heard daddys voice & turned to look- the dog stuck out his tongue
The car drove slowly to the end of the cul de sac and you, Stevie
Peed in your pants which somehow made me feel so vindicated.

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I am Twenty Five

It was glorious, in the days that it was....and if
Scars are badges than you and I wore them prouder than most.
Death does not seperate us, it only makes the longing linger.
Because I longed as hard in life, when you told me
We were... because we were. When you shook like the
Mountains of Machu Pichu and you were the perfect find....
I would dig until my fingers bled just to see your bones
Buried as they were in the crowded ground of Long Island
And I would.

Years put experience on my face that would never carve on yours,
Yet I see myself, always twenty five when I think of us. Your
trembling skin, when you would hold thoughts like weapons
Did I know, but did I know. While I watched you sleep or when I
Waited up, as I did with my father, did I know.
Time passes for everyone but the dead. There is nothing left of the
You I knew. Birds feed where they smell a corpse. I kissed your
Lips like a black laced widow. Goodbye.
I invoke this space, shallow, but awaken as full of you as I ever was.

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The Helicopters Flew in This Morning

The helicopters came in loud and low this morning
Just over the children heads as they headed for buses and schools.
Loud. Low. Pumping out warfare on Gypsy Moths, the enemy.
Our children and our pets would be collateral damage, acceptable in war.
A misty fallout fell as hard as the asbestos ashes they assured us were safe on 9/11.
This is the new age of chemical warfare.

Post 9/11 draconian laws are the new Generals.
They will dictate what species shall live and which shall be assassinated.

Rice will be the new Aryan race.
Genetically engineered rice now requires more herbicides because the weeds mistook themselves for rice.

Imagine - weeds, the unwanted minority - rise up and pull rank with GE crops, becoming as strong an army that only
toxic garden weapons of mass destruction will kill...

Remember - your dog, your child, your mother - will eat this rice,
will breath this air, will buy the crops dictated to them at
exorbitant prices dictated to them
and their properties will have mutated, their pathogens mutated
and the cancers,
mutated.

One tiny caterpillar, guilty of leaf eating, will die and change an entire ecosystem.
Say goodbye to the Monarch - the glorious butterfly of simpler summers.

In Mexico Maize is contaminated with genetically engineered maize.
Borders designed to keep Mexicans out have allowed mutations to enter the unstable food supply
guaranteeing they will flee for borders, risk their lives.
When they do, populations will mix, diseases will leave the Petri dishes and the offspring will be transgenes.

Transgenes resist biotics, create abiotic stress. Your daughters sore throat may kill her now,
and no helicopter, no helicopter
will spray a cure for death.

We are living in a time where nations are starved of their own native crops,
are forced to grow government regulated price fixes. They grow what feeds the cash cows in office.
People will starve...children will be medicated .
Chemically induced ADHD, autism- profits well for
Pharmaceutical companies whose pill dispensing hands have not pulled a weed in years.
The helicopters are loud, they fly low to the trees...in several hours all gypsy moth caterpillars will be dead.
In several years you will be told your baby has a rare form of cancer,
your cat has kidney failure
from eating a bad bird
that ate a bad worm
that lived in the soil
with some very bad weeds.
Weeds are pulling rank.

What will be needed to kill them now are weapons of mass destruction.
The helicopters fly low and loud. Big machines , little bugs. War.

The children run. They scream.
They are covered in something invisible, but it is safe, they say.
Safe like they said when we stood in the ashes of the Twin Towers.
Safe like they said when we stood outside watching the DDT rain from airplanes,
laughing.

Safe like 9/11 ash.

I remember the sound of the helicopters on that day -
how they flew low...
and loud.

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Two Hundred Seventy-Seven

Two hundred and seventy- seven.
These are the 'Young Guns'.

We have failed those we expect to be in charge
When we are too old to try.

Two hundred and seventy-seven.
Armed and dangerous, under seventeen years old.

New York is under siege
Not by Terrorists but by babies. Gun toting babies.

Not being told in their fatherless homes that
They can become something great, something better.

They are reminded, daily, that they are thugs, pimps.
Thugs with bitches testing sperm counts.

Thugs held down by white society, thugs that
Can't ever rise so why try, why reach at all?

Those are the thoughts of nooses and chains.
That is the demeaner of built in failure.

Babies not old enough to drink are dropping babies
On curbsides like badges of home boy manhood.

4043 armed weapons , confiscated last year off
Ny Streets-do you know where your children are?!

Keep them covered in gold toothed idols and knuckle rings.
Tell those babies that's their only door to acceptance.

Keep their eyes on the crack whored prize. Tell them
Jail is just another chain on the white skinned ladder.

Keep telling them long enough. They will believe you.
But some will refuse to listen. Does that scare you?

Maybe...maybe your peeps were wrong...all along...
Maybe one of you will shake up the web of lies-

Some may become poets, senators, judges, teachers.
Some will refuse to pull triggers or leave babies on doorsteps.

Some will rise up and be men of honor. Because they have
Choices. Because their will was stronger than chains of excuse-

Because the words 'You Can't' were not as loud as the
Words 'You Can', because they simply...believed. They COULD.

Not because their $200 pair of Nikes screamed 'Just Do It' but
Because they headed the voices of their ancestors and chose

Not to shackle their own ankles, not to find their gods in
Crack piped defeat but to know it is as easy to

Be one of Two hundred and seventy-seven as it is to be
The greatest hope we have in running this country.

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Forgive me...

Father, forgive me...I have sinned a thousand times over.
My charcoal heart has cooked to the nth degree and I
Make no apologies. I am only layered in the divine coat of
Creation, which developed from a single skin; that
Shimmered in dark night skies, knitted and crystalized,
Into metallic colors... and unlike death it bore the
Weight of generations who drank in the days as if they were
The last, the last which never came but grew, one onto the
Other, writing it's history through the seed of man. And I,
I who have often laughed in the face of this magnificent history
Carry the tale of my grandfather and his, of my mother and hers.
Now I thirst like a parched tree, I look for a sign, anything...
What I would give, if I could trace the years like the walls of
Magdalenian caves, hold fast to this DNA I have inherited
Despite my fears, and I have sinned, like a spoiled child I have
Forgotten who I am, and all I have taken through these
Thousands of years...Yes, this is true, yet I speak your language,
And his. And hers. I speak the evolution of my skin, of my heart
Of my eyes, of my hands. What passes will no longer be as it
Were but what grows above the ground where they will spread my
Ashes will be far better still as it morphs as green as clover over
The expanding land where feet will roam again despite me.

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Furthermore Furthermore Furthermore

Furthermore: Noel Canin

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Copyrights @ Noel Canin

Poet of the Month: Carolyn Waudby
 

Carolyn Waudby is a poet, journalist and lecturer living in Sheffield. She received a Yorkshire Arts grant in 2000 to produce a pamphlet of poetry based on works of art. The same year, a poem on wind turbines was used as the basis of a short film for the big screen. One of her great passions is travel. She writes travel articles for newspapers and magazines and is currently compiling her first poetry collection, the core of which will comprise poems on Cuba.


Dawn On the Malecon

On the horizon a cruise liner
drags a sooty train
across the broad back of the bay.
El Morro's beam dissolves
into rose, as the square-toothed towers of Vedado
reveal an uneven grin.

Below the city's girth, an albino crab
scuttles over naked seabed
with a speed shared by nothing
else. A half-hearted proposition tossed
across the avenida by the jinteros
huddled on El Prado

drifts off, unmet.

* The Malecon is Havana's sea wall. Jinteros are male hustlers.

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Old Woman , Calle San Rafael

I seek the umbra, the dark colours;
not the red of the earth or sun – greys
wrap themselves around me.

I stand in the shady lea of this door
watching, fleshless, unseen. I wait
for night – wait for my star, the star
of all old women in doorways.

Our daughters offer themselves easily.
I am immutable, no longer moved
by this. Or the young men with bodies
lean for women, like you, who intrude
on our shadows. My skin is thin, taut
across the bone, but coarse enough to take
the drum of your stares. You wonder why

I do not smile when you pass. My eyes
are heavy as shutters.

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Sunset from the Casa Granda


NOTE: The Moncada Barracks, Santiago de Cuba, were the site of a bloody and unsuccessful attack on Batista's army by Castro-led rebels, prior to the Cuban Revolution. The attack took place the day after carnival. The barracks now house a museum.

I

A banner of black from the refinery
billows across the bay.
Inland, at the barracks, a flag
daubs on the sky its rubric.


Corridors echo with screams behind glass –
Molatov Cocktails in Coke bottles,
pistols, Kalashnikovs.

July 26: the guards sleep –
the day after the diablitos took to the streets
firecrackers and fear aflame –
rum running like hurricane rains
while hell rattled
with frying pans and bells.

Then, those bullet holes in the ochre stucco
covered by Batista, are bared by Castro
with photo in hand to pinpoint the scars.


And ghosts in crew necks watch,
curling at the edges as piece by piece
is broken off.


II

On the Parque Cespedes,
old couples on benches
embrace in the shade of weeping figs.

Parents watch children
circling,
peddling polished replicas of dreams.

Young women parade –
Lycra tight,
hair sleek,
while muchachos
gather on the corners –
conquistadores.

Yellow-ribboned toddlers
waddle the chequered tiles,
shriek with delight.

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Venus Over Havana Bay

Aphrodite – Ishtar –
brightest star
bringer of burning peace
spinning slowly shrouded
in sulphuric cloud –

I knew you, back home,
so low in the sky I thought
you were a crane's light
lifting my heart out of the city
brick by brick.

It was he who taught me your name
and how
our earthly clouds can make you pulse,
and fade –
appear to shift.
 

Copyrights @ Carolyn Waudby

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Poetry Collection of the Month: Jetty View Holding by Philip Ruthen

To Buy the Book

Birthday
 

Twenty years ago
we listened to 'The Stranglers'
on a coach to Sorrento.
We discovered Europe,
non-stop,
ate octopus,
and wondered at Pompeii.

Today I bought you
lapis lazuli
set softly in a petal
of white gold,
and I gave you time
to heal, to discover
the message in my madness.

Preserved, not forgotten
you wanted to help the strays
in life - travel to the horizon,
but always come back to me.

Copyrights @ Philip Ruthen, March 2009

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 Verse Play Verse Play

The Vortex of the Will

By Richard Deakin

Here is an extract from THE VORTEX OF THE WILL, a verse play about Ezra Pound by Richard Deakin

(In Scene 1, Pound has been indicted for treason.  A dimly lit figure has been dangling above the set inside a cage.  The end of Scene 1 is as follows:)

RADIO: (POUND’s voice)   February 3, 1942, Ezra Pound speaking.  You are at war for the duration of the Germans’ pleasure.  You are at war for the duration of Japan’s pleasure.  Nothing in the Western world, nothing in the whole of our Occident, can help you to dodge that.  Nothing can help you to dodge it...

FIRST VOICE:  ....the Grand Jurors aforesaid upon their oath aforesaid do further present that the said defendant Ezra Pound, in the prosecution, performance and execution of said treason and of said unlawful, traitorous and treasonable adhering and giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States, at the several times hereinafter set forth in the specifications hereof (being times when the Unites States were at war with the kingdom of Italy and its military allies), unlawfully, feloniously, wilfully, knowingly, traitorously and treasonably and with intent to adhere to and give aid and comfort to the said enemies, did do, perform, and commit certain overt and manifest acts, that is to say:

RADIO: (POUND’s voice)  (hisses pops and crackles, in and out of tune, a dim signal from another world entirely)  ...and then again, when a nation’s inner life is so palpably made up of the economic aggression of one class or group against the whole rest of the population, it is very difficult for any foreigner, or indeed for anyone not carried away by political heat of the moment, to see why that particular nation should be entrusted with the latch key of any other.

     I will return to this subject.

                     Ezra Pound, speaking...  (radio goes out of tune, buzzing and crackling)

(BLACKOUT.)

Scene 2.

(Voice ovelraps from last scene.  LIGHTS UP so the figure in the cage, HOMER, is lit up, dressed in bardic robes.  With a gesture he makes the other two voices fade into the darkness.)

HOMER: (dismissive)  Ragged noise of the modern.  (with a ritual gesture, one palm out toward the audience moving L to R )   For the bard, a silence.  (A pause.  He clears his throat.)    Title of lyric:

“A Background to Modernism.”  (Clears his throat, recites:)

The day we meet Ezra Pound’s head

we are reeling across the floor of the Tate

after pouring libation of wine at the parking meter

to invoke the Modern Condition

and we are trying to slip into Blake’s room

when we accidentally bump into this white rock, half-ton

carved by a dead Frog, nommé

Gaudier-Brzeska, the head of dead Ez.

(A SLIDE of Gaudier’s marble “hieratic head of Ezra Pound”, lights up.  Pause.)

HOMER:  Naturally we are surprised at the coincidence

having first seen photo of said head only the week before

though of course it has been in the Tate all along

only we have to educate the taste by which we will notice anything

so we haven’t noticed anything...  (pause)   

until dead Ez we see you then:

unyielding, flat sharp angles of your face

determined to look even Mr. Nixon in the eye

to outstare anybody, to change the age

with your arrogant stare

and the taut clench of determined buttocks

at the back of the marble boulder

which your old pal Gaudier

very soon to fall in the charge at Neuville St. Vaast  

 (SLIDE changes for a moment to a SLIDE of a GREAT WAR battle)

June 5, 1915, “For an old bitch                                 

gone in the teeth/For a botched civilisation”

Gaudier the fallen flower of his race                 (SLIDE of marble HEAD resumes)

has carved into

the back of the head itself

to show you thrusting forward

into the latest age

even to the final doom

in the steel cage.                                          (SLIDE  of HEAD fades)

(Pause, to indicate the end of the poem.  In whining tone:) 

My lords and ladies, you don’t understand?  (Harsh laugh, firmer tone:)  Tant mieux.  (pause)  Concentrate.  (pause)  Beauty is difficult.  (He stoops a little so that his face, eyes closed, is in the light.  Rattling his cage, whiny again:)  Spare a crust for the poor blind poet.  A glass of glowing red wine, a sweet slice off the rump of the roast to repay the tale well told.....

(BLACKOUT.)

To read more of Richard's works

Copyrights @ Richard Deakin

 

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Submission Calls

Submissions Sought for London Poetry Pearl

Submissions Sought for London Poetry Pearl: The 5th London Poetry Festival 2009 Poetry Anthology

London Poetry Pearl: To celebrate the 5th year of London Poetry Festival 2009 we are publishing a Poetry Anthology, London Poetry Pearl which will be published in August (to be launched at the 5th Festival) 2009.

Submissions are open as of January 12, 2009 and will continue to be accepted up to 12th of July 2009. Send submissions to lpp@londonpoetryfestival.com  with subject line: London Poetry Pearl Submissions with five poems with the following adhered to:

1. With your full, real and legal name, full postal address, home and mobile telephone numbers and your email address ( You may use Pen names/Pseudo names for publication purposes). Your personal details won't be revealed to any third party.

2. The poems should be pasted in a word file in Times New Roman or Palatino Linotype Font and Size 12 and in BLACK. No other features, please.

If the submissions do not conform to these rules your submissions attachments won't be opened. 50% of the money raised through the sales of the Anthology will go to the Festival and some of which will be used to offer an honourarium to the Five Poets In Residence at the Festival for their contributions. The other 50% will be divided equally to the contributing poets. The Editors won't take any royalties from the Anthology.

Anyone living in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland including the Irish Republic can submit to the Anthology so long they are legally able to do so (age).

For younger poets who are not old enough: they could get their parents or guardians or even their teachers to submit for them.

Submissions are FREE.

Poets whose works have been selected for publication in the Anthology will be given opportunity to Read at the 5th London Poetry Festival 2009. Please spread the word and get submitting to London Poetry Pearl.

Thank you.

LP Festival Team.
http://www.londonpoetryfestival.com

Niuley Pleasance Dot Stories Anthology 2009 Seeks Submissions

An Anthology of Dot Stories to Be Published in 2009

This is what Munayem Mayenin calls, dot stories. There are a few for you to look at, read and have a feel of here.

“Dot stories are after the diamond-cut, the gem of creativity, condensed and intensified, heightened. The entire life and its living, loving, imagining, creating must come out in one kiss! Short, sharp, brilliant and almost mesmerisingly paralysing! If life is a lower case i a dot story is the dot on top of the tiny line of life.” Munayem Mayenin

Imsonium Books seeks submissions for Niuley Pleasance Dot Stories Anthology to be published in 2009.

Please, send a short biography of 100 words and five dot stories in word doc, 12 points and in Times Roman font and in black.

To editor@poetsletter.com 

Deadline: 31st August 2009

For more on Dot Stories, please, visit: www.munayemmayenin.co.uk/Dotstories.htm

Imsonium Books: where life sings in the notes of pages of the Niuley Pleasance book of life.
www.munayemmayenin.co.uk/ImsoniumBooks.htm

Imsonium Novels Anthology 2009 Seeks Submissions

Imsonium Books is going to publish Imsonium Novels Anthology 2009

It will publish 20 new novelists who have not been published anywhere yet and will publish the following from each novelist:

1. A biography of the novelist

2. A synopsis of the novel

3. One chapter of the novel

Imsonium Books will publish 5 of the best novels out of the 20 published novelists in the Anthology. The five novels will be published in 2010.

There is no catch.

Submissions is Free.

Submissions Open: 22.01.09 Thursday

Submissions Deadline: August 31st, 2009

The Anthology will be published before Christmas 2009.

Please, follow the following guidelines to the dot (and we mean it) and send submissions to

www.munayemmayenin.co.uk/ImsoniumBooks.htm

Theatre Theatre Theatre Theatre

Rokeya's Dream at Brady Centre

13th, 14th and 15th March @7 pm

Rokeya's Dream is a play based on a book 'Sultana's Dream' written by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein (1880-1932) a prolific writer and determined campaigner for women's rights and freedom in Victorian colonial India.

Produced by Mahila Sangha, RoseBrufordCollege and Tara Arts.

Free

Co-inciding with International Women's Week and Women's History Month wisewords celebrates women’s writing exploring a wide range of issues and ideas with diverse authors, poets, comics, artists, actors, journalists and musicians. 

For further information on the whole wisewords programme call alternative arts on 020 7375 0441 email:info@alternativearts.co.uk  www.alternativearts.co.uk

Brady Arts and Community Centre, Hanbury Street, London E1 5HU

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637 Productions Presents John Stanley’s Proud at New Wimbledon Studio


We open at New Wimbledon Studio 8th to 11th April -
103 The Broadway Wimbledon London SW19 1QG
Tickets
£10.00 (£7.50 concessions)

Advance Ticket Booking
Box Office 0870 060 6646

And open at Above the Stag Theatre on 14th April with Preview.

Above The Stag Theatre
15 Bressenden Place, Victoria, LONDON, SW1E 5DD
Tickets: £12.00 (£10.00 Concessions)
First Week Discount: All tickets £9.00
CHARITY BENEFIT NIGHT: 30th April 2009
All Tickets: £12.00 in Aid of Positive East
Run to 10th May

The benefit on April 30th marks the 10th anniversary of the Admiral Duncan bombing in Soho, 1999 and money will go to Positive East - Globe Centre supporting people with HIV and AIDS

After the fabulous amounts raised through The Vagina Monologues at New Players' Theatre , Strand, for women and children abused through torture, rape and domestic violence, spotlighting on the Congo, it is good to be involved with another show raising awareness, memory and support for another very important cause

http://www.637productions.com

http://www.whatsonstage.com/blogs/offwestend/?p=997
 

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A Special Pick from the Five Years of Purely

Mary Ann Lily:  I’ll Be

In February Issue 2008

The wind that puffs the petals
The robin at your feet
The sun that shines upon you
The child you’ve yet to meet

The rain upon your shoulders
The grass beneath the tree
The candle flame that flickers
Whenever you think of me

The dreams you still can wonder
The days you cannot cope
The reason you keep on trying
The reason you can still hope

The coat around your shoulders
The shoes upon your feet
The hat you remember me saying
Will always keep in the heat

The chair on which you’re sitting
The food you always eat
The bed you then retire on
To rest, ponder and sleep

The strength to help and guide you
Along life’s weary way
The fun you know there will be
If only for the next day

The laughter you hear float by you
As you walk out in the park
The ducks you feed in the river
The dog you can hear bark

The trickle of running water
That falls from stream to stream
The reason you still keep trying
To fulfil your hopeful dream

The fire that burns so brightly
As you ponder life’s pattern and know
In the night, so calm and quiet,
I will keep away your foe.

As it flickers alive but quietly
Giving out it’s golden glow
In the night so dark, ‘twill calmly
Let you know

I’m the morning light that wakes you
The sun as it rises so slow.
The curtains in a hue of blue
By the window they quietly blow.

The flicker of the light bulb
When you wonder why it might
The noises that sound around you
In the quiet of the night.

The sadness you feel each moment
You look at photos and care.
The joy when you remember
Forever I will be there

The one who’s always waiting
To help you along the way.
Your hopes and cares deciding
Till that wondrous, bright day

We meet once again dear
The two of us to be
The ones that joined together
For ever you and me
 

Mary Ann Lily's photography was featured in the same issue in Photography: Painting By Camera: By Mary Ann Lily

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Films Films Films Films

Kate Elizabeth Wins Wins Winslett

There is no What if! This is No Longer a Shampoo Bottle in the Bathroom for Kate

Goodness! Goodness! Kate Winslett finally wins the Oscar and are we all not ecstatic about it! Simply Wonderful to see her hold that thing in her hands! She has been there so many times and coming home empty handed! Not now!

Kate Elizabeth Winslet (born 5 October 1975) is not just an English actress but essentially the face of what people connect to. She is a singer too.

She was Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic, Clementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sarah Pierce in Little Children, April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road, and Hanna Schmitz in The Reader.

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The Name of the Poet: Isabel Galleymore

Aprils Issue 2008

This section presents a young poet to wider audiences. If you know a young and talented poet and like us to cover them do send us their details and we will cover them. April presents a talented young poet in The Name of the Poet: Isabel Galleymore.

Birdsong

‘’The early bird catches melancholia
from her night owl who preys away
from home and heart each and every night….’’
Read on in The Guardian

Regalia

‘’I imagine you throwing the birds
in a black plastic bag, and of you eating
the overripe blackberries, smudging one
and making a purple heart of your own……’’
Read on in Agenda Poetry

Rose Quartz Noose

‘’These pebbles you polished
to mirror a birthday present
not a birthday,
were threaded on a cord
the cord
the cord was weighted round my neck…..’’

Read on in Agenda Poetry

Read on in Tower Poetry

Read on in Penpushser Magazine

Read on in Write to Ignite Poetry Word Festival

Read on in Spread the Word

Listen to Isabel reading her poetry on Poet Casting

The Name of the Poet: Isabel Galleymore

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April Poet in Residence 2008

Lucy Baker

Awake

I lie here
satiated on chocolates and champagne
staring into oblivious darkness
as the embers of my cigarette
glow softly tangerine
at the tips of my fingers.

I feel transparent somehow
as if all sense has fled
leaving a stranger
to right my slowly tilting vision,
which clouds slowly
as my eyelids obscure
the dim shape of darkness.

If only this stranger
would organize the contents of my brain
into labeled filing cabinets.
Instead each thought
sprouts fragile wings
and floats gently
to join its brethren
on the ceiling of my skull.

A crash upstairs
sends these shaking contemplations
flapping madly,
and I remain sleepless
as heavy wings
beat through the fragile web of peace
I have woven
behind my eyelids.

Lucy Baker
 

Taylor Swift: Fearless

It seems Taylor Swift has taken the music scene with a storm with her new album Fearless. It seems the Country Music has found its Darling Bud of May. Since Tim McGraw (which was released in Summer 2006) Taylor Alison Swift has taken country music to a different height.

Now, with her popular songs like Love Story, Teardrops on my Guitar spreading everywhere Fearless has broken further records.

What is it about Taylor that makes her such a success? Is it her youth? Is it her Song Lyric? Is it her voice? Or is it her her apparent county innocence combined with youth and beauty that takes her closer to the hearts of people?

It is actually not just theses but rather it is her apparent skill, insight and genuine exposition of youth. She has this wisdom of youth and this poignancy of the true inner human emotions that find beautiful an expression in her lyrics and her voice is the perfect vehicle to hold all that in a solidity of sincerity that always does and will reach heart.

http://www.taylorswift.com 

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World Music: French Music

Nolwenn Leroy

Nolwenn was born in Saint-Renan, near Brest, in France on September 28th 1982.

At the age of four, she left Brittany to go to Paris, then Lille, and finally came back to Guingamp in 1990, the last club where her father, a professional footballer, would play: it was also the year of birth of her little sister Kay. In 1992, her father deserted his family. Nolwenn would live difficult years, other moves relative to her mother's work problems. In December 1993, the whole family moved into her grandparents' house.

Her mother, who worked in Lille and travelled a lot within her activities, returned every weekend to Saint-Yorre. It was a difficult period for Nolwenn and her little sister who, in a certain way, would feel better when their mother lost her job in 1996. From her childhood, Nolwenn got her love for the sea, Brittany and Celtic legends. She also got a great adaptability to people and new situations (she attended six different schools from four to eleven years old).

Her Musical Beginnings

It was her music teacher, in her first year at the Celestins secondary school in Vichy, who detected her great skills for music, and advised her to learn to play the violin. The violin Nolwenn uses was offered by her grandmother, who had got it herself from her father.

Mali

At the age of thirteen, she won the Cora hypermarket contest "Les écoles du désert" (The schools of the desert), and went to Mali for ten days for a humanitarian mission, which led her from Gao to Tombouctou. In 2001, when she enrolled in the University of Law of Clermont-Ferrand (in case singing shouldn't have worked), she was hoping for a diplomatic career in the UN or a non-governmental organization, that experience having made her aware of the Third World problems very early.

To the financial problems linked to her mother's job loss, her grandfather's disease would be added. Indeed, in 1994, she would face his suffering from cancer, then her two great-grandmothers' close deaths. Her current dark side has probably something to do with that period.

The United States

In July 1998, she was chosen by the Rotary Club of Vichy to spend a year in the United States as an exchange student. She left knowing she wouldn't see her grandfather again; he would die in November 1998. For Nolwenn, that last goodbye remains a determining moment in her life; she wrote a song on this theme besides.

That year in the United States was hard, as it meant one year without seeing her family, a difficult thing when you are sixteen. However, Nolwenn came out of it stronger, and completely bilingual. Over there, she made real friends, and two new families with whom she is still a lot in contact. When Nolwenn came back to France, she would feel bad for a very long time, because she felt more American than French. She didn't know very well where her real place was any more. While she was in Cincinatti (Ohio), she would go to a two-day workshop in a Performing Arts School, a friend of hers attended. That school would certainly make her feel like auditioning for Star Academy later on.

Her First Singing Lessons

It was when she came back from the United States that she decided to take classical singing lessons, and slightly gave up playing the violin. In fact, Nolwenn had always sung, but she thought she could improve and get strong bases in lyric singing. At the Vichy conservatory, Ms Berthaut Fontanille, her teacher, guided her, then Nolwenn enrolled the regional conservatory of Clermont-Ferrand where she wouldn't stay for a long time, because she likes all kinds of music, and found it was a too confined universe.

Star Academy

The continuation, you may know it; she hesitated to send a videotape for the Star Academy (a TV show broadcast on French channel TF1) auditions, but her mother advised her to do it, telling her it would be the experience of an audition, as she had never auditioned before. Moreover, they were still both convinced Nolwenn's classical profile would be fatal. But, destiny would decide differently. It is also important to specify that Armande Altaï never pushed Nolwenn forward for the audition, contrary to what some rumours pretend. Here is the true story: while watching the first Star Academy edition, Nolwenn was fascinated by the singing teacher Armande Altaï, and appreciated the high level and quality of her lessons. She thus decided to enrol in her singing class, and she worked at the weekend as a cashier in a supermarket to pay her tuition fees, and the return tickets to Paris. In June, Nolwenn finally sent a cassette even though she remains passionate about lyric singing, and was afraid to be catalogued forever in this field, where you are too easily labelled. Nolwenn was aware of the danger; and being not sure of herself, only told Armande about it when she was selected. Besides, others attending Armande's lessons also tried to audition for Star Academy without success. Moreover, the production and the record company (Universal) have very exacting criteria. It is also necessary to add that, during the selection phase at TF1, Armande was never present: she was devoted to her singing class and her personal work as an artist.

( This biography is written by Nolwenn' mother and taken from her website)

http://www.nolwenn.org/en

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Emilie Simon

EMILIE SIMON first made her mark on the U.S. in the fall of 2006 with her debut U.S. release, The Flower Book on Nov. 7, 2006. Her plush, artful soundscapes had already yielded her significant praise and awards in her French homeland, as well as acclaim across the rest of Europe and Japan. Singing in both French and English, Emilie allows her music to flow naturally, rewarding her with devoted fans worldwide. A year and a half after The Flower Book’s release, Emilie is currently residing in New York City and writing her next record. She will be performing shows in NYC this Fall to preview her new material. Having always begun the creative process in the recording studio, and then following with live performances, Emilie is trying a new approach. For the new record, she will let the songs breathe and evolve in a live environment before heading into the studio.

Emilie began her musical education at a French conservatory at 7 years old. By age 18, she was studying Musicology at the University in Montpellier, France, and then obtained her Master in Musicology at the Sorbonne in Paris. Emilie was intrigued by the idea of combining her traditional musical education with new music technologies and studio experimentations. She developed these interests into unique skills at the cutting edge new technology music school, The Ircam in Paris, which to this day remains the only center in the world dedicated to contemporary musical research and production, bringing science and art together in order to widen instrumentation and rejuvenate musical language.

Here she met Cyrille Brissot who she still works with today to develop and build specific instruments adapted to Emilie’s needs, both in the studio and on stage, including the “Brissot” - a breathtaking arm controller that allows Emilie to remotely control, modulate and transform her live voice through a series of controlled effects. Emilie uses a variety of other new technology devices including Yamaha’s “Tenori-on” and a variety of other new hardware and software. Emilie uses this technology to give herself a wide range of versatility on stage, including being able to control everything – from beats to multiple instruments to vocal harmonies and modulation simultaneously while alone on stage.

Shortly after Ircam, Emilie signed a record deal with Barclay/Universal France. Since then, Emilie has written, arranged, performed and produced her two records and the original music for the French (original) version of March of the Penguins. There, Emilie used many diverse and inventive techniques including rubbing pieces of ice together to produce beats and sounds, and blended them with her electronic machinery and inviting lyrics. The Flower Book drew music from all three albums to become her first release in the U.S.

Despite garnering best album honors in the electronic category at France’s “Victoires De La Musique” Awards for her debut, and being touted as one of the most promising female artists, the Montpellier-bred chanteuse is quick to champion her independence as an artist over such acclaim. “[Awards] are nice, but it’s like a cherry on top, really,” the singer/songwriter insists. “It’s great when you have the feeling you are doing something important or that you’re understood. But it doesn’t alter the way I work in any way. I’m always thinking back on what I have done, because I don’t want to be redundant. I want to make music without rules, without anybody telling me what I have to do.”

It is Emilie’s goal to focus on the United States with her upcoming touring and new record. Expect to see much more of Emilie Simon in the next few months.

( This piece is taken from Emilie Simon's website.)

myspace.com/emiliesimonmusic

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Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2009

Are you the young voice of Poetry in the UK?

Open to young people aged 11-17, The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2009 launches at the Sage Gateshead, 3rd March. Time to get writing!

The Poetry Society is proud to announce the launch of The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2009 and to introduce this year’s judges, top poets Lemn Sissay and Selima Hill.

This exciting scheme is the only national poetry prize of its kind that seeks to unearth, promote and support young poetic talent from across the UK. To enter all you need is to be someone who questions, explores, delights in, or is just simply inspired by the world around you.

In a time of change and uncertainty, our young poets are powerfully voicing what many in power are struggling to articulate. Since the launch of the Foyle Young Poets Award 12 years ago, winners have addressed difficult issues such as terrorism, prejudice and violence. Their poems challenge the misperceptions that young voices have nothing to say.

Previous winner of the Foyle Young Poets and Respect Slam, Jay Bernard comments:

‘Some of us are excited about the US elections, curious about global warming or worried about increasing levels of violence. In a society where young people are mostly looked down upon, writing is a chance to talk about these things, to use words brilliantly and to find others who want to listen. Take it. Shake things up. The world is ours.’

Enter Request an entry form by writing to Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award,

22 Betterton Street, London, WC2H 9BX

Or email - fyp@poetrysociety.org.uk

Ages 11 - 17 Deadline for Entries : July 31st.2009

Short Story From Poets' Letter Print Magazine: Youth Lit Magazine

A Pair of Wings: Rebecca Atherton

Other children dreamt of visiting enchanted lands and conjured up imaginary friends. I dreamt of being able to fly and conjured up a pair of wings.  

As a child I envied Peter Pan, and I wasn’t embarrassed to admit that I resented Wendy. If he’d picked me instead of her, I wouldn’t have turned down the gift of eternal childhood and ‘Forever’ in ‘Neverland’; I would have jumped at the opportunity and snatched it right up. As it was, I was forced to settle for the tired pages of a second-hand book and content myself with the images it painted inside my head. I was still young enough to trust in the authenticity of fairytales; still held fast to that naïve belief everything I desired was accessible to me. I could have my every heart’s desire, if only my heart and I desired it enough.  

We desired, hard and more than anything else, to escape the world, to make it shrink away to an insignificant black dot beneath my rapidly rising feet. We wanted to swim up through the blue and grey of a British sky, give birth to a million intestinal butterflies, blow kisses at the startled birds, pull faces at the pinhead passengers all strapped up and bored in the metal machines, test the theory of gravity on planets other than the moon, pop into heaven and exchange pleasantries with God, munching on cucumber sandwiches and afternoon tea; and all this, before we turned ourselves around and headed for ‘Neverland’. We desired to escape my life, to fly away from it.  

I can still picture those wings, if I screw up my eyes and concentrate very hard. I used to concentrate so hard, when I examined myself in front of the mirror I actually saw them there spread out behind me in a fan of glorious, thick-feathered white. Soft and downy, spanning the length from outstretched fingertip to outstretched fingertip, I could hide away deep inside of them or fly away with them whenever I felt the need to remove myself from the world.  

But it was one thing to imagine having those wings, to spend hours locked away inside my own head. It would be so much better to actually own a pair, to turn those coveted appendages into a tactile reality. It would transform my life, making it a slightly more bearable place to exist within.  

Aged five and three quarters, and already dependant on a long line of therapists and a monthly prescription of Prozac, I was a firm believer in magic, fantasy and sepia-tinted happy endings. At present I was clinging, as if my little life depended upon it – and I guess, to some extent it did – to a happy ending all of my own: one that relied upon a certain pair of wings.  

I decided to be proactive and write a letter to The Tooth Fairy; surely she would know where I could get my hands on a pair of functioning wings, she might even surprise me with a generous donation.

I wiled away a whole six months waiting for her to visit. Apparently a certain enamel tender is a prerequisite for inter-species communication and, try as I might, my tender was neither generous nor forthcoming.  

When I finally received my visit, and subsequent reply, I was forced to accept some less-than-happy news: fairy wings are not generally made available to members of the Homo Sapient public, but, seeing as I had been so good and above-the-average brave up until this point in my short and blighted life, the Fairy Queen had been persuaded to bend the rules and make an exception: she would loan me the next available pair.

A year later – after a frustrated wait, in which I lost both heart and hope – that pair arrived.  

They were a lot smaller than I had expected, roughly the size of a sycamore leaf; and they were fragile too, paper-thin and almost skeletal in appearance. I didn’t want to appear ungrateful; but these were not the requested organs of flight. They were far too small to be of any use to me, and they didn’t have any obvious abilities or magic powers.

I tested them out on a few plastic volunteers. Most remained stubbornly earthbound. The braver ones met their deaths without ceremony.  

Disappointed, I locked them away in my jewelry box; they have had few outings since.  

Recently, I have taken them out and examined them: admired the effort that must have gone into their creation; smiled at the image of my father, with his face pressed up against the eye of a magnifying glass, straining to decorate that tiny, unappreciated leaf. My ungrateful response must have upset him, hurt him in ways only rejection from your own flesh and blood can. But, in my defense, I was still a child and my dreams had just been dashed.  

I started to play the game after that; it was Peter Pan inspired. When you stripped back the carefully thought-out routine, the ritualistic manner in which it had to be performed, it came down to one thing: belief. If I believed enough, I could fly.  

Instead of an open window, I chose a flight of stairs. Not because I was lacking in the department that dealt out faith, but because I believed a little room for experimentation, some more for the odd unavoidable failure or two, had to be a sensible thing. It had taken the Darling siblings several attempts to master the technique, and they had had a professional assisting them.  

Nine times out of ten, I landed in a disappointed heap – all metal and useless limb. Once, I managed to land upright, body unscathed. But I never flew or came anywhere close. Although the disorientation of plummeting, limbs awkwardly flailing, down a flight of stairs, while your stomach is still suspended on the carpeted landing several feet above, is about as close as I have ever come to a genuine airborne experience. I only succeeded in testing my unconventional flight theory ten times. After that my parents banned the game and all future talk of it, accusing me of delusion and deterioration into madness. They failed both to understand my twisted logic and to help me realise my dream.  

I switched focus after that, exchanging the impossible for something within the realm of my grasp. Instead of fairies, I concentrated my energies on birds. These beautiful, elegant creatures fascinated me; I saw in them everything that I was not.   

On the ground, we may have shared certain similarities – ok, so their legs worked; but they were clumsy and inept like me. In the air though, they left me far behind. They were graceful, powerful, independent and free. I wished that I had been born a bird, been given the luxury of exchanging the gravity of the ground for the fluid freedom of the air. But I was old enough now to realise it was too late for that. There was about as much chance of my miraculously morphing into a bird or finding myself a pair of fully-functioning human-sized wings, as there was of my getting up out of my chair and walking.  

Rather than give up and become disheartened, I decided to fill my mind up with everything I could learn about them and use that information to build myself my own pair. I also persuaded my parents to buy me a parrot and occupied my down time watching him flip-flap about my room. But his aimless airborne antics soon saddened me and, tired of his tragic behaviour and the guilt I felt at imposing a life of imprisonment upon him – when, really, I should have known better – I opened my window and set him free. My predicament was inescapable. His was unnecessary and easily remedied.  

And that was it; my maturing mind bred nothing more than a pile of redundant dreams – all eventually shattered, each one as empty and as hopeless as the last.

Then I met Khenpo Kour, the Tibetan master, and everything changed. He woke me up to a previously unexplored part of myself, enabled me not just to see, but also to believe, in the existence of a better future.  

‘God didn’t take away your legs,’ he told me in one of our weekly sessions, ‘he gave you a pair of wings. It’s your responsibility to realise that and start using them.’  

So I did. I shed my desperate skin and poked my brand new head out into the world and took a great big gulp. Tentatively at first, scared of what I might find. But as my confidence grew, I managed to push myself further, fly higher; I became a different person, and with that different person came a whole new life. I learned how to embrace the world, how to make it work both for and with me. I wasn’t disabled anymore: I was enabled, empowered, free. God wasn’t punishing me. He wasn’t being cruel or unfair. By putting me in a chair he was giving me a gift, enforcing a different perspective on me. All I had to do was think outside the proverbial box.

I signed myself up to an adventure weekend, deciding to try my hand at a selection of extreme sports; and now, with my wheels fighting a losing battle against a field thick with mud and my heart rate accelerating with each frightened breath, I was preparing to exit an airborne plane and entrust my life to an instructor I’d only just met and the whim of a turbulent sky. Finally, I was going to realise my dream. I was going to fly.

I was terrified. Previously, my idea of flying had been to actually own a pair of wings, to feel them flap at the air behind my back as they lifted me, inch by inch, from the ground. It would be safe. I would be in control. Here, I was several hundred feet in the air and climbing, and expected to willingly swap the security of an expertly crafted vehicle for a vaporous expanse of glowering sky. It was insane. You might as well have asked me to jump off the top of a building, or push myself out in front of a moving car. At five, I might have been enthralled with the idea – it did bear an uncanny parallel to that scrawny child throwing herself down a flight of stairs; but now I failed to see the appeal. The fact that I had done several hours of intensive training, was strapped uncomfortably close to a professional and guaranteed a safe and breakage-free landing, was of little consequence or comfort. My brain was stuck, obsessing over the insanity of the idea, and there was nothing I could do to placate or convince it otherwise. I wondered where that fearlessness had gone, why I couldn’t reach deep inside and pull that reckless part of me back out.  

I decided to tell the instructor I’d had a change of heart, that suddenly landing safely, my skydiving virginity still intact, was more important to me than proving a point and expanding upon the claustrophobic dimensions of my life. Then something in me snapped and that five-year-old self reared her head, refusing to let me speak up. Before I knew what was happening I was in front of that hole, the wind beating hard against my face; and then we were outside the plane and all that was beneath and around us was air. Together we fell, choking on a cocktail of fear and rapture. Together we flew, laughing and screaming profanities into the sky.  

It was amazing, breathtaking, exhilarating and unbelievable. It was everything I had been told it would be. And it was so much more. How could I have lived before this? How could I have wasted so much time? It scared me to think I could have died without even knowing what I’d missed.  

That night, as I lay in bed and stared up at the familiar patch of damp greedily devouring my ceiling, I made a promise to myself and to God: I would change my life. And after I had finished implementing my own changes, I would help other people implement theirs. I had always pictured myself as a fallen angel, someone that God had been displeased with and consequently felt compelled to reject. Now I was being shown that I really was an angel and that I had been all along. The thing that I had despised, thought disadvantaged me and had therefore allowed to hold me back, was actually the thing that set me apart. All I had to do was reach out and embrace it, learn how to make it work for me. The possibilities were endless, if only I set them free. I had always possessed that pair of wings: God had been present at my birth; they were his gift to me.

Copyrights @ Rebecca Atherton

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Theatre Theatre Theatre

Scratched Out, The Urban Musical at Oval House Theatre

R & D Productions presents Scratched Out, The Urban Musical at Oval House Theatre.

Six young people from an inner-city estate, all with ambitions of making it in the music industry. Only Adam has given up this dream to pursue his education, leaving his younger brother Luke behind. All the action takes place in one night at a pirate radio station and a club, as the records spin the soundtrack to a night that will change everything for every one of these six characters.

Scratched Out, The Urban Musical is presented as a part of Oval House Theatre's FiRST BiTES Spring 2009, an ongoing series of new work presented in-progress, giving the audience a unique chance to be a part of the creative process.

The performance will be followed by a Question and Answer session with the Creative Team.

Tickets: £4.00

Thursday 2nd April 2009 - Saturday 4th April 2009 8.00PM

Over House Theatre

52-54 Kennington Oval

London

02075827680

info@ovalhouse.com

http://www.ovalhouse.com

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World Book Day 2009

http://www.worldbookday.com

The Novel of the Month: Heritage of Secrets: Aoife Mannix

Heritage of Secrets

Novel by: Aoife Mannix

ISBN: 978-0954157036

Publisher: Flipped Eye

Read the Opening Chapter of the Novel: Novel Corner

It’s 1970s Ireland. Jack O’Connell saves the life of an American sailor, Troy, who repays him by unwittingly stealing the love of his life, Kate O’Rourke, from him. Jack is determined not to lose Kate and, spurred on by jealousy and circumstance, wins his girl back. Now a doctor in Dublin, his life is perfect – with a young son and another child on the way – when it all falls apart as Kate commits suicide. In the fall out, he loses custody of his son, Cathal, to his embittered sister-in-law, but many questions remain unanswered. Twenty years later, Cathal has gone missing in the US and Jack is drawn back – secrets and all – into the family that ostracised him after Kate’s death.

Peopled by multiple suitors and women enamoured of men in uniforms, Heritage of Secrets has echoes of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd in more than just the name of the American sailor, Troy.

With a keen eye for drama, Aoife Mannix navigates the peaks and troughs of intertwining lives in this exploration of a society in flux. As Heritage of Secrets reaches its climax, actions taken during the days of The Troubles yield startling consequences at a time when marijuana has begun to filter into the bathrooms of convent schools in Ireland and issues of sexuality come to the fore as a new generation shakes off the shackles of convention and small town claustrophobia.

Aoife Mannix was born in Stockholm of Irish parents, grew up in Dublin, Ottawa and New York. She has been general manager of The Royal Court Theatre’s Young Writers Programme and script editor for the BBC drama series Holby City. As a poet and dramatist she has published four books; The Trick of Foreign Words (2002), The Elephant in the Corner (2005), Growing Up an Alien (2007) and the recent Turn the Clocks Upside Down – all with the tall-lighthouse press. She has also written two drama documentaries for BBC Radio 4.

Aoife’s short stories appear in the anthologies, Tell Tales Volume 3 (2006), Small Voices, Big Confessions (2006) and Westside Stories (2003), and her TV sitcom Since Dad Left was short listed for the BBC’s Two Timing competition in 2004.

She lives in London.

Read the Opening Chapter of the Novel: Novel Corner and go and buy the novel or ask for it at your Local Library or read it at your Books Club.

To Buy the Novel

Other links

http://www.aoifemannix.com

http://tinyurl.com/3nj3cp   http://tinyurl.com/3vty8t . 

Facebook group ‘Heritage of Secrets’ for more information http://tinyurl.com/3tn2az  

 http://www.tall-lighthouse.co.uk/publications.html

www.myspace.com/aoifemannixand

janiearmour 

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Glasgow Art Fair 2009: 23-26 April

GLASGOW ART FAIR 2009 takes place from Thursday 23 to Sunday 26 April. Located within its trademark white tented pavilions which dominate George Square in the heart of Glasgow’s city centre, this eagerly anticipated annual art buying extravaganza offers its 16,500 visitors four days of buying, selling and discovering art.

Having firmly established itself as the UK’s most prestigious contemporary art fair outside of London since its inception in 1996, Glasgow Art Fair 2009 will showcase 46 selected galleries from Scotland, the rest of the UK, Europe and beyond exhibiting work for sale by over 1000 artists.

Glasgow’s outstanding reputation for the visual arts; the Art Fair’s status as a platform for encouraging and developing Scotland’s art buying market, together with the City’s position as a European style capital, make Glasgow an ideal platform to present the best of contemporary art for sale and to encourage its residents and visitors alike to invest in new pieces.

With sales figures exceeding £1.2million and individual purchases ranging from as little as £50 to over £70,000, occasional art buyers and dedicated collectors alike recognise Glasgow Art Fair as the place to view and discover quality work by established artists and emerging new talent across a wide range of media.

Of the 46 galleries selected to exhibit this year, ten will be showing at the Fair for the first time. From near and far, new galleries include Annan Art, Glasgow; Alicia David Contemporary Art, London, Pavilion, Leeds and VivoEquidem Galerie, Paris.

Artists’ work on display will range from internationally established names to emerging talent working across a whole range of media - oil painting by the likes of JOAN EARDLEY, J.D. FERGUSON, ARTHUR MELVILLE, and BARBARA RAE; print work from VICTOR PASMORE, CRAIGIE AITCHISON, ALASDAIR GRAY, KENNY HUNTER, MOYNA FLANNEGAN and ADRIAN WISZNIEWSKI; photography & lens based work by JOHN KENNY, EVA STENRAM and RACHAEL DALZELL and limited edition ceramic pieces by DAVID BLYTH.

Of the many highlights at this year's Fair, particular interest may be given to a special exhibition of rare and some previously unseen artwork by 'New Glasgow Boys' - ADRIAN WISZNIEWSKI, KEN CURRIE, PETER HOWSON and STEVEN CAMPBELL through GLASGOW PRINT STUDIO.

The exhibition has been inspired as a direct response to the unearthing of artworks during the Studio's creation of a new national print archive, set to launch in September 2009. Some of the most prominent Scottish artists have worked with the Studio and it is anticipated that the archive will contribute to and reflect key developments in Scottish art over the last 30 years.

Commenting on his experience of print making with Glasgow Print Studio, Wiszniewski said: ‘Working with Glasgow Print Studio is always a pleasure. Their professional, collaborative and unpretentious approach is emulated throughout Scotland and beyond. It’s been exciting to unearth some of my rarely seen work and I hope visitors to the Art Fair will enjoy it as much as I have, making it.’

Speaking on behalf of Glasgow Print Studio, KERRY PATERSON, Archive Curator said: 'Over the past 30 years our printmakers have been collaborating with a fantastic range of renowned artists including Elizabeth Blackadder, Eduardo Paolozzi, Steven Campbell, John Byrne as well as subsequent generations of artists including Christine Borland, Ross Sinclair, Martin Boyce, Carol Rhodes, David Mach and now, a new group of artists who are represented by Sorcha Dallas including Henry Coombes, Alex Pollard and Kate Davis.'

'The Studio has retained prints from every edition it has published since it opened in 1976. Many of the workshop's members, visiting artists and others have donated works over the years. These along with etching plates, proofs, books and all sorts of other things have accumulated into a collection of hundreds of works. Given these contributions, the collection is of considerable value as a public resource. The creation of the archive aims to both store and preserve these items and to create a resource that can be accessed by the general public.'

'As a direct response to the work unearthed, we are looking forward to presenting a special exhibition of works (some previously unseen) for sale at Glasgow Art Fair by the ‘New Glasgow Boys’ - Adrian Wiszniewski, Ken Currie, Peter Howsen and Steven Campbell.'

Meanwhile, regular Glasgow Art Fair exhibitor JOHN GREEN, owner of JOHN GREEN FINE ART, Glasgow said: ‘We’re looking forward to showing an eclectic mix of paintings at a wide range of prices at this year’s Art Fair. In particular we will be exhibiting work by two new artists, Robert Mcgilvray, who paints large abstract pieces evoking the River Tay and Patricia Cain who concentrates on Glasgow’s built environment.’

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Poet of the Month: Adnges Meadows

Agnes has been gypsying around the world since she was 15, and is currently living in London again. She writes about what she sees, feels and imagines, and has performed both in the UK and internationally.

She has five times been a Featured Poet with the Austin International Poetry Festival giving performances and workshops all over Texas, including readings in Spanish, drawing on the 3 years she lived in Mexico. At the 2003 AIPF she won the Christina Sergeyevna Award for Outstanding Writing. Agnes has also performed and led poetry workshops and residencies in Turkey, Spain, Israel and Palestine. She led residencies in all of the Universities on the West Bank, and spent several months in the Gaza Strip working with students from all three of Gaza’s main Universities and the British Council.

Agnes has also run workshops on writing and performing poetry in the corporate sector, and has a wealth of experience of arranging and stage managing performances and shows across London. Agnes is the author of three books of poetry; You and Me, Quantum Love, and Woman (waterways, 2003). She has also produced two CDs of her poetry with music, called Agnes Meadows and Blues Shakin’ My Heels. In addition to her own work, Agnes has also been an adviser on Poetry for Channel 4 TV (UK). She is currently working on a fourth book of her poetry to be published under the waterways imprint of flipped eye publishing in early 2005.

www.myspace.com/agnesmeadows

http://www.flippedeye.net/store

product_info.php?products_id=55

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Thomas Traherne and His Writings

Edited by Denise Inge

The story of the Traherne manuscripts has the whiff of a thriller about it: serendipitous discovery, careful sleuthing, errors that ended up saving the day, a chance discovery in the bowels of an ancient library, the tattered find in a second-hand bookshop. Such forgotten manuscripts, that bring their author back from the edge of oblivion to a chorus of public acclaim, are the unlikely stuff that scholars’ dreams are made of. Yet this happened twice in the history of Thomas Traherne, the 17^th-century Anglican cleric who, although more than 300 years old, has suddenly sprung up among us as a “new English poet”, and lavished with praise for his poetry of nature and innocence that some read as a precursor to Blake, Wordsworth, and Whitman.

Throughout the 20^th century, Traherne manuscripts trickled into the public arena, the most precarious discovery of which was the Commentaries of Heaven, found on a smouldering rubbish heap in Lancashire, the leather binding already alight. It was scooped up by a passer-by, who batted out the flames and stowed the mysterious book in his suburban loft for years. It is now in the British Library.

Then, at the turn of the 21^st century, 100 years after the first poetic discoveries, an epic poem came to light in the Folger Library in Washington DC, while at the same time a large new manuscript (five prose works, one 28 and one 42 chapters long) was discovered in the Lambeth Palace Library in London.

These discoveries have ignited such fresh interest in Traherne’s work that not only has an 11 volume Complete Works and a new biography recently been commissioned but he has also slipped from the catalogue of forgotten persons in the new Dictionary of National Biography to take up his rightful place between Toynbee and Trollope with an entry four pages long.

As this interest in Traherne as an important literary figure continues to grow Happiness & Holiness, published by Canterbury Press, is a much needed, one-volume reader of Traherne’s writings with descriptions of each of his works and some background on its context and discovery.  This volume draws together historical, literary, and theological strands, which go some way towards unveiling the mysterious figure of this fascinating priest-poet, whose many concerns, although the fruit of 17^th-century debates, appear to speak to the wider needs of the 21^st century, in a way that could never have been predicted.

Happiness & Holiness is “a sort of Traherne Reader, beautifully and informatively edited by Denise Inge. Traherne was a psychotherapist before the word was invented.”     P. J. Kavanagh 

"the best available concise introduction to Traherne's life and work." David Ford, University of Cambridge.

THOMAS TRAHERNE was born in 1637, the son of a shoemaker in Hereford, and, after studying at Brasenose College, Oxford, he took charge of the parish of Credenhill, near Hereford, in 1657. He died in 1674 at the age of 37, when he was Chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Keeper of the Seal.  Traherne's Publications include:

Centuries of Meditations (his most acclaimed work -- nearly published as the work of Henry Vaughan). First published in 1908.

The Poems (rescued from a bargain book barrow at the turn of the twentieth century). First published in 1903.

The Lambeth Manuscript (five works recently discovered in the Lambeth Palace Library in London). First published in 2005.

About the Editor   DENISE INGE has been studying Thomas Traherne for many years and established the authorship of the manuscripts discovered at Lambeth Palace. She is an Hon. Fellow in Early Modern Research at the University of Worcester and has not only edited two collections of Traherne’s writings but has also written the first critical study to be published since the new manuscript discoveries. She is frequently invited to give lectures and talks on Traherne’s life and work. She is married to John Inge, the Bishop of Worcester, and has two young daughters. 

THOMAS THRAHERNE and his writings edited by Denise Inge is published by SCM Press, priced £19.99 paperback, 320 pages. To request a review copy or to arrange an interview with Denise Inge please contact Fiona Marsh on 07973797370 or e-mail fionaemarsh@tiscali.co.uk

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London Book Fair 2009

This year's London Book Fair is taking place in April. 20-22 April at Earl's Court London

http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk

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The World in Monochromes at SOAS

An Oriental Ceramic Society Exhibition

 16 April – 20 June 2009

The Brunei Gallery/SOAS

This is the third in the series of exhibitions of ceramics, from the collections of members of the Oriental Ceramic Society, which have approached the subject of Asian ceramics from the point of view of their decorative techniques.

The first exhibition entitled The World in Blue and White was shown in London, Bath and Glasgow in 2003, and this was followed in 2006 by The World in Colours, held at the Brunei Gallery. The 2009 exhibition, The World in Monochromes, completes the trilogy.  Admission to the exhibition is free of charge.

This exhibition seeks to show the beauty, amazing diversity and technical accomplishment of ceramics displaying a single colour.  From brilliant ‘imperial’ yellow to subtle celadon green, the production of these monochrome colours presented challenges to the potters.  The exhibition will be a testament to their creative and technical skills, and will indicate the development of certain glaze colours, the inter-relationship between craftsmen in different parts of Asia, and the inspiration their work provided for potters in the West.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-colour catalogue and a one-day symposium (date to be announced).

Further information will be posted on the OCS website (www.ocs-london.com), as it becomes available.

Brunei Gallery/SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG

OPEN: Tuesday – Saturday 10.30 – 17.00

CLOSED: Sunday and Monday

Tel: 020 7898 4046 (recorded information) Fax: 020 898 4259

Email:gallery@soas.ac.uk

http://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery

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Walk the Museum Mile

"A walk along Museum Mile provides a fascinating insight into London, past and present. From Euston Road to the River Thames, discover 13 of the city’s most extraordinary museums and galleries and their equally diverse collections.

http://www.museum-mile.org.uk

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Birmingham Artfest 2009

ArtsFest, the UK's biggest FREE arts festival will return from 11th-13^th September 2009 and The ArtsFest 2009 application process opens 2pm on Monday 9th March and runs until 5pm on Friday 17th April. 

When you log onto the website www.artsfest.org.uk  between 9th March and 17th April you will be able to complete an on-line application form for ArtsFest 2009. 

Changes have been made to improve the application process, provide information to you about venues and equipment available sooner in the process and the speed in which you are informed of the outcome of your application. 

Guidelines are posted to help you to complete your application form and three separate application forms are available - Performing arts, Visual arts and Film. 

Following the closing date of 17th April, ArtsFest will aim to inform all applicants of the outcome of their application by the end of June. 

If you are unable to complete your ArtsFest application on-line please contact the ArtsFest team on 0121 464 5678 to request the application form in another format.

www.artsfest.org.uk

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What About Michael's Resignation?

A community of young British filmmakers are offering the public the chance to invest in their feature film production to help them make themselves money during the recession. They hope to give back 10-20 times what is invested back to those who help them raise the £50,000 necessary to pay for the crew, camera equipment and special effects, even to those who contribute as little as £10.

A piece of the film can be bought securely online through the movie’s website,

MichaelsResignation.com. There are 50,000 “units” available and they are priced at £1.00 each.

Anyone can invest as little as £5.00. The movie, called “Michael’s Resignation”, is a dark Tarantino-esque psychological thriller inspired by the near-collapse of Halifax/HBOS Bank in September 2008, and written collaboratively online by

over 60 unknown young screenwriters from all over the world. 

Uniquely, the film is designed as a platform to promote unknown talent and is to be produced deliberately with only undiscovered actors, unknown production staff and a soundtrack of only unsigned bands. 

Its writers describe it as a “powerful and savage critique of contemporary British life, as well as a damning social commentary on the emotional effects of recession.” 

Producer Alex Cameron said, “Typically, investment in something as profitable and with a return timescale as movies has been limited to the super-rich, whereas we want to open it up to everyone to invest in, just like the stock market. In a time where everyone seems to want to take money from you, we want to give people a way to make it back, help make people’s dreams come true, and find hope.” 

Award-winning young director of the film, Joby Stephens, commented, “It’s about time a script and film came along to dislocate the association that the world has to the British film industry. Dozens of amazingly talented people who have been unknown until now will have the chance they have craved for so long to make their first mark on the world. ”

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East London Housing Association Poplar HARCA Partners with East London's Art Community

East London Housing Association Poplar HARCA has developed a unique partnership with Bow Arts Trust to utilise empty short-life properties by offering them to local artists to develop affordable live work units. The partnership began on the Leopold Estate in Tower Hamlets earlier this year. Leopold Estate was transferred to Poplar HARCA from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in 2005 and the whole estate is undergoing extensive regeneration.
Several of the 1950’s housing blocks will be knocked down to make way for new homes. Their short-life span means it is illegal for Poplar HARCA to offer any vacant flats to existing tenants. Many residents had already taken the opportunity to move into alternative accommodation leaving a surplus of empty properties on the estate.

Poplar HARCA Chief Executive Steve Stride said:
“Filling the empty properties was a priority for Poplar HARCA as squatting of un-let buildings is commonplace, bringing anti-social behaviour problems for existing residents. The challenge was to find people who would accept a short-life span tenancy and be prepared to fund the internal redecoration of the buildings.

Bow Arts Trust was the natural partner as they have a history of offering local artists affordable studios in east London and are established arts organisation in east London.”

Marcel Baettig Chief Executive of Bow Arts Trust said: 
‘Artists have come to us from a variety of different housing situations many living in cramped bed-sits or caught in house shares. This live/work scheme has allowed them to consolidate their studio and living costs into one and provides them with the space they need at an affordable level.’

Following the success of the pilot scheme on the Leopold Estate, Bow Arts currently occupy 23 flats across three estates with 9 more ready for occupation early in the New Year. All the flats are used as live work spaces by artists who are selected because they are also engaged in working within the community.
 
The live/work artists support a wide range of disciplines, from: painters to film makers, sculptors to poets, designers to curators, many teach, mostly peripatetically, from primary to degree level.  They are a versatile qualified group of vocational individuals that simply find themselves caught in the poverty spiral of part time work and London prices. 
This scheme offers them the important chance at the start of their careers to afford to be an artist; it gives them the space and professional opportunities and support to help build their careers.

This scheme is a unique social enterprise project that has created a self supporting   Community Arts Chest fund, funded using part of the live work rents it directly supports community arts activity providing employment for artists and opportunities for young people, raising their aspirations and access to the creative industries, the third largest sector in the economy and one of the fastest growing.

Warren House resident Josie Smith said: 
‘The difference it’s making to our lives can't be overstated. Having an affordable home enables us to carry on working as artists as well as paying the bills. Not having to choose between making ends meet and making art means a life being lived and a degree not wasted. I know so many friends who are really dedicated and talented artists who are working six days and still not breaking even, they can't work with so little spare time, they have empty studios. Having a studio where we live is incredible......... I feel so much more at ease now I'm not struggling to the same degree. I'm able to begin to create projects and have space to organise them more professional. ‘

www.bowarts.org
www.poplarharca.co.uk
For further information please contact:

Helen New
Head of Communications
Poplar HARCA
T: 0207 510 0509
E: helen.new@poplarharca.co.uk

Jeremy Clarke
Bow Arts Trust
t:+44 [0] 5601 255 669
m:+44 [0] 7775 763 124
jclarke@bowarts.com
www.bowarts.org
Registered Office:
183 Bow Road
London
E3 2SJ

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Thanks to Poetry Library: All Poetry Thing

Musician of the Month: Lara St. John: Violinist

Canadian-born violinist Lara St. John has been described as "something of a phenomenon" by The Strad and a “high-powered soloist” by the New York Times,

She has performed as soloist with the orchestras of Cleveland, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Seattle, Brooklyn, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, the National Arts Centre, the Boston Pops and many more in North America. In Europe, she has played with the NDR Symphony (Hanover), Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Bournemouth Symphony, and the Amsterdam Symphony, among others. In Asia, solo appearances have included the Hong Kong Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, China Philharmonic in Beijing, Guangzhou Symphony and the Shanghai Broadcasting Orchestra. Lara has also performed with the Queensland Orchestra in Australia.

The Los Angeles Times has written, “St. John brings to the stage personal charisma, an unflagging musical imagination and genuine passion.” Recitals in major concert halls have included New York, Boston, San Francisco, Ravinia, Washington DC, Prague, Berlin, Toronto, Montreal, and in the Forbidden City of Beijing.

Lara’s sixth recording, Hindson – Corigliano – Liszt/Kennedy/St. John was released in 2008 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, featuring two world premiere works; the Matthew Hindson Violin Concerto and the Martin Kennedy/ St John arrangement of Totentanz by Franz Liszt, as well as The Red Violin Suite by John Corigliano. In writing of his impressions of the recording, John Corigliano commented: “I'm thrilled to be included in a new recording by the brilliant and always surprising Lara St. John. She is a real maverick, as a performer and in her choice of repertoire. An opulent and virtuosic new violin concerto and my Red Violin suite are coupled with a newly arranged version of a 19th century pianistic tour de force in her latest stunning release.” Strad Magazine, in a review of this recording wrote "..she is an extremely fine player who mixes quicksilver technique with gripping spontaneity to captivating effect." and the disc was voted Best New Release on iTunes, Canada

Lara's Bach: The Six Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo, was described as "awe-inducing" by The Toronto Star, and “wild, idiosyncratic, and gripping” by the Los Angeles Times. It was released in the autumn of 2007 where it climbed to No. 2 and was the year’s best selling double album on iTunes. American Record Guide said, “I simply don't know where else you can go to hear Bach played at this level of artistry” and the Cleveland Plain Dealer called the disc “...a stunning acheivement”.
Her third recording, Bach: the Concerto Album appeared in the “strongly recommended” section of Gramophone, which stated, "It is difficult to argue with such a technically dazzling and unfailingly musical interpretation." In June of 2005 the recording was released on iTunes where it immediately became No. 1 in the classical category.

Her debut CD, Bach: Works for Violin Solo, has sold over 40,000 copies and received resounding acclaim. The Chicago Tribune described Ms. St. John as having “superb technique and an irresistible vitality,” while US News and World Report called the recording “an exquisite performance". Her second album, Gypsy, was described as “a sizzling display” by Gramophone, and The Strad called her "an electrifying player, as deeply satisfying in Bach as she is bewitchingly seductive in Waxman's Carmen Fantasy". Lara has also recorded for Sony Classical.

She has been featured in People, US News and World Report, on CNN's Showbiz Today, and NPR's All Things Considered, Fox News, CBC and a Bravo! Special: Live At the Rehearsal Hall.

Lara began playing the violin when she was 2 years old. She made her first appearance as soloist with orchestra at age 4, and her European debut with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon when she was 10. She toured Spain, France, Portugal and Hungary at ages 12 and 13, entered the Curtis Institute at 13, and spent her first summer at Marlboro three years later. Her teachers have included Felix Galimir and Joey Corpus.

To be released this year, will be a recording of the Eight Seasons - Vivaldi's Le quattro stagioni and Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra with Eduardo Marturet as well as a rerelease of Bach: The Concerto Album with the concerto for Oboe and Violin with Arianna Ghez, the principal oboe of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Highlights of the 2008-2009 concert season include performances with Marc André Hamelin, her London debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and her debut at the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts.

She performs on the 1779 “Salabue” Guadagnini thanks to an anonymous donor and Heinl & Co. of Toronto.

( This biography is taken from Lara St John's website.)

http://www.larastjohn.com

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Website of the Month: Katri Ylander

Onko Vielä Aikaa? ("Is there still time?")

Albums
Idols: Finalistit 2005 (December 2005)
Katri Ylander (June 2006)
Kaikki Nämä Sanat (31. October, 2007 - All These Words)

Singles

*Onko vielä aikaa? (June 2006 - Is There Still Time?)
Mansikkamäki (September 2006 - Strawberry Hill)
Vuorollaan (December 2006) - We Turn)
Aamuaurinkoon (March 2007 - Morning Sun)
Valehdellaan (August 2007 - Lying)
Välitunnilla (October 2007 - At Recess)
Unta (March 2008 - Dream)
  http://www.katriylander.com

www.myspace.com/katriylander

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Kate Raggett: The Artist of the Month

We present Kate Raggett as The Artist of the Month as part of our 5th Anniversary Celebration Issue.  Please, click on the individual piece to see it in full scale. For further on Kate and her beautiful works please visit: http://www.kateraggett.co.uk

And most of all do pay a visit to her Exhibition taking place in Bristol.

Title: Kate Raggett – Earthwork Drawings
Location: Bristol Drawing School, Unit 5.3 Paintworks, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3EH
Dates: 12th – 15th March 2009
Times: 11am - 6pm
Admission: Free
Further Info: 0845 680 1409 or http://www.drawingschool.org.uk

Artist Statement: Kate Raggett 

Aerial

My drawings are made in direct response to landscapes that I visit and in the last 3 or 4 years this has included Peru, Guatemala, Arizona, Egypt, Lake District, Scotland and Ireland.  I spend a lot of time in the land (usually either desert or mountains) - sitting, making drawings, taking photos and recording sounds and then return to the studio and using the photos and material gathered, make the drawings using ink on paper.

1b website

1b website.jpg was a project done in September 2007 in the Lake District
National Park, outside Keswick, as part of an public artstrail FRED 07. The
piece was made using lime-washed micro-granite and measured 100ft x 100ft

The drawings seek to express the sensations of the things we know but cannot see, to remind us of our origins.  It shows the patterns of all things.   In another way, they seek to make the invisible, visible.

For me drawing is the only way to communicate the energy and true experience of sensing the land in its purest and most direct / immediate form.  It has a speed and swiftness and a precision and exactness which does not allow for fuzziness, confusion or ego.  This is crucial to the works that are made.

4

Aerial1.jpg is my latest earthwork drawing made at Old Country House,
Mathon, Worcestershire in November 2008. It is made of windfall apples and
measures 100ft x 80ft.

In my opinion drawing honours the natural intuitive flow and essence of creativity - it provides a freedom and 'raw-ness' or purity not found in other media.

Burghley Aerial

Burghleyaerialemail.jpg was a piece made at Burghley House Sculpture Garden
in 2007, made using limestone found on site and measured c. 20 x 30ft

My large-scale drawings made directly in the landscape use found indigenous materials - these earthwork drawings seek even more directly to express a layer of experience and sense of the land within which they are sited. The earthworks are large-scale (c. 100ft x 100ft) and process-driven (and made in the moment in direct response to the land rather than being pre-planned) and very physical to produce and it is a privilege to work with natural materials providing a beautiful and very varied vocabulary of mark-making materials. Previous works have been made using, fallen leaves, fallen apples (Worcestsershire), found branches, microgranite (Lake District), flintstones (Wiltshire), Limestone (Peterborough).

Earthwork

earthwork2email.jpg was a piece made at Rabley Drawing Centre in Wiltshire
in 2006 made from lime-washed flintstone and measured 50 x 50ft

So, for me, drawing is a central practise.  It is the window onto a direct connection with our environment and landscape and gives me an opportunity to sense, see and experience in an entirely different way.  It shifts my awareness and takes me out of a head space into a place of freedom which holds experience, expression and exploration.  Through this I can quickly observe and realise entirely new aspects of my self and the environment of which I am part. Kate Raggett

Title: Kate Raggett – Earthwork Drawings
Location: Bristol Drawing School, Unit 5.3 Paintworks, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3EH
Dates: 12th – 15th March 2009
Times: 11am - 6pm
Admission: Free
Further Info: 0845 680 1409 or http://www.drawingschool.org.uk

Kate’s large earthwork drawings are site-specific and are made in direct response to the land of which it is part using found, natural and indigenous materials. They follow the pattern or harmony of the land they are created within. Often the pieces are temporary and integrate with the perpetual pattern of change in nature.

A number of these earthworks have been completed around the country and Kate will be bringing them to life inside the gallery with a talk and images.

Kate will be giving an artist talk on 12th March at 6pm, all welcome, admission free.

Bristol Drawing School is dedicated to promoting drawing through a varied programme of courses, workshops, exhibitions and lectures.

Further Information:
Contact: Graham Woodruff
Web: http://www.drawingschool.org.uk
Email: graham@drawingschool.org.uk
Tel: 0845 680 1409

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Out of 5 Years of Poetry Blogs

Poetry Blog: Poetry In Motion?

By Sarah Louise Parry

Published in March Issue 2006

“Poetry in Motion” is the common phrase, however modern press speculation tends to vent quite the opposite. This week (30 January 2006) the BBC Breakfast Show dedicated their schedule to feature an article regarding the decline of poetry. I felt that for once poetry: the most beautiful, drowned-out-by-the-mainstream art was recognised and given some full-frontal publicity. To be more precise, I almost choked on my routine Cornflakes in astonishment! Poetry? At this time? In a popular, high ratings slot? Has the world gone mad? However, the programme pointed out some valid points, offering a valid post mortem cross examination as to why such a fantastic literary pastime/profession was being abandoned like a flailing fad.

The presenters preached pithily how much response they had got from viewers by the feature; they were iodated with emails containing the public’s prose. So why, if the appetite resides within society, are statistics stating that Britain’s piquancy have waned? The response is simply: because fiction has become the nation’s favourite free-time fondle. If any consumer (as the government hardly addresses us as citizens these days) visits their local branch of high street book store, on prominent display shall be fiction. Sod’s Law. There is no escape from this ball-breaking, boring reality. I cease to recall the last time I browsed at the national book charts and there, staring back at me was a poetry publication, glistening from the top of the money tree.

Do not get me wrong. I adore the works of fiction. I am not seeking out to be a cruel catalyst to any form of literary racism here, however I think it is validly important to cherish poetry within our culture. The first justification for its decline is that in order for consumers to buy poetry on a major scale, for them to be drooling at the mouth for the latest slice of freshly-sliced anthology: they have to have heard about it. Publishing companies will not get behind their clients, plough in the funding and PR costs required to elevate their profile to equal that of a virgin fiction author. This is the primary dilemma because publishers feel that poetry is a dying art, and is profoundly labelled as “dead weight delivery”. Commerce clouds over avant garde aura and no risks shall be taken, in contrast with the latest chunk of stereotypical chick-lit which is not only predictable in prose but predictable in their profit margins.

Secondly, the mainstream book stores do not place poetry on prominent display. Considering the British Isles has acted as the breeding ground for intermittent waves of classic poetic talent: it is not reflected by our chain store’s disaster product placement. If consumers wish to purchase poetry, it is gauged in the “Alternative” genre on the third floor, which has never even been stricken with a single strip of sunlight! It is criminal. Why is poetry alternative? I feel personally that poetry is the most natural thing in the world; yet for poetry to be appreciated full circle, I feel that it should be made far more easily accessible.

Personally, I believe that the Education System does a superb job at poising poetry into the public eye. One of the reasons I personally fell in love with poetic form, was due to a passionate rendezvous with a Seamus Heaney book, during my English A-Level course. The schools, colleges and universities are promoting it. Poetry is an un-escapable asset on poetry syllabuses across Britain, but it is after individuals leave the boundaries of these institutions, that poetry becomes as forgotten as their former class clown.

I am a sprightly, youthful poet. Forgive me, if any of you keeled over in shock at that statement, as it is a sickening stigma that I have encountered in society that poetry is “old man’s game.” When people picture a poet, the majority do not visualise a poet being under thirty. This is the problem for me personally. Over recent years there has been an influx of femme poets, which I applaud with a heavy heart, but the age issue still lingers around like the musty, boring stigmas associated with the art altogether. All I ask is, when you read my poetry, read the words and realise zest expressed via poetic form is not dead. Youth can bound around wholesomely within sensational stanzas and the youth of today still possess a voice, which they desire to ring out through their poetry.

Poetry Blog: Poetry In Motion? By Sarah Louise Parry

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Royal Watercolour Society Annual Spring Exhibition

Featured Artist David Brayne RWS 

20 March - 19 April 2008

‘Lyrical, atmospheric, emotive’: just some of the words that can be used to describe David Brayne’s work.  Specially featured at this year’s Annual Spring Exhibition of the oldest and most eminent watercolour society, Brayne’ paintings are innovative in their watercolour technique.

‘My working method starts with the use of raw pigments to create my own colours’ says Brayne.  ‘It involves a lot of risk taking and is a lengthy process, but I couldn’t make these paintings any other way.’

But judging by the perfect blends of colour and form, the ‘risk’ is obviously well managed, and the result is a highly individual response to water, land, sea and figures.

The Members of the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS) are deeply influenced by the places that they have lived and worked, the people in their lives and the cultures in which they are surrounded.  The exhibition displays an array of many of the members’ recent paintings.

The Royal Watercolour Society at Bankside Gallery is the premier centre for excellence for the art of watercolour. The Society aims to encourage innovation in, and raise the profile of, this quintessentially traditional English medium.  All works will be for sale. 

Bankside Gallery 48 Hopton Street [next to Tate Modern] London SE1 9JH

Open daily 11am - 6pm

Free Admission. 

For further information and images please contact Veronica Green mailto:vgreen@banksidegallery.com 020 7928 7521

Image – David Brayne  RWS  Thin Yellow Light,  watercolour, pigment and acrylic gel

www.royalwatercoloursociety.co.uk

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Dulwich Festival
Fri 8th - Sun 17th May 2009

Dulwich Festival takes place once a year om Dulwich that opens up its venues and plays host to a myriad of artistic and thought provoking activities. The Festival started in 1993 and is run as an independent charity and aims to make a broad variety of artistic and cultural events easily available to the whole Dulwich community.

Festival Co-ordinators: Katie Stone, Ruth Colvin, Bob Bridges, Rachel Gluyas, Alpha Hopkins

Trustees: Simon Edwards, Nina Jex

Festival Team: David Dean, Barnaby Thompson, Vicky Goode, Liz Nichol, Nadia Lasserson, Robert Johnson, Sugra Marshall, Angela Burgess, Rebecca Sheeran, Sue Arkell, Peter Gray, Andre Alleyne, Lara Payne-Osibamowo.

And the Festival is fed and supported by a host of volunteers.

http://www.dulwichfestival.co.uk

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Some Facebook Groups You Would be Interested

The Strand The Poetry Pearl

No Man's Land's Bloom: An Areal Play

The London Circle Group

Laranska The Anatomy of Fear Group

The National English Poetre: NEP

Poets’ Letter Group

London Poetry Festival Group

Facebook Universal Bestselling Books

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Films Films Films Films

The European Independent Film Festival 2009
 

Festival to showcase 94 films from 25 countries 13-15 March

PARIS, FRANCE (18 February, 2009) – The European Independent Film Festival (ÉCU), Europe’s premiere event for independent filmmakers and their audiences, announces its Official Selection for the fourth edition of the festival. ÉCU will showcase 94 films from 25 countries ranging in genre from feature films, short films, documentaries, animation and experimental films and for the first time a category for films dealing with environmental issues.


Competing at ÉCU 2009 will be ‘Voyage d’Affaires’ starring Guillaume Canet, ‘The Chef’s Letter’ with Ray Fearon and “My Horizon” with Nick Nolte and Sean Brosnan. In addition, this year’s festival will launch the new ‘Perfect Pitch’ programme, The European Independent Film Channel and will include workshops and ‘Meet the Directors’ sessions.


“I know how hard it is for independent filmmakers to get the recognition they deserve,” says Scott Hillier, ÉCU 2009’s President and Academy Award honoured independent filmmaker. “Our mission is to discover and showcase the most exciting young talent in the film industry today.”


The jury will judge films from 11 competitive categories and award ‘Europe’s Best Independent Film’ at the ÉCU 2009 Awards Ceremony on Sunday 15 March 2009.

Personalities from cinema, television and the arts as well as filmmakers and film industry professionals will mix with a cinema-loving public craving the energy, free-spiritedness and innovation that embodies independent film.

Hillier adds, “ÉCU brings the fresh, distinctive vision of these hugely talented new filmmakers to audiences craving innovation and real creative flair. The platform we provide can be an essential link between a director and a distribution deal.”

The film festival takes place on the 13th, 14th and 15th March 2009 at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, site François-Mitterrand in Paris, France. Admission is free.

The European Independent Film Channel
The European Independent Film Channel will be launched at ÉCU 2009. Its mantra is to give filmmakers maximum year-round exposure and to provide the public with the very best independent films from around the World.

New Programme to Launch at ÉCU 2009
The Perfect Pitch is a series of workshops aimed at independent filmmakers looking to fine-tune their pitch presentations to producers, distributors and financiers. At the end of the workshops, twenty programme participants will be invited to pitch their projects to a panel of industry professionals, including Stephane Parthenay of Pyramide International, Alexis Hofmann of BAC Films and Hengameh Panahi of Celluloid Dreams.

Workshops and ‘Meet The Directors’ Sessions
There will be a series of workshops presented by industry experts on scriptwriting, editing, acting and distribution. ‘Meet the Directors’ sessions will be held throughout the weekend.

Since its inception four years ago the festival has proved to be a discovery point for many of Europe’s talented filmmakers, who are driven by the passion to make great cinema, but don’t benefit from huge production budgets.

For more information and a full list of the 2009 Official Selection, go to www.ecufilmfestival.com

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Author of the Month: Rabina Khan

Rabina Khan has published her first novel Rainbow Hands in 1995 and her second novel Ayesha's Rainbow ( with Malik Al Nasir) has recently been published.

http://ww.bbc.co.uk/london/
content/articles/2007/01/29/
rabina_khan_feature.shtml

http://ww.bbc.co.uk/london/
content/articles/2007/03/12/
veiled_event_feature.shtml

http://www.authorsonline.
co.uk/author/Rabina+Khan

http://www.asiansinmedia.
org/news/article.php/
publishing/1737

http://www.rabinakhan.com

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Events Events Events

Speakeasy presents Geezer

02 March Time: 19:30 - 23:00

Marie Lloyd Bar

289 Mare Street, E8 1EJ

London                

Email:   

Naomi.Woddis@btinternet.com

Host: Naomi Woddis

Featuring:
Abe Gibson: Silken-voiced former writer in residence with London's Transport Museum

Tim Wells: Editor of Rising magazine and co-holder of the prestigious Best Dressed Poet award; http://www.myspace.com/12caesars

Graham Buchan: shouldn't be allowed out on his own

http://www.tall-lighthouse.co.uk/

p_graham-buchan.html

Ronnie McGrath: Painter, writer, musician, surrealist visionary http://www.tall-lighthouse.co.uk/

p_ronnie-mcgrath.html

Baden 'Loverman' Prince: The voice of London's Speakeasy http://www.tall-lighthouse.co.uk/p_baden-prince.html

Niall O'Sullivan: Former working class hero turned first-class poet and writer; host of New Blood and The Cellar

http://www.myspace.com/

niallosullivanpoetry

Bob Boyton has written and performed for the last twenty five years. Well known as a passionate left wing stand up in the 1980's he has concentrated on writing and performing as a contemporary story teller since the mid 1990's.

http://www.baconbills.co.uk/

BobBio.htm

Kayo Chingonyi has performed his work at such venues as Buckingham Palace, Shakespeare’s Globe, Tate Modern and Soho Theatre as well countless live venues in London, Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield.

http://www.myspace.com/requiem87

Shane Solanki is truly a geezer. He’s been married 15 times, all of them to girls who needed a visa http://www.lastmangoinparis.

blogspot.com/

Daniel Cockrill delivers poignant, irreverent and very funny poetic anecdotes with an elegant and intelligent simplicity

http://www.bangsaidthegun.com/

dancockrill.html

Vic Lambrusco: "Testosterone-charged" Scotland on Sunday http://www.myspace.com/

viclambrusco

Joe Cairo: Like a motorway smash you want to look away but you can't.

Donall Dempsey has the voice, the charm and poetry to break your heart and have you begging for more http://www.myspace.com/

counterpointpoetry

Compere - Poetry Mosaic goddess Naomi Woddis

http://poetrymosaic.wordpress.com

and all this for FREE.

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Agnes Meadows with Loose Muse and Angel Poetry

Agnes Meadows with Loose Muse: First on Wednesday, 11th March – we have LOOSE MUSE at the Poetry Café, 22 Betterton Street, London WC2 (closest tube = Covent Garden). This is London’s only regular event for women writers of all genres, with a warm and wonderful open mike sharing session, plus two featured writers each month. First, all the way from Greece to London we have special guest poet Margaret Eddershaw, bringing us poems of ultra-sensitivity and charm leading us into her world of shining words. And then back by popular demand, the multi-talented actress and writer Marlene Sideaway, this time bringing us her one-woman show ‘Cloak and Dagger’. This is the intriguing three part story of women with ‘man trouble’ – a classic tale of murder and mystery, expertly re-enacted. The night starts at 8.00 p.m - £5.00/£3.00 concs. And there are plenty of chances for you to come read your own work in the open mike readings from the floor.

Then as usual on the second Thursday of the month we have ANGEL POETRY on Thursday 12th March starting as usual at 7.00 p.m., but moving to Waterstone’s Bookshop, 11 Islington Green, N1 2XH – just one bus stop further up either Upper Street or Essex Road or 2 minutes walk Angel tube station. This month we have the usual triple bill of fantastic featured poets, each sharing their special words and their unique own way of seeing the world. First we have the gloriously talented Heather Taylor, bringing us a selection of poems from the Canadian prairies to life on London’s mean-streets. Then we have relative newcomer to spoken word world Nick Field, fast making a name for himself on the poetry circuit with his quality work, and finally the magnificently ascerbic Bros Grim, with his own dark and dangerous portraits of the world in words so sharp they’ll cut you. There are also floor spots available on the night, so just turn up and let me know you want to read.

And then there are a few other events I’m involved in:
Thursday 5th March – Writing for Children with Beverley Birch, author and commissioning editor of Hachette Books, + Rosemary Canter of United Agents. Come and hear about this expanding and innovative area of writing @Discover, 1 Bridge Terrace, Stratford E15 4BG. £5.00 Call to book 020-8536-555 and speak to Signe.

Thursday 5th March – featuring at Lucy Leagrave’s book launch, to be held at Old Crown, 33 New Oxford Street. Kick off at 8.30 to late, with a host of poets joining the luscious Lucy in reading from her latest collection. Be there or be terrified!!

TIME FOR SONG – TERMYN RAG KAN – Launch of a new book of contemporary Cornish poetry featuring Bert Biscoe, Pol Hodge, Patric Cunnane, Sue Johns, Bob Devereux, and Agnes Meadows, with touring dates:
Friday 27th March – Penzance Arts Club, Chapel Street, Penzance – 8.00pm
Saturday 28th March – Assembly Rooms, Hall for Cornwall, Truro – 8.00pm
Friday 3rd April – L’Osteria 57 Wine Bar, 57 Grays Inn Rd, WC1 – 7.30pm (Chancery Lane tube)
Saturday 4th April – upstairs at The Sun, 21 Drury Lane, Covent Garden, WC2 – 7.30pm (Holborn or Covent Garden tube).
www.myspace.com/agnesmeadows

Littlest Birds with Emma Robertson

March 23: 4th Monday at Poetry Cafe

Free but donations welcome.

www.myspace.com/littlestbirds

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Benjamin Franklin House Events 2009

The House of Invention:

Benjamin Franklin and Scientific Change

National Science & Engineering Week

Tuesday 10 March, 12pm – 5pm

Free open day, suitable for all ages, funded by the Institute of Physics, features great Franklin Science Experiments throughout the day. Learn how Franklin tamed lightning, race canal boats and find out what can make them move faster and understand the principles of sound as you play the strange musical instrument he invented, the glass armonica. Come at any point and see where Franklin made contributions to life in the 21^st century.

Fire From The Sky: Benjamin Franklin and the Lightning Rod

Monday 16 March, 1pm

House Operations Manager, Alice Kershaw, uncovers the connection between Franklin’s famous – and dangerous – discovery of lightning as “electrical fluid” and his role as a political firebrand.

£5/£3.50 Friends and Concessions. To book: call 020 7839 2006 or email info@BenjaminFranklinHouse.org

Shaping America: Franklin and the Constitution

Wednesday 25 March, 6:30pm

House Franklin scholar Lady Joan Reid reveals Franklin’s role in crafting the US constitution, one of his most enduring legacies: Franklin’s input remains particularly relevant today.

£5/£3.50 Friends and Concessions. To book: call 020 7839 2006 or email info@BenjaminFranklinHouse.org

Benjamin Franklin and the Great Wall of China

Thursday 9 April, 7pm

Dr Dave Wang of St John’s University makes the link between Franklin and the Great Wall of China, one of the world’s wonders, built 2,000 years ago by the Qing dynasty, as a sturdy ‘no trespassing’ sign to neighbouring kingdoms. For centuries, the wall remained neglected and forgotten, until 18^th century Europeans became infatuated with it.

£5/£3.50 Friends and Concessions. To book: call 020 7839 2006 or email info@BenjaminFranklinHouse.org

How Georgian Britain's Worst Husband Met His Match

Monday 20 April, 1pm

Wendy Moore reveals the story which fascinated London in Franklin’s time:  of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore. Kept a virtual prisoner, Bowes successfully dissolved her disastrous marriage to a ne’er do well fortune hunter.

£5/£3.50 Friends and Concessions. To book: call 020 7839 2006 or email info@BenjaminFranklinHouse.org

Friday 15 May, Late Night at Benjamin Franklin House

Museums & Galleries at Night

See the innovative Historical Experience, which makes real Franklin’s life and times at Craven Street through live performance and sound and visual projection. Shows start at 6:15 and 7:15pm.

Tickets £7, £5 concessions. Book on 020 7839 2006 or info@benjaminfranklinhouse.org.

Saturday 16 May, The Craven Street Bones

Museums & Galleries at Night

Visit Benjamin Franklin House at night and tour the beautiful Georgian building by candlelight before enjoying a glass of wine in the basement to hear the chilling story of bodysnatchers and the Craven Street Anatomy School run by Franklin’s fellow resident William Hewson.

Two Tours, starting 8pm and 9pm. Tickets £10, £8 concessions, includes wine. Places limited, book early on 020 7839 2006 or info@benjaminfranklinhouse.org.

Franklin and Polly Hewson: A Second Daughter

Monday 18 May, 1pm

Benjamin Franklin House Founding Director Dr Márcia Balisciano argues that Franklin became a father to the daughter of his Craven Street landlady, Polly Hewson, ensuring an American destiny for her and her descendants.

£5/£3.50 Friends and Concessions. To book: call 020 7839 2006 or email info@BenjaminFranklinHouse.org

Enlightening Friendships: Franklin and his London Milieu

Wednesday 3 June, 6:30pm

A ‘Story of London’ Programme

House Franklin Scholar Lady Joan Reid illuminates the rich exchange between Franklin and his London friends, like chemist Joseph Priestley, doctor John Pringle and publisher Peter Collinson.

£5/£3.50 Friends and Concessions. To book: call 020 7839 2006 or email info@BenjaminFranklinHouse.org

Independence Day Celebration

At Benjamin Franklin House

Join us for cake and bubbly between 12 and 2pm.

Friday 3 July

Tickets £8, £5 Friends and concessions

Book on 020 7839 2006 or info@benjaminfranklinhouse.org.

Handel Concert

16 July 2009, 7pm

Performed by Cenk Karaferya, Founder, Broschi Ensemble.

www.cenkkaraferya.com

Tickets £15, £13 Friends and concessions

Book on 020 7839 2006 or info@benjaminfranklinhouse.org.

An Audience With Polly Hewson

Every Tuesday in August at 11am and 2pm

What was life like in Georgian England? Meet Mrs Polly Hewson, the daughter of Franklin’s landlady, who will reveal everyday life and the grander events in Franklin’s London household. Follow also in Franklin’s footsteps, re-creating one of his most famous experiments.

Tickets: £5 per child, free for accompanying adults

Benjamin Franklin House Annual Symposium in Association with the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library

Wednesday, 9 September 2009, 6.30pm

This year we collaborate with Kew Gardens, celebrating their 250^th Anniversary. Franklin and Joseph Banks, Kew’s Founder, were close friends; Paul Smith, Director of Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank will show what’s become of their mutual botanical passion.

Tickets £8/£5

Herbs, Horticulture and Health: Franklin’s Botanical Pursuits

Monday 14 September, 6:30pm

House Franklin Scholar Lady Joan Reid makes the case that, although Franklin wasn’t a keen gardener, he advanced botany on both sides of the Atlantic, introducing, for example, rhubarb to the colonies and certain apples to Britain.

£5/£3.50 Friends and Concessions. To book: call 020 7839 2006 or email info@BenjaminFranklinHouse.org

Franklin the Spy

Thursday 3 December, 6:30pm

House Franklin Scholar Lady Joan Reid gets to the bottom of whether Franklin was a spy during his London sojourn and beyond.

£5/£3.50 Friends and Concessions. To book: call 020 7839 2006 or email info@BenjaminFranklinHouse.org

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Poetry Street Invites

Kate runs Poetry Street website and writes here to invite poets and readers of poetry to get involved with her efforts to widen poetry reach and appreciation.

Poetry Street is a UK website offering lovers of Poetry throughout the world an opportunity to publish poetry.

Poetry Street makes no charge for publishing poetry, welcoming everyone to voice their inner passion in poetic form.

The aim of the Poetry Street website is to allow enjoyment, freedom and satisfaction, not only for the writers of poetry, but for visitors who simply enjoy reading poetry.

Poetry Street is looking to feature individuals who may have written a book/s on poetry, or indeed have had their work published.

Separately, there is a profile page on Poetry Street for anyone who wishes to have details published about themselves.

A personal poetry page is an additional interest to each profile.

A News page gives information on poetry, unusual findings, quotes, books and interesting details emailed by visitors.

Poetry Street requests that all poetry be morally acceptable for visitors, please.

http://www.poetrystreet.co.uk

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Blackheath Wealth: Blackheath Hall in March

Krista Detor - Friday 20 March at 8:00 PM

http://www.myspace.com/kristadetor

http://www.kristadetor.com

Pianist & Singer/songwriter Krista Detor returns to Blackheath Halls.

Since her last visit in October 2006, Krista Detor's profile has boomed. Pianist & singer/songwriter from Indiana who has been compared to the likes of Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro and Leonard Cohen. Her albums 'Dream in a Cornfield' and 'Mudshow' have drawn high praise from the likes of Rolling Stone Magazine.

Cara Dillon - Saturday 30 May at 8:00 PM

http://www.caradillon.co.uk

http://www.myspace.com/caradillon

One of the Folk world's most beautiful voices makes a much anticipated return to Blackheath Halls.

Now something of a folk-legend, Cara’s exquisite, crystalline vocals have been winning her acclaim ever since she won the All Ireland Singing Trophy at the age of 14. The angelic quality of her voice has drawn comparisons to Eva Cassidy and, infused with a modern sensibility, ancient songs are artfully supported by understated arrangements. A shower of accolades followed Cara’s album ‘Sweet Liberty’ (BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Big Buzz, Hot Press Awards) and it swiftly placed Dillon firmly amongst the leading lights of the new generation of young traditional artists emerging onto the mainstream.

Wealth of Blackheath: Blackheath Halls in March

Meantime Jazz Orchestra - Monday 2 March at 7:00 PM

Five-session course rehearsing jazz standards and looking into improvisation with saxophonist Andy Williamson. More.

Adult Workshop Series: An Introduction To English Folk Dancing - Monday 2 March at 7:30 PM

The second block of Blackheath Halls' adult workshops begins with An Introduction to English Folk Dancing. More.

Beats In The Bar - Tuesday 3 March at 7:30 PM

Kick back and soak up the atmosphere of Beats in the Bar as jazz students from Trinity College of Music do what they do best...perform, improvise and generally have a good time in our Recital Room. More.

Tea Dances - Wednesday 4 March at 2:00 PM

Join the Hugh Ockendon Trio in the Great Hall fro an afternoon of dancing to live music - Quickstep, Foxtrot, Cha Cha Cha, Sequence Dancing and more! More.

Trinity College of Music Sonfonia - Thursday 5 March at 7:30 PM

Trinity college of Music Sinfonia conducted by Ian Mitchell, Nic Pendlebury and Jonathan Tilbrook. More.

Lunch & Listen - Friday 6 March at 1:15 PM

Postgraduate pianist Peggy Fung will perform sonatas by composers from the classical and romantic periods. More.

Ray Gelato & The Giants - Saturday 7 March at 8:00 PM

Ray is now considered to be one of the last in a long line of the classic jazz entertainers. More.

Pei-Jee Ng & Benjamin Powell - Sunday 8 March at 11:00 AM

Cellist Pei-Jee Ng and pianist Benjamin Powell give a recital at Blackheath Halls. More.

Blackheath Halls Orchestra - Sunday 8 March at 7:30 PM

The Blackheath Halls Orchestra has gone from strength to strength since its founding in 2006. More.

Meantime Jazz Orchestra - Monday 9 March at 7:00 PM

Five-session course rehearsing jazz standards and looking into improvisation with saxophonist Andy Williamson. More.

Adult Workshop Series: Strictly Come Dancing - Monday 9 March at 7:30 PM

Workshop 5: Strictly Come Dancing 1 More.

Beats In The Bar - Tuesday 10 March at 7:30 PM

Kick back and soak up the atmosphere of Beats in the Bar as jazz students from Trinity College of Music do what they do best...perform, improvise and generally have a good time in our Recital Room. More.

The Brodowski Quartet - Thursday 12 March at 7:00 PM

The Brodowski Quartet give a recital at Blackheath Halls. More.

Lunch & Listen - Friday 13 March at 1:15 PM

Laurie Truluck gives a horn recital. More.

Anansi Tales and Tiger Tales - Saturday 14 March at 3:00 PM

Colourful, funny, and full of surprises, Anansi stories originated in west Africa and then 'travelled' to the Carribean. More.

Snowboy & The Latin Section - Saturday 14 March at 8:00 PM

He is, without doubt, the country's best known Latin percussionist and his band is probably Europe's most travelled Latin Jazz act. More.

Cavatina Family Concert Series: Brodowski Quartet - Sunday 15 March at 2:30 PM

The Brodowski Quartet are dedicated to boosting awareness of chamber music amongst young people and are well versed in making concerts highly enjoyable for all. More.

Blackheath Halls Opera Gala Night - Sunday 15 March at 6:30 PM

Blackheath Halls Opera Gala night, presented by the fabulous British bass Matthew Rose. More.

Meantime Jazz Orchestra - Monday 16 March at 7:00 PM

Five-session course rehearsing jazz standards and looking into improvisation with saxophonist Andy Williamson. More.

Adult Workshop Series: Strictly Come Dancing - Monday 16 March at 7:30 PM

Workshop 6: Strictly Come Dancing 2 More.

Beats In The Bar - Tuesday 17 March at 7:30 PM

Kick back and soak up the atmosphere of Beats in the Bar as jazz students from Trinity College of Music do what they do best...perform, improvise and generally have a good time in our Recital Room. More.

Lunch & Listen - Friday 20 March at 1:15 PM

Melissa Mills gives a flute recital. More.

Krista Detor - Friday 20 March at 8:00 PM

Pianist & Singer/songwriter Krista Detor returns to Blackheath Halls. More.

Critical Listening & Writing Workshop - Saturday 21 March at 1:30 PM

The workshop is led by Stephen Pettitt-music critic writer & broadcaster. More.

Haffner Wind Ensemble - Sunday 22 March at 11:00 AM

The Haffner Wind Ensemble is one of Britain’s leading chamber ensembles and one of the most established wind quintets in Britain. More.

Meantime Jazz Orchestra - Monday 23 March at 7:00 PM

Meantime Jazz Orchestra Performance. More.

Lunch & Listen - Friday 27 March at 1:15 PM

Music for baroque violin and viola da gamba from Austria and Bohemia around 1650-1690. More.

TCM Symphony Orchestra & Chorus - Friday 27 March at 7:30 PM

TCM Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by James Judd perform Grieg's Piano Concerto and Brahms' Requiem. More.

Burglar Bill - Saturday 28 March at 3:00 PM

Pandora’s Box Theatre present Burglar Bill. More.

Barnstormers Comedy - Saturday 28 March at 8:00 PM

The second in Barnstormers Comedy’s new monthly residency at Blackheath Halls. More.

Mark Steel - Friday 3 April at 8:00 PM

Mark Steel stand-up comedian returns to Blackheath Halls. More.

The Brook Street Band - Sunday 12 April at 11:00 AM

A fictional meeting between the two greatest musicians of the baroque era: contrasting Bach's strict Lutheran Germany with Handel's decadent London. More.

Tea Dances - Wednesday 15 April at 2:00 PM

Join the Hugh Ockendon Trio in the Great Hall fro an afternoon of dancing to live music - Quickstep, Foxtrot, Cha Cha Cha, Sequence Dancing and more! More.

The Lark Rise Band - Friday 17 April at 7:00 PM

Blackheath Halls welcomes 'the godfather of folk-rock', Ashley Hutchings, with his group, The Lark Rise Band. More.

The Icarus Club - Friday 17 April at 8:00 PM

Following the success of their weekly events in the local area, we’re delighted to welcome the highly-acclaimed Icarus Club to the halls for a short season. More.

Chris Difford & Support - Sunday 19 April at 7:30 PM

The double Ivor Novello Award winning Chris Difford takes to the road again for a unique evening, and a new landmark in his solo career - a one man show. More.

Music Appreciation: Beethoven - Monday 20 April at 10:00 AM

A ten week journey through the Symphonies and Overtures with Matthew Taylor. More.

Treasure Island - Saturday 25 April at 3:00 PM

The exciting adventure of Treasure Island. More.

Frank Gardner - Tuesday 5 May at 8:00 PM

 Blackheath Halls

23 Lee Road

London SE3 9RQ

Box Office: 020 8463 0100

Admin: 020 8318 9758

Fax: 020 8852 5154 email: piershenderson@blackheathhalls.com  

http://www.blackheathhalls.com

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Utter Poetry

Tuesday, April 14, 2009
7:30pm - 10:30pm
Green Note Club, 106 Camden Parkway London NW1 7AN
Tube: Camden Town. Overland: Camden Road/Euston
07912 539098 / richardtyronejones@gmail.com
£5 entry. We recommend you arrive early to get a seat!

www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=45677498381

GEORGE CHOPPING, the hilarious winner of Utter!s 2009 Ajar Mic final,
hosts and curates Utter! With JOHN HEGLEY, TIM KEY, CLARE POLLARD, PETE THE TEMP

AJAR MIC: Jude Cowan, Chrissy Williams, James Acaster, Simon Freedman.
YOU the audience decides who wins a full paid slot next month,
bringing all your mates along to vote for you is positively
encouraged!

One audience member wins the wonderful Bag of Books prize draw for...
a bag of books! Donated by thedelinquent.co.uk and trespassmagazine.co.uk and
ukpoetrypodcast.com


PLUS on Sat 18 April 2009 - Utter! writing group, 11am-1pm, Wood Green
Library Community Room (2nd floor) - GEORGE CHOPPING runs a GUEST
writing WORKSHOP - FREE to new writers!

Richard Tyrone Jones
Poet, host and Co-organiser of:
'Utter! Camden' - normally 2nd Tues of the month from Feb '09, £3
before 7.30pm start, £5 thereafter. Green Note, 106 Camden Parkway
NW1 7AN (Tube: Camden, overland: Camden Road)
www.myspace.com/richardtyronejones

Greek Play Visiting England: 19-22 March

The Greek Theatrical Scheme of Leonidas Loizides will present in England one of the finest of all Greek dramas "The BACCHAE" by Evripides in March. The production is currently enjoying a most successful world tour, having just completed a 40 day tour of the USA.

This particular theatre production of "The BACCHAE" has been endorsed by The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Greek National Tourism Organisation, The Greek Ministry of Transport and Communications, The Hellenic Cultural Organisation, The Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture, and sponsored by AEGEAN Airlines, ERT World, Apogevmatini, London Greek Radio (LGR) and ELEFTHERIA of London Newspaper.

Traditionally, British audiences respond very enthusiastically to Classical Greek drama, especially Greek Tragedy. In recognition of this fact "The BACCHAE" from The Greek Theatrical Scheme of Leonidas Loizides (in the version of the dean and professor of the University of Athens Maria Thomadaki) has decided to tour Britain. Both countries share an endemic commitment to cultural development in literature; this powerful dramatisation of the "The BACCHAE" reflecting the conflict between the emotional and rational sides of the human psyche is a balance between comedy and terror.

The play is presented in the Greek language with English hyper-titles. Its ingenuity lies in the fact that it is performed by an exclusively female cast, consisting of eight professional actresses. Leonidas Loizides pioneering concept aims at the promotion of the role and the power of the woman, past, present and future.

Performances:
Thursday 19th March 2009, ADC Theatre, Cambridge
Friday 20th and Saturday 21st March, Theatro Technis, London
Sunday 22nd March 2009 Greek Cypriot Estia Hall, Birmingham
For further information and press passes please
 

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Scottish Book Awards Announce Shortlist for 2009

Scotland’s richest book awards have secured a new sponsor granting a generous increase for the overall Book of the Year prize to £30,000 and to category prizes of £5,000.  Twenty shortlisted titles announced today (Thursday 5 March) are in the running for the awards across the categories of fiction, literary non fiction, poetry and first book.  

The renamed Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards are the next evolution of the Scottish Arts Council Book Awards which were first introduced in the 1970s]. The generous sponsorship by Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust represents a long term sponsorship commitment and celebrates the Trust’s Centenary year in 2009.      

Commenting on the new sponsorship agreement Sir Donald Mackay Chairman of Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust said:

“We are delighted to be involved. Supporting these prestigious book awards is a very suitable way for Scottish Mortgage to celebrate its centenary. By showcasing Scotland’s finest literary talent Scottish Mortgage hopes to shed light on its own intellectual and insightful approach to investment over the past 100 years” 

Scottish Arts Council Chairman Richard Holloway added:“We are delighted that Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust has agreed to support the awards. This new sponsorship will allow us to continue to celebrate the best writing Scotland has to offer. The strong shortlist announced today is a testament to the vibrancy and strength of Scottish writing.” 

Minister for Culture Michael Russell said:
“Scotland is a literary and literate nation which has always produced great writing and great writers. These awards provide a fitting recognition to celebrate the best of Scottish writing. This year’s shortlist demonstrates the wealth of creative talent that exists across all genres and profiles some of the best modern Scottish books which inspire adults and children alike.

“I also welcome this new business sponsorship of the arts which is sure to bring benefits creatively and economically for both organisations.” 

The Shortlist

The Book Awards continue to be a celebration of Scotland’s contemporary literary scene and offer awards to published authors from, or based in, Scotland. This year’s judging panel comprises: Professor Alan Riach, poet and Head of the Department of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow; Lillias Fraser, Readership Development Officer at the Scottish Poetry Library; Pat Kane, writer, musician, consultant and blogger; and Dr Gavin Wallace, Head of Literature at the Scottish Arts Council, who Chairs the panel in a non-voting capacity.  

Together, the judging panel has whittled down a longlist of over 120 titles to comprise a shortlist of twenty across the categories of fiction, literary non fiction, poetry and first book.  

Settings vary from a debauched celebration of the cabaret-era in pre-war Berlin, working in a fish factory, and life as an assistant to one of Scotland’s most cherished literary figures. The UK’s current bestseller, Edinburgh-based Kate Atkinson, has reached the shortlists, together with a host of other major Scottish literary figures such as James Kelman, Janice Galloway, and Robert Crawford, and poets from every corner of Scotland. 

In addition an exceptional commendation has been given to poet Mick Imlah who died in January.

The full shortlist is detailed below.

FICTION

Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News?, (Doubleday)

James Buchan, The Gate of Air, (Maclehouse Press)

Beatrice Colin, The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite, (John Murray)

Andrew Crumey, Sputnik Caledonia, (Picador)

Meaghan Delahunt, The Red Book, (Granta)

James Kelman, Kieron Smith,Boy, (Hamish Hamilton)

Kei Miller, The Same Earth, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) 

NON-FICTION

Kate Clanchy, Antigona and Me (Picador)

Janice Galloway, This is Not About Me (Granta)

Rodge Glass, Working with Alasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography (Bloomsbury)

Sara Maitland, A Book of Silence (Granta) 

POETRY

Robert Crawford, Full Volume (Jonathan Cape)

Jen Hadfield, Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe)

Frank Kuppner, Arioflotga (Carcanet Press)

Tom Pow, Dear Alice (Salt Publishing) 

In addition the judges agreed to make an exceptional commendation for The Lost Leader by Mick Imlah (Faber and Faber), whose death in January 2009 prevented him from being shortlisted. 

Commenting on the Poetry shortlist Lillias Fraser on behalf of the judges said :  

“The range of the shortlisted poetry collections is specially impressive. There's a vivid sense of physical places, from Dumfries to Shetland by way of Canada or Fife, in the books by Robert Crawford, Jen Hadfield and Tom Pow - while Frank Kuppner's extraordinary booklength poem opens vista after hypnotic vista on the Alternative World of Kuppner.  This writing isn't only describing places in the physical world, but creating ideas of places through the fresh, superbly-crafted poetry:  what does it mean to belong somewhere, to live side by side with history or tradition, but not accept what you see at face value? These four vastly different books are by poets at the top of their game, all using their formidable craft as a rock-steady foundation for adventures in form and imagination.” 

FIRST BOOK

Elaine di Rollo, The Peachgrower's Almanac (Chatto)

David Knowles, Meeting the Jet Man (Two Ravens Press)

Andrea McNicoll, Moonshine in the Morning (Alma Books)

Greg Michaelson, The Wave Singer (Argyll Publishing)

Andy Nicholl, The Good Mayor (Black & White Publishing) 

Commenting on the First Book shortlist Professor Alan Riach on behalf of the judges said:  

“This list is rich in unexpected pleasures: brilliantly accomplished thrillers, gently anecdotal stories, rich historical reconstructions with gripping narratives, lucid travel accounts in Scotland’s less familiar archipelagos. The world, it seems, from Thailand to the Baltic, is becoming increasingly explored by Scottish imaginations, while the under-explored facets of Scottish life and character, contemporary and historical, from Shetland to Aberdeen and Glasgow, are exciting the scrutiny and imaginations of our finest new writers.” 

Following today’s shortlist announcement, a winner will be selected in each category in April (each receiving £5,000) and one of the category winners will then be selected as the overall Book of the Year receiving a total of £30,000. The overall winner will be announced, and all the awards will be presented, at an awards ceremony the Borders Book Festival on 19 June, the second time the Festival has hosted the awards.

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