Four poems at the Winter Solstice

About six months ago - just after the Midsummer Solstice, in fact - I had the pleasure of recording four of my poems with the excellent Soundbite Recording: 'Homo Divivus', 'Imp', 'The Fetch' and 'My Father's Orrery'. The poems are all published in The Fetch (Nine Arches Press, 2016).

The recordings have had an independent life for some time on SoundCloud, but I thought I'd share them here, six months on from midsummer, at the 'year's midnight'.

'Homo Divivus' appears twice: once in a soundscape, and once in just my voice.

Listen to the recordings here.

'The Pact': A poem from The Fetch for Hallowe'en

                                    The Pact

A secret place was all the note said

of where to meet. I chose the woods I walked

the time I lost the key to my house,

returning to find a stranger asleep

on my bed, who woke to say sorry, he got tired

while waiting. Since then I’ve been writing,

letting the phone ring, dropping my friends.

The work grew like a child between

my daylight hours, a nine-month seal

of shared blood, melted in the wax

of a waning flame that tapered to a scrawl

I knew as mine, telling me go tonight.

The figure in liquid silhouette

stepped from the sky between a symmetry

of silver birch, quiet as the morning star.

Held in the split and dawn-red eyes

I felt the kiss of a voice on my throat

sing through my skin with the touch of the air.

I don’t know how long I was weightless

in the promise of those words. They

thinned to silence as the sky paled.

I stretched in the darkened sun, mindful

of what would be waiting in my empty house,

whether it would return this greater loss.

from The Fetch (Nine Arches Press, 2016)

Read a blogpost I wrote on 'The Pact' here

Buy The Fetch here

Autumn readings and events

Here are dates and links for my autumn readings and events:

16.09.17 - Poetry reading at Poetry Bites, Kitchen Garden Cafe, Kings Heath, Birmingham

30.09.17 - Poetry reading with Rishi Dastidar at Free Verse Poetry Book Fair, Conway Hall, London

03.10.17 - Poetry reading at Poetry Alight, The Kings Head, Lichfield

09.10.17 - Chairing 'Who Needs Nature?' at Birmingham Literature Festival

16.11.17 - Poetry reading at Phil Thomson's Arts Lab, Birmingham and Midland Institute

26.11.17 - Poetry reading at Shrewsbury Festival of Literature

Contemporary Poems in a Shakespearean Soundscape: An Experiment with 'Original Pronunciation'

This year I have had the pleasure of being poet in residence at Anne Hathaway's Cottage (pictured), as part of Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival.

In some of the new poems that I've been working on, I conducted an experiment that, as far as I know, has never been tried before. Inspired by David Crystal's research on the sound-system (or phonology) of Shakespearean English - known as Original Pronunciation (or OP) - I have composed new poems in OP, rendered on the page phonetically, in the manner of dialect verse.

Why? For a number of reasons. The phonology or sound-system of any language has operative effects akin to music - and the attempt to invoke and direct the energies of those effects is fundamental to my practice as a poet. I wanted to release and make more vivid through OP some of the more latent qualities in the English that I use every day. And the peculiar quality of OP itself, in which people from all parts of Britain and the Anglophone world hear something of their own voice blended in strange yet familiar patterns, transcending the false borders bred into us, has a political appeal for me, too.

Elizabethan literary taste valued fresh imaginings of familiar tales: as we know, Shakespeare took up well-known plots and made them something more than the stories they told. I decided to do the same with my experiment in OP - and I knew who I wanted to hear speaking this language.

I present below the first two parts of a five-part OP sequence with this working title: 'Caliban Retaurrns to the Uylund'.

After the events of The Tempest, Caliban is taken to Milan, to live as part of Prospero's household ('This thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine') - but twelve years on, Caliban has been sent back to the island, entrusted by Prospero with a secret task.

Caliban Retaurrns to the Uylund

I. Landfahl

I duyve from the ship hwen I suyt ’err:

the crew cry ‘hwairle!’ but I knohw betterr:

it is muy motherr uyle and I swim

through cloth o’ gohld and sinkin rohbz

until muy skin is ahl a gill agaihn:

muy guarrdians soon a daih beyuynd.

I beach on a waihve and laff in the wash:

I wearr the jelluyfish I caught for a cruwn

with ahl its stings aluyve, still pulsin

luyk the pinches uv ’is spirits did:

such is muy kingship, and I embraihce it.

I listen for the worrms in the sand:

their music mixes with the sea’s breathin

and glints through thought luyk sunluyt: theh hear

muy tears and knohw oo has retaurrned to weep

agaihn, and watch the sandbahrdz blohw luyk smohke

abeut muy earrz, blue as the shark is hwuyt:

that’s a riddle that he tohld, hwen fahrrst

he cahld muy muynd to his, as nou I knohw:

I wonderrd at him, and that, his daughterr.

Hwen she taught me speech luyk theirrs, I asked him:

‘Hwerr is muy motherr?’ Hou pairle he lookid then.

II. The Graihve uv Sycorax

I foller a seed afloaht on the wyind

and fuynd the tree hwerr he feund herr,

led by me: I knew nohtin uv death

soh hwen she stilled I took ’err, sleepin

as I thought, to hwerr she hwisperd

at the moon, hwich listened, crairdld eerr,

at rest in the bohnz uv branches ohld

as she: and I, a chuyld, would earr ’err

anserr, and silverr ohverr in that seund.

I remember hou muy motherr’s boduy

did not staih as I ’ad left ’err, but kyled

up and reund the tree, and scairlid luyk a snairk:

this was hou he met ’er. His uyes

wer wuyld: not with terrorr: something moorr

than uyes should ohld: I guess he spuyd not just

a witch, but the tip and mirror uv his ohwn

moorrtalituy, moorr than natrul

as it was. For the fahrrst tuyme I saw him

in full pohwrr: his cloahk a deeperr nuyt

than ahl the darrkness I had knohwn, aluyve

with its ohn constellairsiuns as he cast

his vise in shairps that muvd along muy flesh:

his staff with its invisible ’and

ohpend muy motherr’s meuth: his earr ahl uye

to what ’er dead tong tohld. I kept his daughterr

wahrrm till dawn insuyde a wolfskin coaht:

she had cruyd to see ’err făthrr soh

unfixed through thohz cohld ohrrz, soh unluyk

the self she knew. I saw muy motherr

shrivel to a blackened thread uv skin:

watched him buruy her spent forrm in emptuy luyt

pegged buy the roots uv that hwuyt tree

in a suylence I have not aird since.

He was tenderr with her in his waih

and seemed to moorrn her as his ohn lairt wuyfe

for ahl he lairterr rairvd uv soorrseruy.

I saw him come eerr ohn last tuyme bifoorr

we sairled for his dukedom and Milan

and nou I knohw the raihzen. Twelve yeerrz on

he tohld me that the arrth hwerr he had buruyd

his brohken staff would be bohth bahrd and bahrrk:

I fuynd the tree is featherrd rairven black.

Forgive me, motherr: I begin to dig.

Poem: 'White Horse Hill'

White Horse Hill

Snowed with ghosts

and the freezing glow

of the sky lowering

its hushing light

the pastures close

cool and cotton

over England’s

buried names.

A grey witness

goes into the land,

inhumes the day

inside its clues.

The trees stretch,

tell the time,

stow the trace

of a distant gun.

In memory of those who fell at the Battle of the Somme, which began 100 years ago today.

'White Horse Hill' was first published in The North 52. It will be included in my forthcoming collection, The Fetch (Nine Arches Press), published October 2016.

'Translation': A Poem for Refugees, Migrants, Exiles, Humans

Translation

Take away the hands that held me,

the eyes in which I first saw

love, the mouths from which I learned

to speak.

Take away the house I played in,

the bed I slept in, knowing

they were near. Take their footsteps

from the earth.

Take the city and the sky with it,

the streets I walked looking

for them, take the plane from around me

in mid-air.

See how I land with what they gave me.

Hands that are ready to hold,

eyes in which you will see

love, a mouth that is learning

to speak.

A note on this poem:

In 2008-09 I was part of a poetry project run by Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre, and supported by Arts Council England, Asylum Welcome and Refugee Resource.

The project brought together fourteen poets and fourteen refugees and asylum seekers to work collaboratively on new poetry.

The collection of poems arising from these collaborations - See How I Land: Oxford Poets and Exiled Writers (Heaventree Press, 2009) - features a Foreword by Shami Chakrabarti, and work by the following writers:

Sadia Abdu, Filda Abelkec-Lukonyomoi, Afam Akeh, Carole Angier, Ali Askari, Annemarie Austin, Amina Benturki, Anne Berkeley, Carmen Bugan, Vahni Capildeo, Normalisa Chasokela, Abraham Conneh, David Dabydeen, Dawood, Dheere, John Fuller, Eden Habtemichael, Siân Hughes, Maria Jastrzębska, Gregory Leadbetter, Jamie McKendrick, Lucy Newlyn, Nazra Niygena, Jean Louis N’Tadi, Chuma Nwokolo, Bernard O’Donoghue, Deji Ogundimu, Adepeju Olopade, Yousif Qasmiyeh.

It probably goes without saying that the ethos of the book and the project from which it grew remains as vital as ever. Bigots have been temporarily emboldened in their distorted views by the recent referendum on the European Union in the United Kingdom, as a result of elements in the 'Leave' campaign that stoked up division, anxiety and fear.

I hope that 'Translation' - my contribution to the project - speaks for itself.

My Father's Orrery

My father was a keen amateur cosmologist. For years, the New Scientist (and somewhat less frequently, Nature) would accumulate by his favoured armchair in the family lounge, grist to the mill of his own theorising about the universe.

After taking early retirement from his job at British Telecom, he began a degree in Physics and Computing, so that he could conduct his own experiments - often questioning received orthodoxies, such as the Michelson-Morley experiment on the existence of the Aether - or working on his own idea for a gyroscopic space drive. He was fascinated by the work of Brian Josephson, of Trinity College, Cambridge, on the Mind-Matter Unification Project. I still don't know what may lie waiting to be discovered among his papers.

Some time in 2010, he ordered and started to build an orrery. These are beautiful things: animated models that illustrate the relative motion of the planets in our solar system.

By January 2011, however, after only getting as far as Mercury - i.e. the first planet from the sun - he stopped building it. It was around this time that he showed me the full set of planets and gears that he had acquired - but it was also implicit, in the way he spoke and handled them, that putting the rest of the orrery together was indefinitely deferred.

Eventually, we realised that he had stopped building the orrery because he no longer could. Although it would be some time before the diagnosis came, he was suffering from vascular dementia. The loss of his ability to construct the orrery - in a man who used to build his own computers - was a symptom of the disease.

My father died in October 2013. The unfinished orrery passed to me.

In December 2015, I at last took it upon myself to finish building it - a bridge from his days before the disease to the present, and a kind of afterlife for something of his, and of him. I finished it on Christmas Eve 2015. And it is indeed a beautiful thing.

So, to mark the completion of my father's orrery, which he began and I finished, I'm posting here a poem about its incompletion, which was first published in The Poetry Review in Spring 2014. It will be included in my forthcoming collection with Nine Arches Press, The Fetch, which will be published in October 2016.

My Father’s Orrery

                              is without end.

The solar system on the fireplace

spins only one planet around its sun –

Mercury, as if now the limit

of what we know, hints at the missing

planets to come: the ache in the equation

their absence makes, the skewed gravity

at work in the hand that hoped to build

a thing of beauty, week by week,

as the advert said, adding to the stock

of wonder. Just a con, they are.

Hasn’t he got better things to spend

his money on? But I shared the secret

of his joy in those spheres, his maths

by intuition, the theatre of their relative

motion. He showed me the unopened packets,

the grub screws, nuts and pinions of it all,

and there, the planets themselves:

Jupiter, heavy as antique gold,

the ball bearing Earth, Saturn with its halo.

A look of recognition crossed his eyes –

yes, that’s them – but out of orbit,

no force to order and bind them

to the weave of their ellipses,

to turn the key of the space between

and spring them in the cradle of their star,

without which, they rattle and fall.

With the planets in his hands, he felt

the weight of his loss, knew he had forgotten

how to put the universe together.

Where have I been?

Begin by breaking a rule: that could be an opening gambit for a creative writing exercise. I'm beginning this post by breaking a rule - one of those rules about blogging suggested by the excellent William Gallagher at the recent Writers' Toolkit in Birmingham. I'm going to apologise for my recent absence from my own blog. William, quite properly, advised against that - and of course he's right. It looks a little bit like saying the dog's eaten your homework. 

But, suitably chastened, I'm going to turn this sorry state of affairs into an excuse to highlight the fact that - quite apart from my job at the university, voluntary work and other things - I haven't been entirely idle. Not entirely. Though idling - of the best musing kind, you understand - is a well-established (if constantly endangered) part of my life.

In September I had the wonderful news that my debut full-length poetry collection, The Fetch, will be published by Nine Arches Press in October 2016. It's no exaggeration to say that that made my year - and will make next year for me, too.

I've also (sort of) been on research leave, during which I've been working on various projects in literary criticism - including essays on Ted Hughes, plans for my next book of criticism, and the first ever close reading of a fascinating but largely unknown poem by Coleridge, called 'Orpheus'.

This one is still somewhat under wraps - but I have also been busy composing new poems (mostly for a project unconnected with The Fetch): writing in response to photographs taken in 1968 by my colleague at Birmingham City University, Phil Thomson. More on that in due course...

I've written reviews for The Poetry Review (for which I write regularly these days) and Notes and Queries.

And I'm fairly constantly scribbling/typing away in my notebooks.

I do update the 'News and Diary' part of this website, but I have a sneaking suspicion that no one looks at that. So here's a round-up of some of the other things I've been up to, since the summer, starting with the most recent:

18.11.15 - Guest poet at The Poetry School, in Kathryn Maris's Advanced Poetry class

31.10.15 - Hosting (and organising) 'Coleridge and Lamb in London: A Symposium', Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution, London. Over sixty delegates enjoyed hearing from Dr Peter Newbon, Dr Heather Stone, Graham Davidson, and our keynote speaker: the inimitable Richard Holmes - pictured below with me and my co-organiser, Dr Felicity James

29.10.15 - Reading at The Poetry Review Autumn 2015 launch, together with Helen Mort, Billy Ramsell and Julian Stannard (Birmingham City University, Curzon Builing C501) (as if to prove it, I've used one of Mike Sims's photos from the event at the top of this post. I tend to have that quizzical expression on my face quite a lot, it seems...)

14.10.15 - Speaking on 'Coleridge and the Mystery of "Orpheus"', at St. Andrews University (The Lawson Room)

08.10.15 - Chairing the Man Booker Prize Shortlist Event, Birmingham Literature Festival, Studio Theatre, Library of Birmingham, where I interviewed Tom McCarthy and Sunjeev Sahota

09.09.15 - Speaking on '"The Knight": Two Laws of Ted Hughes's Poetics' at the Ted Hughes Conference, University of Sheffield (Halifax Hall)

17.07.15 - Performing at Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival (The Shakespeare Centre)

04.07.15 - Performing at Ledbury Poetry Festival (The Panelled Room)

So that's where I've been.

P.S. I realise that have also broken another of William's rules here, by going on about myself. But it had to be said - possibly - and now 'tis done...

Poetry at Gothic in Birmingham: 10am-4.30pm, 2 May 2015, The Library of Birmingham

I'm very glad to be taking part in Gothic in Birmingham tomorrow - an all-day exploration of the Gothic in art, literature, architecture, and dress, organised by my colleague in the School of English at Birmingham City University, Serena Trowbridge.

I'll be performing some of my own poems at 11am, and saying something about the workings of my own imagination relative to the Gothic inheritance - and living presence - in English poetry.

For the full programme, click here. Some tickets may still be available...

Reading at Wenlock Poetry Festival, with David Morley and Luke Kennard: 4pm-5.15pm, Saturday 25 April 2015, Wenlock Priory

I'm delighted to be reading at Wenlock Poetry Festival again this year, on a ticket alongside David Morley and Luke Kennard.

This is an outdoor event, in the exquisite ruins of Wenlock Priory - so if you do come along, please wear appropriate clothing and bring something to sit on.

Click here for information and tickets, which are priced at £7 for Friends of the Festival, and £8 standard.

We'll also be joined by four poets from the Outdoors Poetry Workshop that David and I will be running at the Priory that morning, from 10am-12 noon: follow the link for details.

Wenlock Poetry Festival provides a weekend filled with poetry, of which these two events are a part - so do see what's on offer elsewhere during the Festival here.

Coleridge and the Daemonic Imagination - reviewed in The Year's Work in English Studies

Reviews can take some time to filter through in academe: even though Coleridge and the Daemonic Imagination was published three years ago, I'm posting one here that only came to my notice recently. It's from The Year's Work in English Studies 92 (2013) - a very useful guide to the latest scholarship (published by Oxford University Press):

'Gregory Leadbetter's Coleridge and the Daemonic Imagination offers a fascinating and compelling new reading of Coleridge's thought, with a particular emphasis on his poetry. His argument builds from a notebook entry which worries over the daemonic experiences Coleridge had. These were experiences of the "transnatural": that which permits the mind to foray into a world denied by traditional social and religious codes. The transnatural, Coleridge discovers, comes from within as a form of willed transition that permits an encounter with, simultaneously, shame and power. It is, for Leadbetter, a dilemma central to "the drama of human becoming" (p. 3). The openness of this position allows Leadbetter to offer us a Coleridge far more fluid in his religious and philosophical thinking than is common. Indeed, poetry and poetic possibility move to the centre of his thought: "Coleridge remained constitutionally open to experiences beyond his deliberate control" (p. 14). Leadbetter focuses especially on the 1790s and on Coleridge's three great poetic myths of daemonic imagination - Kubla Khan, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Christabel - but he also, pleasingly, encourages us to see this openness right across the span of Coleridge's career. The book offers startling reconsiderations of Coleridge's Unitarianism, his politics, and his relationship with Wordsworth. Wordsworth, for Leadbetter, recognized the same dilemmas, but was wary of Coleridge's freedom: nature becomes a "moral and epistemological norm" (p. 39) that Wordsworth clings to but Coleridge transgresses. The combination of activity and passivity in the daemonic makes clear the link with the Coleridgean imagination. Language is itself a "transnatural" agent in Kubla Khan's "self-risking poetics" (p. 185). The usual reading of Christabel has Christabel as innocent and opposed to the evil Geraldine. But just as the Ancient Mariner is a "transgressor without being evil" (p. 182), so Leadbetter finds in Christabel Coleridge exploring the possibility that the union with Geraldine, however troubling, was "an act and expression of [Christabel's] own spirit" (p. 203). Leadbetter writes fluidly and clearly, but his style also bristles with excitement. This is a thoughtful, imaginative, and often daring new account of the poet.'

Appearing at the Birmingham Literature Festival...

It's nearly October - which means that the excellent Birmingham Literature Festival is nearly with us (2-11 October 2014).

As ever, there are many mouthwatering events to attend, as you'll see from a glance through the programme - but I feel it's only right that I should draw your attention to two events with which I'm personally involved...

The first is Voices in Fiction, 7.30-8.45pm on Friday 3 October, where I have the pleasure of chairing a discussion with four fine writers: Kerry Hudson, Sathnam Sanghera, Lottie Moggach and Nikesh Shukla, each of whom will be reading from and speaking about their latest novels - and the art of fiction today.

The second is Soap City, 6-7pm on Friday 10 October, where this time I'll be joining a panel, chaired by the wonderful Helen Cross - also a Fellow of the Institute of Creative and Critical Writing at Birmingham City University - to discuss just what it is that has made Birmingham and the Midlands home to such a striking tradition of soap opera. We'll also be talking about what it's like to work on continuing series in television and radio. Mary Cutler will be representing The Archers and Crossroads; Tim Stimpson The Archers and Ambridge Extra; Claire Bennett Doctors - and I'll be recalling my time on Silver Street.

Just follow the links to book.

I hope to see you there...

Doctor Who: Writing the Companions

Steven Moffat has come in for a lot of criticism since taking charge of Doctor Who – somewhat bafflingly, to my mind – but I’ve always admired his scriptwriting and I still do. Less given to sentimentality than Russell T. Davies, he has led the series with humour, verve and intelligence. The plots get a bit convoluted sometimes, but there are worse sins. Matt Smith did a fine job as the previous Doctor, but the excellent Peter Capaldi is – quite rightly – bringing a new edge to the role. Moffat’s priorities look good to me.

But – since its re-launch in 2005, the writing for Doctor Who has regularly gone wrong in one significant way: its handling of the companions.

After two episodes of Series 8, Danny Pink looks good, and I’m rather hoping that Journey Blue will not be abandoned by the Doctor after all. But Clara – ah, Clara…

Leaving aside the deeply misguided storyline in which the Doctor supposedly fell in love with Rose Tyler, (Davies, no!) the companions have too often been drained of their wonder at the Doctor's universe and installed with a whiny species of self-satisfied insolence, as if untouched by any sense of the mysteries they have been shown. They stay too much their same old selves, in the most extraordinary circumstances. To me, that's also unrealistic, in a damaging sense (and before anyone says, ‘Realistic? This is sci-fi!’ I would say that sci-fi especially demands psychological authenticity if it is to achieve narrative authenticity).

Dispiritingly, I suspect that this is because the writers intuitively perceive the offspring of contemporary society to be self-obsessed, lacking in humility and apparently incapable of having respect for anything they don't or can't be bothered to understand – and then write the characters accordingly. I have an awful feeling (oh say it ain’t so) that they are trying to write ‘normal’ characters, to which we, as members of that benighted society, can ‘relate’.

Don't do that. Neither children nor adults need it.

Clara has been a lost opportunity in this respect, because she was far and away the most promising companion since the re-launch. In effect, when they picked which Clara Oswald to settle on, they picked the wrong one. Her first incarnations were much more interesting: she was intelligent, with a mystery of her own. Now, despite her charms, of which there are many for sure, this ‘teacher’-variant is too often just another human arrogant enough to hold on to her seemingly uninterested attitude – long after the Doctor, I reckon, would have lost patience with it.

The Silurian Vastra, played by the wonderful Neve McIntosh, is a lively addition to the Whoniverse – as is/was the not-quite-human River Song: both Moffat creations.

For the Doctor’s regular companion(s), can’t we have more interesting humans, too? 

CAST: The Poetry Business Book of New Contemporary Poets

A new book slips quietly into the world...

I'm delighted to have five poems in this excellent new anthology from Smith/Doorstop, which is edited by Simon Armitage, Joanna Gavins, Ann Sansom and Peter Sansom. Those poems include a mixture of published and unpublished work: 'Feather', 'The Body in the Well', 'The Chase', '6 June 1944' and 'Mouse'.

In the words of the Poetry Business website, it contains 'thirty-two of the brightest writing talents in one brilliantly-curated anthology', comprising a 'stimulating and hugely enjoyable survey of where poetry is now (or will be very soon)'. It's a pleasure to feature alongside Liz Berry, Niall Campbell, Kim Moore and the other fine poets in this book.

As soon as my own copy arrived, my next-door neighbour borrowed it and, as I haven't had it back yet, I think it's passed the pleasure test...

It is available now, but look out for launch events in due course.

Poem: 'Midsummer at Clent'

This poem was written a few years ago, after watching the sun go down on the summer solstice at Clent (pictured above, today). It was published in my pamphlet The Body in the Well (HappenStance, 2007).

Midsummer at Clent

The year was bleeding across the sky

and we were there, perhaps, to celebrate.

I had no voice to give, nothing left

to say anything close to the truth until

I saw the kestrel nailed to the air,

aimed at the sun, holding her zenith

taut on the giddy fulcrum of the earth.

Held up like a lens to a blinding eye,

her feathers suspended in amber.

She stayed near me, as if she were

a periscope over the false horizon.

She stayed until the breath of winter

blew out of the western grave,

freezing a word on the lips of my praise.

'Twice Upon a Time: Magic, Alchemy & the Transubstantiation of the Senses', 26-27 June 2014, School of Art, Birmingham City University

I'm delighted to be 'poet in residence' at this fascinating conference, taking place 26-27 June 2014 at the School of Art, Margaret Street, Birmingham. 

It is hosted by my colleagues at the Centre for Fine Art Research, the School of Art, Birmingham City University.

I'll be reading a selection of my poems that touch upon the conference's themes, across several of Thursday's panels.

I can only be there on the Thursday - but Friday has a full schedule of papers too.

It promises to be a stimulating event...

Wenlock Poetry Festival, 25-27 April 2014

 

 

It's a great pleasure to be reading at Wenlock Poetry Festival this year, where at 5.30pm on Saturday 26 April I'll be sharing the stand with David Morley (a happy reprise of our reading in Birmingham last October - but with some different poems...). You can purchase tickets for the event here.

 

We'll be reading outdoors, too - at Wenlock Priory (pictured above) - with two other writers chosen from among the participants in the Outdoors Writing Workshop that David will be running that morning (also at the Priory), which is sponsored by the Institute of Creative and Critical Writing, Birmingham City University.

 

The whole Festival will, as ever, be one of Britain's foremost celebrations of poetry. I'll be there all weekend.

 

 

Beats and Birmingham: Poets and the City, 5.30pm, Friday 28 March 2014, Cafe Mezzanine, Library of Birmingham

presents Beats and Birmingham: Poets and the City – feat. Bohdan Piasecki, Luke Kennard and others – with music from The Beat Generation Cut-up & Fold-in     JOIN US AT Café Mezzanine, Library of Birmingham 5.30pm, Friday 28 March 2014 The Institute of Creative and Critical Writing warmly invite you to join us for a blast of poetry and music – part of the Frontiers+ Festival 2014. Bringing together the Beats, Birmingham and the poetry of city life, it will feature poetry from Bohdan Piasecki and Luke Kennard, with Roy McFarlane (Birmingham Poet Laureate 2010-11), Derek Littlewood, James Horrocks and Ben Titmus – performing both their own work and that of LeRoi Jones, Jackson Mac Low, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and poets of Birmingham Louis MacNeice and Roy Fisher. There will also be music from Simon King, Sid Peacock and Steve Tromans, performing their new settings of Beat legends Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs and Corso. This event is FREE – no need to book. I'll be hosting - and reading a little too. We look forward to seeing you there…

'Break, Blowe, Burn and Make Me New': John Donne and Benjamin Britten - Words into Music

     

You are warmly invited to join us for this special event next week, hosted by the Birmingham Conservatoire in collaboration with the Institute of Creative and Critical Writing, School of English:

 

'Break, Blowe, Burn and Make Me New': John Donne and Benjamin Britten - Words into Music

 

Venue:

Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire

Price:

£6.50 (£4 concessions)

Date:

18 Feb 2014 (7:30pm)

Booking Information

Tickets available on the door

James Geer tenor
Ronald Woodley piano
Kate Kennedy, David Roberts and Gregory Leadbetter speakers

 

Benjamin Britten The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Op.35

 

Benjamin Britten’s settings of nine of the Holy Sonnets of John Donne are some of the most intense, thoughtful, and at times disturbing of all his songs. They were composed in the summer of 1945 in the immediate aftermath of visits to the newly liberated concentration camps while he was on tour in Germany with Yehudi Menuhin. This evening’s event in music, words and images will explore these profound works from the perspectives of poetry, interpretation, musical setting, and the composer’s life, with contributions from Britten literary specialist Dr Kate Kennedy (Girton College, Cambridge), and Professor David Roberts and Dr Gregory Leadbetter from the School of English.

 

The settings will be performed by James Geer, former Britten-Pears School Young Artist, with Professor Ronald Woodley from the Conservatoire’s Research Department.

 

We very much hope to see you there.

 

______________________

 

Dr Gregory Leadbetter

Director, Institute of Creative and Critical Writing

Director, MA in Writing

 

School of English

Birmingham City University

Birmingham B42 2SU

 

www.gregoryleadbetter.blogspot.co.uk

www.bcu.ac.uk/iccw

http://blogs.bcu.ac.uk/thewriter