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Tag: Winchester Cathedral

Winchester blog 5: November

After five fascinating and enjoyable months, I have come to the end of my assignment as Poet in Residence for the Winchester 10 Days festival. From July onwards I visited the city once a month, and my reflections on these visits have appeared on earlier blogs. The final spurt – the actual ten days – meant more visits to Winchester, more obvious excitements and more public appearances.

The launch of 10 Days was on 25th October, and as I was at the Torbay Poetry Festival, 2013-10-25 17.16.36 copy
I needed to travel for five hours, on four trains, to get to the launch, stay in a b&b and then return the next day. But it was worth it. There were 400 people there for the launch; and the cathedral, lit predominantly by candlelight, grew huge and seemed to float. I was able to see all the artworks in situ, and meet some of the artists I hadn’t managed to meet before.

My b&b hostess was Alice Kettle, who was one of the artists exhibiting in the cathedral. We got on extremely well, and if anyone ever needs a b&b in Winchester, I would recommend that they go to her. Here is the work on which she collaborated for the exhibition.

Alice Kettle's piece cropped

It was strange going round the cathedral and finding my poems everywhere. There was a map of the Poetry Trail for people to pick up as they went into the cathedral, but in fact it was quite difficult to miss them. Because they were all displayed so beautifully and so prominently, and also because the portrait Michael Weller painted of me was exhibited, lots of people came up to talk to me, which was fun and interesting.

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The poem displayed above was not written specially for the exhibition (in fact it was included in my last collection, festo), but seemed appropriate for this spot in the cathedral, just beside the Holy Hole and under the icons. A few of the other poems in the Poetry Trail were not new – and of course I wrote others while I was working in the cathedral, including one about Jane Austen’s tombstone, which is situated in the north aisle.

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Later in the ten days I did a couple of ‘walk-abouts’ in the cathedral. On one of the days there were lots of young French visitors, so I chatted to them, and I also spent time with some of the volunteers who tend the two libraries in the cathedral. They were keen to take a photo of me beside my portrait, so I succumbed.

The other two events of the week were a writing workshop, for which I took the festival theme of Creative Collisions, and then an evening performance which included a new piece by June Boyce-Tillman, a poetry reading by me and finally a discussion with some of the artists with whom I had been collaborating. This was very ably chaired by Stephen Boyce, who set all of us at ease and elicited comments and questions from the audience. The artists who shared in this were Lisa Earley, Sue Wood, Lucy Cass and Penny Burnfield.

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I’ve covered some of these in earlier blogs, so
I’ll just include Penny’s beautiful piece here. Penny used silhouettes of members of her family on the hangings, and then inscribed some of the words from the surrounding monuments over them. The poem I wrote to accompany this piece is called ‘Retrospective’. I wrote it before I met Penny, and it was wonderful how what she had in mind when she was creating the piece and what I wrote for her should have chimed so well together. My  poem will now travel with Penny’s artwork when it is exhibited elsewhere.

The last of the works of art I was asked to respond to was a dramatic piece by Anna Sikorska entitled ‘You are very near to us’. It was a huge float, suspended from the ceiling of the cathedral, and was situated at the back end of the nave. This poem had to be written rather quickly before I went off on holiday, so that the printing could be done while I was away. Initially I thought I was going to be stumped by this one, but then the poem, ‘Transition’, came to me, and I even managed to get in all the various themes that Anna suggested to me by email. Normally I go back to edit poems before launching them out into the world, but that wasn’t possible in the time-frame we had available. In view of this, I’m much relieved that all the poems seemed to work out fine, and were greatly appreciated. Whew!

float      2013-10-31 11.36.39

Quite a number of people have requested that there should be a publication so that they can have copies of the poems. The organisers of the festival are keen to do this, but whether it happens or not depends (as so often) on finance. If it does, I’d like to include all the artworks, with my poems on the opposite pages. The festival photographer, Joe Low, has plenty of super photos of everything that went on at the festival. This publication might well not be possible, but if it does come off, I’ll post something to let you know.

I’m immensely grateful to the organisers of the 10 Days Festival for giving me the opportunity to work in this amazing building with such lovely artists. Thanks, too, to all those artists, whose warmth and appreciation made the task so richly fulfilling.

The next poetry excitement for me is reading with Dannie Abse and R V Bailey at the Poetry Society’s AGM. More news anon.

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Winchester blog 3: September

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The last month has seen more exciting challenges on the Winchester Poet in Residence front.
I had a message from the organisers asking if they could set up a trail of my poems round the cathedral, with a map showing where each one is situated. It was suggested that as it’s a 10 Day Festival, it would be appropriate to have a trail of ten poems. At that stage I had written only four, so I took a deep breath and started to write more and also to look through my files to see what existing poems I had that might be suitable. Last week I met Trish Bould, the Creative Director of the festival, in the cathedral to discuss where they should all go, and to plan the route for the trail. I have at least three more poems to produce, in response to some more of the artists, and will do my best to come up with something suitable. There are a couple of points in the Trail that will have more than one of my poems as part of the same installation.

Lisa in Barcelona '13My poems for the Fishermen’s Chapel are now finished and incorporated into the artwork by Lisa Earley (pictured left). This chapel contains the attractive altar shown below, and also a memorial to Izaak Walton, who wrote ‘The Complete Angler’. Both Lisa and I are concentrating on the working people who go to sea to catch fish for us to eat, rather than leisure anglers who sit beside rivers with fishing rods.

Lisa had already started working on my poem Those who go down to the sea when I last visited the cathedral. This poem was recently published in the anthology about the sea published by Grey Hen Press, ‘Running before the wind’, and it seemed a suitable choice for a chapel dedicated to those who work in the challenging conditions of sea fishing.

 Those who go down to the sea

They hardly ever cross my mind,
certainly never keep me awake
and tossing through the dark hours of the night

wondering if they’ll make it
or whether this time the fury of the open seas
will overwhelm the frailty of their vessel.

Even when I eat fresh fish,
the costly silver harvest
torn from the thundering waves,

I can continue a conversation
as if the delicacy placed before me
had been casually plucked from a bush

by a land-lubber
pausing in a cottage garden
on the way home for tea, unaware

of the raw flesh and watering eyes,
the constant taste of salt,
of fear.

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Lisa asked if I would write another poem for her, bringing in the ripples that figure in her installation, and also alluding to the fact that fisherfolk have for centuries made pilgrimages to this chapel in Winchester Cathedral. I therefore wrote a new poem entitled Ripples that will also be incorporated into Lisa’s work and displayed in the Fishermen’s Chapel. Lisa’s plans for the chapel sound really exciting, using textiles to suggest nets with fish that gradually morph into footsteps; and she’ll be using bits of my poems in the installation. I look forward to seeing the finished pieces.

img291ad1FINAL The next artist with whom I was invited to collaborate is Lucy Cass, a recent graduate from Winchester University College of Art. Lucy works with acrylic and resin to produce amazing pieces of sculpture such as this one. This piece will (all being well) be the inspiration for my next poem for the Poetry Trail. The Muse, however, can be remarkably fickle, especially when deadlines are approaching, with the result that all sorts of poems are now competing for my attention. One of the most recent, written at 4.00am on the morning after my visit, was a rather feminist poem inspired by Jane Austen’s tombstone in the cathedral; but as I’m limiting myself to 10, I don’t think that will make it into the final selection.

Lucy is also designing and producing four postcards that incorporate some of her images and some of my poems from the project, and these will be available at various venues in Winchester during the festival.

One of my commitments during the actual week of the festival is a poetry reading in the cathedral on the evening of Friday 1st November. As this event will start with a short performance by the musician June Boyce-Tillman, I had a meeting with her to discuss our plans for the event. After June’s piece, I’ll give my reading, and the evening will conclude with discussion with the poets with whom I’ve been collaborating about our experiences of the process. The Arts Adviser for the festival, Stephen Boyce, will chair this event.

I concluded my visit to Winchester last week by attending a poetry reading by four poets in the Winchester Discovery Centre. Three of the poets had been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize recently: Annie Freud, David Harsent and Daljit Nagra; and they were joined by the aforementioned Stephen Boyce, as a representative of local Hampshire poets. All the poets gave good readings.

I’ve got more artists to meet and more poems to write, so there’s no time to waste. The dates of the 10 Day Festival are approaching fast: 25th October to 3rd November.

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Winchester blog 2: August

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I spent another day in Winchester as Poet in Residence for the Winchester 10 Days Festival, and once again the sun shone and the city was buzzing with life.

Brassey Road Studio 1The artist, Michael Weller, had asked if he could paint another portrait of me, so I sat for him in his studio at Brassey Road in the morning. The studio, which is shared with various artists, is light and airy, and Michael had selected some recordings of poetry readings to play to me while I sat for him. They included many well-known poems, and a few that I hadn’t come across before. It is extremely rare to get the opportunity to sit for two and a half hours doing nothing but listen to poetry, and the time passed quite quickly. This portrait, in any case, took less time than the last.

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Once again I didn’t see the painting until it was finished. It is very different from the first one, and I’d be interested to know which people think is the best. I prefer this one, which I think captures my eyes better, but one of my daughters thinks the colour is better in the first. I’ll put the two together (chatting to each other?) at the bottom of this blog, so that you can judge for yourselves. I hope some of you will respond with your considered judgement, as I think the artist would appreciate some feed-back.

In the afternoon I spent some time with two of the other artists with whom I’m working in preparation for the festival. Sue Wood is preparing a sound art installation, for which I have written a poem; and she has now made this into a poster to display as part of her installation in the Triforium. As it describes the project, I’ll include it here in full:

  Listen
  Sound installation in Winchester Triforium

Listen! you probably won’t hear
monks chanting plainsong in the choir
– there are no monks –

nor pad of ghostly feet ascending
and descending night stairs linking
their dormitory and prayer.

If you’re standing, your ears are on are a level                  Triforium arch
with other visitors talking face to face,
admiring the purity of the exquisite arches;

and if you were to lie down on
the stone floor, monk-like
prostrate yourself, perhaps your ears

would pick up faint reverberations
of passing feet, as a rabbit
bends her ear to catch

vibrations of dog or human
through the earth. But better still,
if you sit awhile, here on this bench,

and close your eyes, your inner ear
will start to catch a rich
cacophony of sounds:

perhaps the clank of workmen
mounting and dismounting
exhibitions,

a mobile telephone that somebody
forgot to turn off, tinkling an inane
tune deep within a pocket,

the drone of a deep authoritative voice
explaining the iconography
of early English architecture,

a girl and boy who’ve found a quiet
corner in which to hide and whisper
secrets of human love and beauty,

the organ playing far away,
footsteps on stone steps, the muffled cry
of a baby, filtered through the stone.

Then in that stillness you may become aware
of the music of your own life-giving
breath, the spirit within, as when

on a still blue summer’s evening
you hear the beat of swallows’ wings
as they fly overhead

and realise that what you’re hearing
is the sound of flight.
That’s right: just pause awhile and listen.

After leaving Sue in the Triforium I peeped into the Morley Library where my portrait will be exhibited during the festival, spent a few precious moments in the cathedral library poring over the beautiful Winchester Bible pages on display, then went downstairs to the Fishermen’s Chapel to meet Lisa Earley. Lisa is a textile artist, and she’s got some exciting plans for our collaboration. She’s already using one of my poems, and I might well write another for her.

I’ll write about Sue’s ideas and the development of her art work in my next blog. There are still some more artists I need to meet, and quite a few more poems that need to be written.

Finally, here are the two portraits. Which do you prefer?

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Winchester blog 1: July

images-1Earlier this week I made my first visit to Winchester as Poet in Residence for the ’10 days: Creative Collisions Arts Festival’ to take place this autumn. The three purposes of this visit were 1. to sit for a portrait by the artist Michael Weller; 2. to meet the festival organisers in the cathedral; and 3. to meet one of the artists with whom I shall be working in the coming months, to discuss her project.

One of the major aims of the festival is to bring together artists from different disciplines. Over the coming months I shall be working with a few visual artists, but it also seemed like a good idea to agree to have my portrait painted.

???????????????????????????????I spent the morning in Michael’s studio. I’ve never had my portrait painted before, so this was a new and interesting experience. I sat for nearly three hours, with a few short breaks to avoid getting a stiff neck, as I was requested to maintain the same position throughout. An extremely comfortable chair was provided, and some lovely mp3 tapes of poetry. In the company of John Donne, Tennyson, and then Richard Burton’s wonderful performance of Under Milkwood, the time did not hang heavy, and I really appreciated the unusual luxury of sitting in enforced idleness. The only slight problem I had to struggle a little with by the end of a very hot morning was the tendency to become drowsy.

Michael, who paints in oils, uses a limited palette of black, white, cadmium red light, yellow ochre and ultamarine blue, and with those colours produces a whole world of colours and shades. It is strange to sit under the intense gaze of someone for such a long period of time – very different from being the focus of attention when lecturing or reading poetry. Like a medical practitioner, the artist’s gaze is detached and academic. From time to time Michael would take the painting off the easel and hold it to a mirror in order to see it from a different perspective; and he would periodically clean his palette to avoid the colours merging into each other.

???????????????????????????????At the end of the morning I was shown the portrait. That, too, was a new experience. It is something of a shock to suddenly come face to face with oneself, and for some reason which I haven’t quite fathomed yet, it is very different from looking at a photograph. After my initial dumbfounded response, I realised that it is a very good portrait, and I actually like it. I’d be interested to know what other people think of it. Michael reckoned that I looked ‘reflective’; but I wondered what else anyone could look if they sat still for three hours. One can hardly grin at the artist for all that time!

Michael would like to do another portrait of me, so we arranged a date for later in the summer. This is likely to be rather different as I’m due to have my ‘annual haircut’ before then! The paintings will be displayed in the cathedral during the festival.

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I went on to the cathedral, where I met the organisers and curators of the festival: Trish Bould, Angela Peagram and Jo Bartholomew. A ceramics exhibition was being mounted in the cathedral, so there was quite a lot of noise and activity. It is an exquisite building, and I’m thrilled to be working there.

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I mounted to the triforium with Sue Wood, who is one of the artists I shall be working with. Sue’s piece is a sound installation called ‘Listen’, and her intention is to provide a space and incentive for people to sit and listen to the sounds of the cathedral. We spent some time discussing how Sue’s piece will work, and how much she should be present and/or visible while people experience the artwork. I have started writing a poem about her installation, and this, too, will be on display in this space in the triforium during the festival.

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