{"id":928,"date":"2013-08-29T11:34:45","date_gmt":"2013-08-29T11:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alwynmarriage.wordpress.com\/?p=928"},"modified":"2016-08-31T18:55:53","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T18:55:53","slug":"winchester-blog-2-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/alwyn\/2013\/08\/29\/winchester-blog-2-august\/","title":{"rendered":"Winchester blog 2: August"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"10<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Brassey<\/a>The 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.<\/p>\n

\"???????????????????????????????\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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?)\u00a0at 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.<\/p>\n

In the\u00a0afternoon 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:<\/p>\n

\u00a0 Listen
\n<\/b>\u00a0 Sound installation in Winchester Triforium<\/i><\/p>\n

Listen! you probably won\u2019t hear
\nmonks chanting plainsong in the choir
\n\u2013 there are no monks \u2013<\/p>\n

nor pad of ghostly feet ascending
\nand descending night stairs linking
\ntheir dormitory and prayer.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re standing, your ears are on are a level \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Triforium<\/a>
\nwith other visitors talking face to face,
\nadmiring the purity of the exquisite arches;<\/p>\n

and if you were to lie down on
\nthe stone floor, monk-like
\nprostrate yourself, perhaps your ears<\/p>\n

would pick up faint reverberations
\nof passing feet, as a rabbit
\nbends her ear to catch<\/p>\n

vibrations of dog or human
\nthrough the earth. But better still,
\nif you sit awhile, here on this bench,<\/p>\n

and close your eyes, your inner ear
\nwill start to catch a rich
\ncacophony of sounds:<\/p>\n

perhaps the clank of workmen
\nmounting and dismounting
\nexhibitions,<\/p>\n

a mobile telephone that somebody
\nforgot to turn off, tinkling an inane
\ntune deep within a pocket,<\/p>\n

the drone of a deep authoritative voice
\nexplaining the iconography
\nof early English architecture,<\/p>\n

a girl and boy who\u2019ve found a quiet
\ncorner in which to hide and whisper
\nsecrets of human love and beauty,<\/p>\n

the organ playing far away,
\nfootsteps on stone steps, the muffled cry
\nof a baby, filtered through the stone.<\/p>\n

Then in that stillness you may become aware
\nof the music of your own life-giving
\nbreath, the spirit within, as when<\/p>\n

on a still blue summer\u2019s evening
\nyou hear the beat of swallows\u2019 wings
\nas they fly overhead<\/p>\n

and realise that what you\u2019re hearing
\nis the sound of flight.
\nThat\u2019s right: just pause awhile and listen.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Finally, here are the two portraits. Which do you prefer?<\/p>\n

\"???????????????????????????????\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. The artist, Michael Weller, had asked if he could paint another portrait of me, so I sat for him in his…<\/p>\n

Continue readingWinchester blog 2: August<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[72,108,169,285,327,339,482,524,559,560,561],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brassey-road-studio","tag-creative-collisions","tag-fishermens-chapel","tag-lisa-earley","tag-michael-weller","tag-morley-library","tag-sue-wood","tag-triforium","tag-winchester-10-days-fetival","tag-winchester-bible","tag-winchester-cathedral","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/alwyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/alwyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/alwyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/alwyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/alwyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/alwyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2470,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/alwyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions\/2470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/alwyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/alwyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/alwyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}