Reading by Jonty Driver of his poem "Requiem"

In July Jonty read his poem "Requiem", stanzas alternating with Bach music played by Peter Fields on the violin, in the church of St Mary in the Marsh. There was a good turnout, with one of our members, Alan McKinna, among the audience. I am grateful to Ann Driver for sending me the write-up, reproduced below, of this event in the Ewhurst Green parish magazine. The text of the poem is included in a blog post dated,11 September 2014, (click on 2014 archive link on right), in connection with its reading at a service in Westminster Abbey, part of the commemoration of the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War.

Jonathan Watts on Jonty Driver’s ‘Requiem’

Jonty Driver is perhaps the only modern head of a major public school to have spent a significant time in gaol – as a student activist against the iniquities of apartheid in South Africa, the country of his birth. He is a talented polymath – novelist, poet, essayist, political scientist, sportsman, musician, educationalist; his seven-part poem Requiem reflects with disarming honesty and openness on his emotional journeys, with a poignant focus on experiences of love and death: a friend has described it as ‘utterly personal: quiet, experienced, sombre, vulnerable’.

The evening was in aid of Hantam Community Education Trust near Colesberg, South Africa

His reading of the poem as part of the JAM on the Marsh festival in July was all the more moving because of his matter-of-fact delivery which let the exquisitely crafted verse speak for itself. The poem uses a number of different, but carefully constructed, forms and has a directness of language, content and imagery which is accessible and which – even though personal to the writer - resonate with the experience of us all, giving up more of its meaning with each encounter. The directness of Jonty’s poetic communication was heightened by the brilliant performance by Peter Fields of movements from Bach’s Cello Suite No 1 arranged for violin, with its deceptively simple, emotionally-charged lines – a wonderful counterpoint to the poetry in the immediacy of its appeal. All those fortunate enough to be at this recital encountered a performance of magical feeling and introspection, which only served to emphasise the shared experience of humanity.

First published in Ewhurst & Bodiam Parish News © Jonathan Watts / Ewhurst & Bodiam Parish News

Last Friday's Speaker, Sarah Moss

Sarah Moss, who spoke to us on Friday 18 September about "What is the Historical Novel for?" has, I have discovered, a wonderful website. It includes an outline of her career, details of her published works and an entertaining blog, with amusing posts on such subjects as acquiring a cat and coping with the January sales. You can access the website by clicking HERE. (See also Richard Thomas's post about our speaker immediately below.)

Sarah Moss talk to Literary Society on "What is the Historical Novel for?"

Richard Thomas kindly provided this introduction to our first meeting of the 2015-6 season.:

"Sarah Moss, who will be speaking to the Literary Society on Friday 18 September, is both an author and an academic.  She has published six books: a history of chocolate, a memoir, and four novels, two of which are unalloyed historical novels, and one partially so.  These latter three together form a trilogy, but are all "stand-alone", with enough cross-referencing to enable one to read them in the wrong order.  They are "Night Waking", which is set in the present day on a deserted Hebridean island but contains evidence of past events that form the substance of the the other two, "Bodies of Light" and "Signs for Lost Children", which are set in the nineteenth century and focus on, among other issues, the uphill struggles faced by women then who wished to become, and later became, doctors.  "Bodies of Light" was shortlisted for the Wellcome Prize (for fiction with a medical slant).  I was gripped by all three.

The other novel, "Cold Earth", is a spine-chilling account of an archaeological dig in Greenland that goes very wrong, set against a world-wide pandemic about which the archaeologists are insufficiently informed, frighteningly so.  It is a psychological thriller and a page-turner.
The memoir, "Names for the Sea", is a compelling and amusing account of a year spent as a visiting lecturer at the University of Iceland, which by chance landed Sarah and her family (husband and two young children) right bang in the middle of the "kreppa", the Icelandic financial and economic meltdown.  It was shortlisted for the RSL Ondatje Prize (for travel writing).  Both Adam Nicolson and Margaret Drabble have told me that they were greatly impressed, and amused, by it - as indeed I was.  

I have not read the history of chocolate, which was co-written with another author, and was Sarah's first book.
Sarah's academic career has centred on nineteenth century English literature and creative writing.  She is a BA, MSt and DPhil of Oxford University, and has held academic appointments at the Universities of Kent, Iceland, Exeter and Warwick, where she is at present the Associate Professor of Creative Writing.  She will be asking us "What is the Point of the Historical Novel?"  She tells me that she will be freewheeling between thinking about history and fiction, historical fiction and fictional history, and talking in some detail about her "own stuff".  After Winchelsea she is going on to give a rather more formal talk at Glasgow University, for which she may be trying out some ideas on us, and she hopes that the session will develop into a genuine conversation.

It sounds as though we are in for a stimulating evening.  The Rye Bookshop have told us that they will have some of Sarah's books in stock."

If you click on the July archive of the blog (on the right), you will find a short item on Sarah Moss which contains a link through which you can hear a BBC Radio interview with our speaker. 

Book group discussion of Thomas Hardy Poems, 15 July 2015

On 15 July, Gillian Southgate and the book group looked at the poetry of Thomas 

Hardy.  Tracing his life and poetry chronologically, Gill showed how Hardy's 

descriptions of, and concerns for, the natural world, coloured much of his poetry 

up to 1912, when his first wife, Emma Gifford, died.  The love poetry that followed

consolidated Hardy's reputation as a poet, as well as a novelist. The tenderness, 

regret and pent-up grief informing the 1912 poems brought critical acclaim. 

Already famous as the writer of 'Far from the Madding Crowd', 'The Mayor of 

Casterbridge', 'Jude the Obscure' and others, Hardy on his death in 1928 had become

the Grand Old Man of English letters. His coffin was carried into Westminster Abbey 

by fellow poets Housman and Kipling, the playwrights Shaw and J.M. Barrie, the 

novelists Conrad and Galsworthy, the writer Edmund Gosse, and the Prime Minister 

and the Leader of the Opposition. No anthology since has been complete without the 

inclusion of his best poetry -'The Darkling Thrush', 'The Convergence of the Twain',

'Channel Firing', 'After a Journey', 'At Castle Botterel' and the poignant 'During Wind 

and Rain'.  Hardy wrote in excess of nine hundred poems in his lifetime, and learned 

his craft in the writing of them. Technically, they are superb, and the emotional charge 

so many carry has a lasting effect on most of his readers. His influence on that most 

reticent of poets, Philip Larkin, has been well-documented.