All That Has Been

November 12, 2020

On Remembrance evening a large virtual audience was treated to moving, incisive, witty and evocative readings by Chrissie Gittins and Wendy French, and original ‘poem songs’ composed and performed by The Moonpennies (Steve Halliwell and Clare Harriot).

At his time of travel restrictions, we were transported to the Indian mountains, where Chrissie retraced her father’s footsteps during WW2, the the Welsh farm of Wendy’s family memories and the chilly markets of South East London.

We were there. We smelled the places, heard the sounds, felt the discomfort, fear, comfort and losses. We joined them on their journeys to discover, or perhaps own again, bits they were missing from their narratives – something we all feel the need to do at different stages of our lives. The resonances were vivid.

We also giggled at funny anecdotes and felt the strength of loyalty and gratitude to our NHS with Wendy’s reading from Born in the NHS (co-written with Jane Kirwan).

We listened to Emily Dickinson’s words as never before, one of the settings The Moonpennies performed, and, appropriately at the end, to their setting into music of Yeats’s ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’. Wonderful.

Chrissie’s collection Sharp Hills is available from indigodreams.co.uk

Wendy’s Bread Without Butter is available from rockinghampress.co.uk and Born in the NHS from The Hippocrates Press

Events

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4 at West Greenwich Library: ‘A Better Future’ – poetry from Jacqueline Saphra and Sue Rose. Music by harpist Lucia Fusi. An event to remember and honour all victims of hatred and discrimination. 7.30 (please note later starting time). All welcome.

Jacqueline Saphra is a poet, playwright and activist. She is the author of nine plays, five chapbooks and five poetry collections. The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions (flipped eye 2011) was nominated for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing but Naked Women (The Emma Press 2014), illustrated by Mark Andrew Webber and set to music by Benjamin Tassie won the Saboteur Award for Best Collaborative Work. Jacqueline’s T.S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted collection All My Mad Mothers (2017) and her subsequent one, Dad, Remember You are Dead (2019) were both published by Nine Arches Press. Her newest play, The Noises was shortlisted for a Standing Ovation Award. Jacqueline’s collection, One Hundred Lockdown Sonnets (2021) was followed by Velvel’s Violin in July 2023 (Nine Arches Press), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and BBC Radio 4 Extra Poetry Book of the Month. Her latest project is the libretto for ‘A Kind of Haunting’, an opera by British Jewish composer Michael Zev Gordon, which will be staged at The Barbican in March 2025. Jacqueline is a founder member of Poets for the Planet and has taught in many different settings including The Arvon Foundation, The Poetry School, Oxford University Summer School and the MsT at Cambridge University. 

Sue Rose is a poet and literary translator working in Kent. As a translator, her work spans many genres, including libretti, novels and a series of books about the adventures of France’s answer to Harry Potter, Oksa Pollock. In 2004, she completed an MPhil in Writing with a thesis on the theory and practice of the translation of poetry. As a poet, her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies. In 2008, she won the Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year Competition and in 2009, the International Troubadour Poetry Prize. Sue is the author of three collections from Cinnamon Press – From the Dark Room, The Cost of Keys and Scion. Heart Archives, a chapbook of sonnets paired with her own photos, was published by Hercules Editions in 2014 and Tonewood, poems in response to black and white photos of trees by photographer Lawrence Impey, was published by Eaglesfield Editions in 2019. Her fourth collection, Aleph Bet, a sequence of poems exploring the Hebrew language, accompanied by some of her own photos, will be published later this year by Cinnamon Press. Sue plays tennis at club league level and is also a keen pickleball player, having won several gold and silver medals in international and national competitions in her age group.

Lucia Foti is a London-based Italian harpist. After graduating with first class honours from the Conservatorio di Como, she completed her Master’s, graduating with distinction from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Lucia has won several national and international prizes, including first prize the 2012 Concours Français de la Harpe and the 2015 Soroptimist Italia Competition for Young Talents, and more recently, third prize at the 2024 Manchester Harp Competition. She performs solo with professional orchestras, has performed at Kings Place and can be heard regularly at Cadogan Hall and St John’s Smith Square with the Young Musicians’ Symphony Orchestra. Lucia and guitarist Stefano Fiacco have partnered to form the Nazca Duo, and have been awarded the Colin Blythe Bursary Fund in 2023 in recognition of their achievement in chamber music.

TUESDAY MARCH 4 at West Greenwich Library – a special evening on the poetry and the creative, colourful and influential life of Geoffrey Grigson (1905-1985). With his daughter Caroline Grigson, grandson Joe Banks and poets Graham High, Blake Morrison and John Greening.

TUESDAY MARCH 25 at West Greenwich Library – ‘Mica Press launch: new poetry from Rosie Johnston, Michael Vince and Antony Johae.’ With Nayma Chanchoun, Michael Foley and Leslie Bell.

TUESDAY MAY 13 at West Greenwich Library – ‘Maggie and Maggie’. Same name, different voices: poetry from Maggie Butt and Maggie Harris.

TUESDAY JUNE 24 at West Greenwich Library – ‘Telltale Poets: Sarah Barnsley, Robin Houghton and Peter Kenny’