Shakespeare night at West Greenwich Library

March 7, 2024

It’s taken me longer than usual to get down to updating this site with an entry about Tuesday’s event. Various reasons for this – life, sorting things in the house and in my head, lingering glow after that terrific evening, thinking how lucky I am to have the opportunity to learn so much while being entertained, responding to many kind and enthusiastic messages from audience and performers alike. Anyway, here I am now, with a non-review of the event, only a short account of it and its two halves.

Difficult to put into words the depth of knowledge, the ease of delivery, the interesting facts, the amazing connections that Neville Grant gifted us in his illustrated talk about his book Shakespeare in an Age of Anxiety (Greenwich Exchange 2023) – covering, of course, history, religion, politics, romance and literature in a seamless and totally engaging way, with wit and scholarship, holding the large audience spellbound. If you missed the session, or regret not buying the book at the time, go to https://greenex.co.uk

Equally hard to put into words the creative, poetic skills of the six wordsmiths who concocted a unique buzz during the second half. Poets Nick Eisen, Doreen Hinchliffe, NJ Hynes, Rosie Johnston, Lorraine Mariner and Gillie Robic read from 154, a Live Canon publication where each of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets bears a response from 154 different contemporary poets. The six poets above are all part of that tremendous project, and read (and explained) with wit, reverence and irreverence, both the original sonnet ‘allocated’ to them and their own responses. The irreverence continued, in the most respectful sense, of course, in the following section, when the poets read/performed another piece, still with a connection to a Shakespearean work or work by a previous artist or poet. Their diverse choices and voices were stunning and highly entertaining – disguising the depth of their knowledge and the hard hard work that goes into making and sharing poetry.

To buy 154 and poetry by NJ Hynes and Gillie Robic, go to www.livecanon.co.uk

For works by the other poets, please google them or check their publishers in the biographies below.

A HUGE THANK YOU to all who spoke and all who attended and, as always, to Debra and Em at the Library for all their generous help.

Neville Grant, best known locally as former editor of the Westcombe News, is a professional author who has published many textbooks on language and literature used in countries around the world. His  latest book, Shakespeare in an Age  of Anxiety (Greenwich Exchange 2023), written for the general reader, celebrates the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio – the collection of his plays published seven years after his death. The book looks at how a grammar school boy made it in London’s theatre-land, how he survived Tudor politics, and gives an appreciation of each of his works in the order in which they were written, so one can trace his development as a writer.

Nick Eisen is a writer and performer whose spoken word, poetry and plays have appeared at venues such as Battersea Arts Centre, the late, great Man In The Moon Theatre, Riverside Studios and Chocolate Poetry. His more recent spoken word performances and collaborations have been for Wansdworth’s contribution to the London Design Festival, Wandsworth’s Arts Fringe, London Metropolitan University and Arcus Pride in Canary Wharf and other venues.

Originally from Yorkshire, Doreen Hinchliffe is a retired teacher who has lived in London for many years. Her poems have appeared in a wide variety of poetry anthologies and magazines, and her sonnet sequence, The Pointing Star, was recorded by Live Canon on their Poems for Christmas CD in 2011.To date, she has published three poetry collections – Dark Italics (Indigo Dreams, 2017) Substantial Ghosts (Oversteps Books, 2020) and Marginalia (Stairwell Books, 2023). Her first novel, Sarabande in Blue, was recently published by Blossom Spring Publishing.

NJ Hynes is a South London based poet who enjoys flamenco, piano playing and climbing every hill in Greenwich Park. Her latest pamphlet Tracking Light, Stacking Time, was published by Live Canon in 2023 and launched at the Royal Observatory. Her collection The Department of Emotional Projections won Live Canon’s inaugural First Collection competition. In between, she’s been longlisted, shortlisted and commended in numerous competitions, and in 2019 she won the Battered Moons poetry competition. In the same year a poem commissioned for the launch of Maritime Radio Greenwich resulted in an award-winning broadcast. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post as well as in literary journals, train stations, art galleries and Soho shop fronts. She is currently working on poems inspired by a month-long residency in the Atacama Desert, Chile.

Rosie Johnston’s writing spans journalism, drama, fiction and poetry, with novels published in Dublin and London and four books of poetry by Lapwing Publications in her native Belfast. Her most recent, Six-Count Jive (Lapwing, 2019), describes the inner landscape of her complex post-traumatic stress disorder and led to readings at Glasgow and Vigo universities and inclusion in Her Other Language (Arlen House, 2020). Rosie’s poetry also appears in the Northern Irish section of Places of Poetry (OneWorld, 2020), the Mary Evans Poems and Pictures blog and various magazines. Her first venture back into fiction in ten years, Laughing and Grief, was published in American Writers Review. Her fifth book of poetry, Safe Ground, will be published by Mica Press early next year. Rosie reviews poetry for London Grip and is a generous and inspirational teacher and mentor. rosiejohnstonwrites.com

Lorraine Mariner lives in Greenwich and works at the National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre. She has published two collections with Picador, Furniture (2009) and There Will Be No More Nonsense (2014) and has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize twice, for Best Single Poem and Best First Collection, and for the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize. Her most recent publication is the poetry chapbook, Anchorage with Grey Suit Editions (2020). She edits regularly for Candlestick Press: Ten Poems About Libraries has just been published, following on from Ten Poems About Friendship, Ten Poems About Love and Ten Poems About Tea.

Gillie Robic was born in India, a place that remains her abiding passion. She is a puppeteer and her voice is used in film, theatre and television. Gillie’s poetry collections, Swimming Through Marble, Lightfalls, and her latest, I think I could be wrong, are all published by Live Canon, as is her pamphlet Open Skies, written and published in aid of Ukraine.

Events

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 11 at West Greenwich Library – 7 for 7.30

‘Poems of Peace (and War)‘ – with Mick Delap, Malene Engelund, Graham High, Lorraine Mariner, Jocelyn Page, Kelley Swain and Sarah Westcott. With Lucia Foti on harp.

It cannot be at 11am, but 7.30 will do… An evening of poetry to celebrate peace (but it’s almost impossible to do so without poems on war). The poets, all belonging to the Nevada Street Poets group based in Greenwich (and thriving despite various departures for other places – Tasmania being the farthest), have designed a programme that includes their own work and that of poets from the canon.

And I’m delighted to welcome back Lucia Foti, who will play a small selection of music on harp. You may remember her wonderful playing in February this year, to accompany readings by Jacqueline Saphra and Sue Rose.

As always, the event is free and everyone is welcome. Books and pamphlets will be on sale, and there will be plenty of refreshments.

Mick Delap Mick Delap is a long time Greenwich resident.  He took up writing poetry along the way, publishing his first collection, River Turning Tidal in 2003, and his second, Opening Time in 2016.  Mick has never stopped supporting the reading and the writing of poetry in South East London. He gathered the group of poets still at the heart of the Nevada Street Writers in 2009.  They still meet regularly.

Malene Engelund is a poet and translator based in Copenhagen. Her pamphlet The Wild Gods was published in 2016 and her translation of the Danish author Christel Wiinblad’s poetry collection My Little Brother was the PBS Spring 2020 translation choice. Her collection Gather is forthcoming with Corsair.Her work will be read by “members of the cast!”

Lucia Foti is a London-based Italian harpist. Supported by Trinity College London and a Trinity Laban Scholarship, she has recently completed her master’s degree with distinction at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. She is the recipient of prizes in France (2012), Italy (2015) and Britain (2023 and 2024). Lucia freelances with various orchestras and ensembles, performing widely abroad as well as at leading London venues including Kings Place, Cadogan Hall, St John’s Smith Square, St James’s Piccadilly and the Painted Hall in Greenwich.

Graham High has been writing poetry since school days, although his primary career has been as a sculptor and Animatronic Model Designer in the film industry. He has published five poetry collections to date, as well as several chapbooks of poetry and other work. Graham’s other literary involvements have been in editorial and translation work, and as a writer of short stories and movie screenplays (two of which have won awards but, sadly, have not been produced). Through his keen interest in Japanese literature, he became editor of the British Haiku Society Journal, Blithe Spirit, (2005-2008), and to serve as the Society’s president (2011-2014).

Lorraine Mariner lives in Greenwich and works as a librarian at the National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre. She has published two collections with Picador, Furniture (2009) and There Will Be No More Nonsense (2014) and has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize twice, for Best Single Poem and Best First Collection, and for the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize. Her third collection Little Anchors is due from Picador in Autumn 2026. She has edited several titles for Candlestick Press, including Ten Poems About Friendship (2016) and Ten Poems about Libraries (2024).

Jocelyn Page is a poet from Connecticut, USA, living in London. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College and the University of London, and is Resident Creative Consultant on the ‘Just Poetry’ project at Greenpeace, CJL. Jocelyn’s publications include You’ve Got to Wait Till the Man You Trust Says Go (argent press, 2016) – winner of the Goldsmiths’ Writer Centre’s inaugural Poetry Pamphlet award, and smithereens (tall-lighthouse press, 2010). She is co-chair of the National Association of Writers in Education. 

Kelley Swain is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing (poetry) at the University of Tasmania, with an MSc in Medical Humanities from King’s College London. She is the author of poetry collections Darwin’s Microscope, Atlantic, and Opera di Cera, and a contributor to Guests of Time, an anthology written for the first poetry residency at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Poems from the 10th anniversary edition of Darwin’s Microscope were adapted to the song cycle, Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Kelley is also a novelist and contributor to art & health essays and criticism in The Lancet, where she has over 100 publications. Her work will be read by “members of the cast!”

Sarah Westcott is a poet, originally from Devon. She has published three pamphlets and two full collections – Slant Light and Bloom (Pavilion Poetry, Liverpool University Press). Her latest pamphlet is Almanac – hand-stitched and published by Coast to Coast to Coast. Sarah is currently researching and writing inter-species poetry as part of a PhD at the University of Birmingham. She has been working with tadpoles, bats and nightingales to co-create poems that explore the interesting spaces where human and more than human intersect.

‘Chaos, Dragon and the Light’ – January 27 at West Greenwich Library, 7 for 7.30

A poignant documentary film by local Director Sal Anderson. It tells the story of Marika, a Hungarian girl who was forced into hiding from the Nazis during WW2, and forced to flee from the Soviets in 1956 during the Hungarian uprising. Settled in London, she was transformed by her creativity.

A free event to remember and honour all the victims of the Holocaust and of persecution, hatred and discrimination everywhere.