THE BRIDPORT LITERARY FESTIVAL is now in its 8th year and a feast of events is planned with a stellar line-up of authors of both fiction and non-fiction, together with an eclectic mix of poets and literary pundits. Here is a rundown of events taking place at Sladers Yard, West Bay. www.sladersyard.co.uk
Flowers in the Minefields, James Crowden
Sunday 11th November 8pm. £8/£16 with light lunch after performance
On Remembrance Sunday the Bridport Literary Festival and Sladers Yard will be commemorating the day with a talk by local author James Crowden about his latest book – ‘Flowers in the Minefields.’
The book explores the life, letters and poetry of the WWII poet, John Jarmain, who fought as anti-tank gunner with the 51st Highland Division at El Alamein and through North Africa to Sicily and into Normandy. He was killed by a German mortar bomb on 26th June 1944 at the village of St. Honorine la Chardoneorette. His extraordinary poetry was published posthumously.
“By fate opposed
Men prove their purpose, in the dangerous hour
Their brief excelling brilliance is disclosed;
When threatened most the soul puts forth its flower.”
From Jarmain’s sonnet ‘Failure’ (1944)
The book title ‘Flowers in the Minefields’ is drawn from a line of John Jarmain’s poem ‘El Alamein’, and can be taken to refer not just to the actual flowers, the asphodel lilies that come out in spring, but to the anti-personnel mines which were laid by the Germans in the Devil’s Gardens.
The book explores how in many senses the ‘flowers’ are also the poems which have grown out of the warfare in the western desert. The ‘asphodel meadows’ are where the souls of people who lived lives of near equal good and evil rested, on a neutral plateau. Asphodel lillies are often planted on graves, so it is fitting that the battlefield of El Alamein which saw so much death should be thus adorned.
James Crowden is a prolific author of over a dozen books (Ciderland, Literary Somerset, In Time of Flood, Dorset Coast.) His literary work is underpinned by his experiences in North Dorset and South Somerset as a shepherd, sheep shearer, cider maker and forester. His own experiences in the army took him to Cyprus, Eastern Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and India.
In 1999 James was made the Common Ground Apple Day Poet Laureate and subsequently wrote a libretto for a major new environmental opera called The Silver Messenger which was performed in Christchurch Priory in July 2001. Recently James has worked on several recording projects for Year of the Artist and Somerset Now, as well as working on Foot & Mouth poetry with Devon photographer Chris Chapman.
James’s poetry has often been featured on BBC Radio 4 and television, as well as Literature Festivals at Dartington, Wells, Ludlow and Oxford.
On Cigarette Papers
A Reading for Several Voices
Pam Zinnemann-Hope
Catherine Simmonds
Barry Tempest
Tuesday 13th November, 6.30pm, Tickets £8/£16 with light supper
As part of the Bridport Literary Festival, Sladers Yard will be hosting a reading of Pam Zinnemann’s new poetry collection ‘On Cigarette Papers’ (Ward Wood), with the evening also featuring new work by local poets Catherine Simmonds and Barry Tempest.
After her mother’s death in 1990, Pam Zinnemann finds a tiny pile of cigarette papers with writing pencilled in Russian in her hand. Surely these are recipes? They are the starting point for a journey of discovery, stretching from 1905 to 1995, a story of love and exile, dislocation and survival, and of a daughter’s search for identity, through lands physically and politically remote.
Pam Zinnemann-Hope is a prize-winning poet, children’s author and playwright. Her poems have been published in many pamphlets, anthologies (Granta) and magazines and she has been a poetry reader on Radio 3. She lives in Dorset with her husband, the composer Peter Hope. Pam is an occasional tutor for the Poetry School and runs workshops in and around Dorchester.
‘On Cigarette Papers’ is her first full-length poetry publication & is described by Paul Hyland as ‘the book Pam Zinnemann-Hope was born to write.’ Its dramatic love story, is spoken in the voices of its seven characters – six members of her family, now dead, and her own voice. The story begins with the discovery of: “fifty pencilled recipes / on cigarette papers, in Russian”. It ranges across Europe, from Hitler’s Germany through imprisonment in the Stalin Purges to England where her parents were imprisoned on the Isle of Mann as ‘Enemy Aliens’. It ends in 1995. There are plans to take performances of OCP forward into other media.
Pam has performed ‘On Cigarette Papers’ at The Drum Theatre, Plymouth, Lighthouse, Poole, The Poetry Society, the Strokestown Poetry Festival, et al.. With Catherine Simmonds, Paul Hyland & Kate Scott, Pam published “Who’s In the Next Room?”,Happen Stance, 2010, poems inspired by the life, novels and poetry of Thomas Hardy. Readings of these poems have taken place with Poet in the City at King’s Place, introduced by Sir Andrew Motion and sponsored by the Sunday Times Magazine, at Max Gate and at The Thomas Hardy Society International Conference.
THE OTHER READERS:
Catherine Simmonds lives on the Dorset Wiltshire border. Her poetry is published in journals in the USA and the UK. Her book We Have Heard Ravens (Flagon Press 2008) sets writing from the prose journals of Dorothy Wordsworth as a long sequence of poems. She has produced collaborative poetry and performance commissions for various arts bodies (Aune Head Arts, Trilith, The National Trust) and has performed at events and festivals across the South West, as well as at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, alongside the poet and musician Virginia Astley. This summer she performed a commissioned poem at the rededication service of the church of St Juthware and St Mary in Halstock, West Dorset.
Barry Tempest is a national prize-winning local poet. He lives in Dorchester & is known for his excellent delivery of poetry, with readings in Bridport, Dorchester, Weymouth, Blandford, Salisbury and as far distant as northern Italy. He has many poems published individually, including some translated into Italian. Much of his work has an international flavour, and shows fascination with our common European roots.
Tuesday 13th November, 6.30pm
Tickets £8/£16 with light supper
Call Sladers Yard on 01308 459511 to reserve tickets.
Larkin’s Jazz – A musical Entertainment
Sunday 18th November 12 noon. £10/£18 with light lunch.
As part of the Bridport Literary Festival, Slader’s Yard will be hosting a unique and exciting event, fusing the poetry of Philip Larkin with popular jazz, played by ‘The Randolph Five’ which features some of the country’s top musicians.
Philip Larkin was unique in 20th century British poetry. His poems combined intellectual depth and technical mastery with a popular appeal and accessibility which won him huge audiences.
“Larkin’s Jazz” tells the story of the one truly happy and enduring love of the poet’s life – his love affair with the excitement, beauty and spontaneity of popular jazz. The show combines music, poetry and readings from Larkin’s hilarious and moving letters and prose – a tribute to his enduring legacy.
The Randolph Five is made up of trumpeter Ian Smith, pianist Colin Good (keyboards and plays with Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music) and bassist Alyn Shipton (Radio 3’s Jazz Record Requests.) They were formally members of the big band Vile Bodies (immortalised in the opening credits of Ian McKellen’s film of “Richard III”).
In the current version of the band they are joined by saxophonist Dave Gelly, a pioneer of modern jazz in Britain with the New Jazz Orchestra (and BBC R2 voice of jazz for many years), and drummer Ewan Stewart, a leading player on the London jazz scene.
Ian Smith has played trumpet with many British bands, and worked with talents as varied as Gwyneth Herbert, Hank Wangford and Michael Horowitz.
Alyn Shipton toured in the London Ragtime Orchestra for fifteen years, and also played with Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen. Colin Good is a sought after musical director and pianist. Dave Gelly has played saxophone with numerous stars of British Jazz. Ewan Stewart loves the music of drummers Philly Joe Jones and Louis Hayes, and brings a fiery dash to every band he plays with.
Sunday 18th November 8pm. Tickets: £10/£18 with light lunch
