Renowned broadcaster, educator and speaker Graham Fawcett will be giving a series of seven lectures at Sladers Yard – ·the first of which will be Pablo Neruda, followed by Ovid on 20 February.· The lectures are part of the acclaimed national tour, which explores seven poets in history whose achievements on the page have made them world-class heroes.
Lecture No.1 – Pablo Neruda
Thursday 31 January 6pm for 6.30
£10 for lecture. £18 lecture and supper
Pablo Neruda, known for his intimate love poetry and political verve, was Nobel Laureate in 1971 and has been hailed by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as the greatest poet of the twentieth century in any language. Such is the power of cinema that the clearest picture many of us have of Neruda’s life and poetry is from the 1994 film Il Postino: The Postman. The lecture will shed new light on his life and work in an inspiring way, and will be followed by supper in Sladers Yard’s award-winning café.
Writer, teacher, translator and broadcaster, Graham Fawcett gives courses, seminars, tutorials, lectures, poetry lunches, and other one-day events on reading and writing poetry. He has been a tutor for The Poetry School since 1997, devising and teaching new courses on poetry past and present from around the world. He has written and presented radio programmes about literature and music on BBC Radio 3 for many years. His current lecture series is on tour throughout 2013 covering Neruda, Ovid, Geoffrey Chaucer, Lord Byron, Alexander Pushkin, Charles Baudelaire and Emily Dickinson, who became and have remained national and international heroes for their uniqueness of voice, intensity of wonder at the world, formidable output, and prowess on the page.
Graham Fawcett Literary Lectures
No.2 – Ovid
20th February 6.30-8pm followed by supper
Tickets: £10/£18 with supper
The next lecture will be the Roman poet ‘Ovid’ on Wednesday 20th February (6pm for 6.30pm). His poetry, much imitated during late antiquity and the middle ages, greatly influenced European art and literature and remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology. Although he was already famous in 2AD when he started to write his masterpiece, Ovid is most famous for Metamorphoses, his history of the world which takes us from creation to the Roman empire in 15 books and emcompasses most of Roman mythology. Written in 8AD it is lively and entertaining, focusing on the moments of transformation, through stories of the Gods and the constantly changing nature of humanity.
Then man was born. Either the Architect
of All, the author of the universe,
in order to beget a better world,
created man from seed divine – or else
Prometheus, son of Iapetus, made man
by mixing new-made earth with fresh rainwater
(for earth had only recently been set
apart from heaven, and the earth still kept
seeds of the sky – remains of their shared birth);
and when he fashioned man, his mold recalled
the masters of all things, the gods. And while
all other animals are bent, head down,
and fix their gaze upon the ground, to man
he gave a face that is held high; he had
man stand erect, his eyes upon the stars.
From Metamorphoses by Ovid
Please phone 01308 459511 now to book tickets for either or both lectures.
Sladers Yard, West Bay, Bridport, Dorset DT6 4EL T: 01308 459511
Open 10 – 5pm Monday to Saturday, 12 – 5pm Sundays
www.sladersyard.co.uk Email: gallery@sladersyard.co.uk
