HELLENS

HELLENS

I am catching up with myself after spending all yesterday evening, and all night until about six o'clock this morning.

I had a great day yesterday culminating with the-poetry-all-nighter with Dave Reeves, the poet in residence for The Black Country Living Museum, Radio Wildfire and whatever else. Twelve people stayed the course, read some of their own work or the chosen work of others.
I read two short poems inspired by 'Poetry Orchard' and the Pippin apples named after Stoke Edith. I also read 'he bares his shaven head' which probably occurred to me to read because a few days ago Rachel had visited Auswitz. Interestingly - for me - some who attended claimed to have not written any poetry, but still participated fully, read and to a man and woman wrote something. This was to their credit and to the ability of the facilitator.
The result, was a damn good 'night' and several pieces of work in progress. I have now so much more to think about.

The evening started at 7pm with a fantastic one man performance of a long poem - it lasted for over an hour - where J.O.Morgan recited 'At Maldon' and only dropped three words. He took from an old document/poem/ode where the beginning and ending had not survived and created the details of the character and the battle between those savage Danes who sailed up a river in Essex, at Maldon and gave the resident Anglo-Saxons a very good hiding. I don't know whether it was just for fun but a quantity of silver had to be given over afterwards. Everything has its cost, but for me it was good value for money.
This recital took place in the 'music room' with its panelled walls, grand piano (of course), and where the entire room oozed history - what a setting!

We then moved into a manorial hall which had been used by The Black Prince in centuries past for a combination recital of poetry by Elizabeth Barrett and musician Robin Ireland on his viola. He had set his music to accompany the reading. It uses the metaphor of detecting bats to explore communication within a family affected by autism. I cannot hope to do any justice here to the content of the writing and the music that dealt with complex feelings and included reference to the autism of her son. A performance fascinatingly called 'The Bat Detector' delivered in another room that spoke of history.

And then the poetry workshop until dawn which included a stroll through the trees with four Tawny Owls screeching in the trees. All of it to give us our own images.