International Times: Hope, Heart and Home

My latest set of album reviews for International Times are on Hope Is A Heavy Thing by Joy Oladokun, You’re Not a Ghost Anymore: Heart by Joseph Arthur, and Buddy Miller by Buddy Miller:

'The roots of what was originally known as rock ‘n’ roll are to be found in a blending of blues, country, and gospel. Folk music was added to that mix in the early sixties, while r&b, soul, country rock, and folk rock each major on one of those main strands.

Fusing these core strands in ever new combinations offers a constant source of inspiration which artists such as Joy Oladokun, Joseph Arthur, and Buddy Miller consistently tap.'

For more on Joy Oladokun see here and for Joseph Arthur see here.

For more of my writing on music, see my article for Seen and Unseen entitled 'Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion' and my co-authored book with Peter Banks, ‘The Secret Chord’, which has been described as an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life written through the prism of Christian belief. The book can be purchased from Lulu - https://www.lulu.com/shop/jonathan-evens-and-peter-banks/the-secret-chord/paperback/product-1pey2g67.html?q=peter+banks&page=1&pageSize=4. Covering a range of musical styles and influences, from gospel music to X Factor, The Secret Chord conveys enthusiasm for music and its transformative powers. The book asks is there really a 'Secret Chord' that would both please the Lord and nearly everybody else as described in Leonard Cohen's popular song 'Hallelujah'? Posts related to the themes of 'The Secret Chord' can be found here.

My earlier pieces for IT are: an interview with curator Jacquiline Creswell; an interview with the artist Alexander de Cadenet; an interview with artist, poet, priest Spencer Reece, an interview with the poet Chris Emery, an interview with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, a profile of singer-songwriter Bill Fay, plus reviews of:

• 'Arthur: A New Life' by Amy Jeffs:
• Anish Kapoor at Hayward Gallery
• Flowers from the Graveyard by Michael McDermott
• an IMMERSE performance by Wilderthorn at Bradwell Chapel
• albums by Switchfoot, Jon Foreman and NEEDTOBREATHE:
• 'Walls and Windows' at The Minories in Colchester
• 'The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art and the birth of America's Culture Wars' by Isaac Butler
• 'Moving Pictures' and 'Closeups' by Steve Scott, 'Never Mind the Ballads Here's Nick Battle' by Nick Battle, and 'Blank Arcades' by Andrew Rumsey
• Michael Takeo Magruder -Reconstructed Landscape{s}
• The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex and Controversy in the 1980s
• In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk
• Hulda Guzman: Please awake - asked Nature kindly' at Turner Contemporary;
• 'Devotions' by Lucy Caldwell and 'Catholic Modernism and the Irish ‘Avant-Garde’: The Achievement of Brian Coffey, Denis Devlin, and Thomas MacGreevy' by James Matthew Wilson;
• the 'Stations' project from Dunlin Press;
• 'William Blake: The Age of Romantic Fantasy';
• Joseph Arthur in concert;
• installations by Chiharu Shiota and Yin Xiuzhen at Hayward Gsllery,
• U2's 'Days of Ash', Mumford and Sons' 'Prizefighter' and Moby's 'Future Quiet';
• 'Collected Poems' by Kevin Crossley-Holland;
• 'Lux' by Rosalía;
• 'Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere';
• 'Great Art Explained' by James Payne;
• 'Down River: In Search of David Ackles' by Mark Brend;
• 'Headwater' by Rev Simpkins;
• 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art' by Jonathan A. Anderson;
• 'Breaking Lines' at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art,
• albums by Deacon Blue, Mumford and Sons, and Andrew Rumsey,
• also by Joy Oladokun and Michael Kiwanaku;
• 'Nolan's Africa' by Andrew Turley;
• Mavis Staples in concert at Union Chapel;
• T Bone Burnett's 'The Other Side' and Peter Case live in Leytonstone;
• Helaine Blumenfeld's 'Together' exhibition,
• 'What Is and Might Be and then Otherwise' by David Miller;
• 'Giacometti in Paris' by Michael Peppiatt,
• the first Pissabed Prophet album; and
• 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Several of my short stories have been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford in 2022. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

IT have also published several of my poems, including 'Spencer Reece at Bemerton' which is based on the visit that I made to Bemerton in 2026 with Spencer Reece, 'The ABC of creativity', which covers attention, beginning and creation, and 'The Edge of Chaos', a state of existence poem. Also published have been three poems from my 'Five Trios' series. 'Barking' is about St Margaret’s Barking and Barking Abbey and draws on my time as a curate at St Margaret's. 'Bradwell' is a celebration of the history of the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, the Othona Community, and of pilgrimage to those places. Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'.

I am among those whose poetry has been included in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, a recent anthology from Amethyst Press. I also had a poem included in All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich, the first Amethyst Press anthology of new poems.

'Five Trios' is a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in the Diocese of Chelmsford. The five poems in the series are:

• 'Barking';
• 'Bradwell';
• 'Broomfield';
• 'Pleshey'; and
• 'Runwell'.

These poems have been published by Amethyst Review and International Times.

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Joy Oladokun - Dear Maria.