An evening of dramatic contrasts and stylistic diversity was enjoyed this evening by a select audience at St John's Seven Kings as part of the Redbridge Book and Media Festival.
The evening began and ended with Tim Cunningham (one of the White House poets), whose engaging and amusing anecdotes added to the combination of apposite phrases illuminating everyday encounters that characterised his poetry. The work in his latest volume Kyrie, with poems based on the liturgy, festivals, furnishings of Catholicism, stood out for its sharpness of both form and insight. The title poem is a confession of our lack of insight and faith including:
"For not walking on water when all
It needed was the buoyancy of faith,
Kyrie eleison."
Pater Noster meanwhile explores his relationship with his Grandfather as an analogy for relationship with God before concluding:
"I would jump up on the bar
Of his old Raleigh any day
And listen to his stories
While he pedalled all the way
To an eternal paradise
That I already know by analogy."
In her two slots Naomi Foyle gave acted readings of two ballads and drama was certainly one characteristic of her vibrant celebrations of football, nature, politics and sex. She introduced us to several of her poetic heoines including Anna Akhmatova, Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath. Her work was particularly strong when speaking in character to describe relationships but the poem that left the strongest mark involved the rhythmic repetitions of [and 13 Israelis] /a copyleft poem - pass it on where she instructs:
"Donate an hour of your day
to stand up and demonstrate
peace is a process of learning to listen,
and giving is not 'giving in'."
Ken Champion was an unexpected addition to the night's roster of poets. Born in London’s East End, Ken lectures in sociology and philosophy, and has worked as a decorator, sign writer, mural painter and commercial artist in addition to being a published poet. His dry and nonchalant delivery tended to downplay the wordplay in contrast to that of Cunningham and Foyle but his work was slyly observant and sometimes, as in Interview, surreal.
The evening was made complete, for me at least, in that I was indulged with the opportunity to read three of my poems including Worthship, which can be read by clicking here.
To read examples of Tim Cunningham's work click here, here, here and here. The first of these, Mortuary, was among those read by Tim this evening. For examples of Naomi Foyle's work click here, here, here, and here. The first, Natasha: The Ballad of the Love-Torn Russian Count, was given a dramatic performance by Naomi tonight, complete with drawn-on pencil moustache!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Blue Aeroplanes - A Map Below.
Showing posts with label foyle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foyle. Show all posts
Monday, 27 April 2009
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Lyricism with a twist of humour
Enjoy an evening of poetic contrasts in the company of internationally renowned poets Tim Cunningham and Naomi Foyle at St John's Seven Kings (St Johns Road, Seven Kings, Ilford, IG2 7BB) on Monday 27th April from 7.00pm. Tickets cost £2.00 (available on the door). This evening of poetry is part of the Redbridge Book & Media Festival.
Lyricism with a twist of Irish humour can be found at the heart of the poems of Limerick born Tim Cunningham. Naomi has a background in theatre and her poems cut straight to the drama of the human experience.
Tim Cunningham's latest collection is entitled Kyrie. Reviews of his previous collections include:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Blue Aeroplanes - And Stones.
Lyricism with a twist of Irish humour can be found at the heart of the poems of Limerick born Tim Cunningham. Naomi has a background in theatre and her poems cut straight to the drama of the human experience.
Tim Cunningham's latest collection is entitled Kyrie. Reviews of his previous collections include:
- “Tim Cunningham is at his best rewriting myths and parables . . . . He’s also at his best when his quirky imagination takes off from the documentation of actuality. . . . I liked these, often shorter, poems, and the book adds up to a good sense of the co-existence of past and present.” Herbert Lomas, Ambit
- “This is sensitive, assured writing.” Susan Burns, The North
- “. . . The poet of good endings becomes a poet you can’t put down ... He writes tenderly about the human condition: his consistently generous attitude to experience is not sentimental, just refreshingly positive ... the wisdom of a grown-up poet – without any of the callow pretensions of youth, it has all of youth’s enthusiasm.” R.V. Bailey, Envoi
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Blue Aeroplanes - And Stones.
Saturday, 4 April 2009
Seven Kings Poetry Evening
Enjoy an evening of poetic contrasts in the company of internationally renowned poets Tim Cunningham and Naomi Foyle at St John's Seven Kings on Monday 27th April from 7.00pm.
Lyricism with a twist of Irish humour can be found at the heart of the poems of Limerick born Tim Cunningham. Naomi has a background in theatre and her poems cut straight to the drama of the human experience.
Tickets cost £2.00 (available on the door). This evening of poetry is part of the Redbridge Book & Media Festival.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Cunningham - Kyrie.
Lyricism with a twist of Irish humour can be found at the heart of the poems of Limerick born Tim Cunningham. Naomi has a background in theatre and her poems cut straight to the drama of the human experience.
Tickets cost £2.00 (available on the door). This evening of poetry is part of the Redbridge Book & Media Festival.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Cunningham - Kyrie.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
TASK Newsletter No. 14
Welcome to our latest TASK e-newsletter as the sun shines and we move towards spring. As ever, there is a huge amount going on so please read this as a thank you to all our volunteers, and as a set of summary headlines.
Seven Kings Library
This was undoubtedly our big campaign of 2008, and efforts continue to develop permanent library provision in the area, as demanded by residents from all parts of the community. Meanwhile, though, we are generating valuable additional outreach services for local people, to include a 'beefed up' mobile service and regular family reading events at St. John's Church.
A regular programme of children's Storytelling sessions is now happening at St John's Seven Kings on a monthly basis. Future dates include Friday 13th March; Wednesday 1st April; Friday 24th April; Wednesday 13th May; Friday 5th June; Wednesday 24th June; Friday 17th July; Wednesday 5th August; Friday 28th August; Wednesday 16th September; Friday 9th October; Wednesday 28th October; Friday 20th November; and Wednesday 9th December. The times of these Storytelling sessions will be: Fridays - 11.30am to 12pm; and Wednesdays - 2.00-2.30pm.
A book group is also being started. Intended as quite a casual set up, without set questions or structured feedback and just an open ended discussion about how each person responded to the book. It will meet about four times a year and the first book to be discussed will be Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet. The group will meet to discuss this book on Thursday 23rd April at 8pm. The venue is to be confirmed but will probably be at St John's. The group is open to anyone who wants to come along and for more details, contact Huw Jacob on: huw.jacob@gmail.com.
The next Library Services Coffee morning at St John's is being planned for 11.00am on Wednesday 8th April and will feature a talk on gardening by Nick Dobson. Finally, for the moment, an Evening of Poetry featuring Tim Cunningham and Naomi Foyle will be happening on Monday 27th April at 7.00pm at St John's as part of the Redbridge Book and Media Festival. Tickets are just £2.
Money for Westwood Recreation Ground
Good news- funding has been secured by the Council to allow for an upgrade to play facilities at Westwood Recreation Ground, on Meads Lane. The sum, thought to be around £60 000, will allow for an upgrade to the old school style play equipment, and officers are consulting with the community on how it might best be spent.
TASK have offered some opening thoughts on the desirability of imaginative free style play kit, maybe using the same kind of interesting and stylish designs now being installed at Valentines Park, and suggested leisure staff talk first to the young audience - and their families - who we hope will make good use of it.
The hope is that consultation can happen fast over the spring, allowing action in time for this summer's peak use season. If you have any thoughts on this development, do please address them direct to Leisure Officer, Edward Smith, at Edward.Smith@redbridge.gov.uk, or by phone to 020 8 708 3745, mentioning you are responding to a call for input from TASK.
As we go to press, we have also just heard that there will be a public consultation meeting on Thursday March 26th, starting at 7pm at Farnham Green School. All local residents are welcome so do please let your family, friends and neighbours - and their kids - know so the borough can benefit from the widest possible pool of ideas.
(Yet) more consultation on the Roman Road
It seems like public authorities love to consult more and more often, and having made some input in January to a group looking at the design of urban high streets on behalf of London Mayor, Boris Johnson, we are now giving feedback on a much more specific project aimed at regenerating the Roman Road- basically the road out of Ilford to Romford, covering the entirety of run down Seven Kings High Road. The local press have made much of this new action plan, and we are hopeful too that with political will and funding support, real advances can be made.
Our initial points are summarised below:
Blood and guts on Cambridge Road
Residents on Cambridge Road have been having a tough time recently, with a spate of violent incidents, racist taunting and anti-social behaviour coming from tenants of two rented houses on the street. Despairing residents contacted local councillors and TASK, who, after hours of feverish email exchanges with cabinet member Cllr Vanessa Cole, council staff and the local safer neighbourhoods police team managed to get the tenants moved on. Overall, it was a good team effort that worked on this occasion, but not before time, and with some evident service lapses we need to learn from. The real worry is that these tenants will simply be shuffled to a new location, possibly even locally, where they will reproduce the violence and mayhem once again. This cannot happen and TASK hope that we can all learn lessons, and develop practical strategies and actions, that allow other residents in other streets to benefit from much more rapid responses to displace this kind of offensive behaviour.
It is an issue that is bound to come up at our next Area 5 meeting at 7.15pm on Monday 23 March, at Barley Lane School, which majors on crime and policing. All major players will be there and it really has never been more important to come along.
Next walkabout date
The next community walkabout is scheduled to happen on Friday April 24 starting at 0900 from outside Goodmayes station heading towards Seven Kings station. It is designed to get local residents to join council officers, the police and councillors to pick up on, and immediately address, irksome streetscape issues like dumping, graffiti, public drinking, vandalism, highways, planning and licensing breaches. This time round rail operator national express will also be taking part, and can update us on what is happening at and around our station, the subject of radical and much needed upgrade throughout 2008.
Area 5 festival
Plans continue to develop a small community event at Barley Lane Recreation Ground this summer ahead of a much bigger festival idea for 2010 and a dedicated working group now meets regularly on this to work up a programme and schedule. Already confirmed are martial arts displays, dancing, community group stalls and sale of allotment products. With scope for lots more to happen.The hope is that this will run on Sunday September 20 from noon until 5pm The next working group meeting is on Wednesday April 1 at 7pm. The venue is Barley Lane Primary School.
Redbridge Green Fair is on Sunday 24 May
The biannual Redbridge green fair has now been running for the best part of 20 years and comes around again over the late May Bank Holiday weekend when Melbourne Fields - at Valentines Park - is appropriated for one day only as a giant community and environmental festival space. Its always an inspirational event, with live music, a solar powered cinema, brilliant food outlets and lots of community information and stalls. TASK are hoping to be one of the exhibitors and need volunteers to run our stall across the day. Please contact Chris at chrisconnelley@ntlworld to find out more and/or offer time.
That is it for now. Expect more soon. And do please share your news and stories with us at chrisconnelley@ntlworld.com or ahai@deloitte.co.uk.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over the Rhine - The World Can Wait.
Seven Kings Library
This was undoubtedly our big campaign of 2008, and efforts continue to develop permanent library provision in the area, as demanded by residents from all parts of the community. Meanwhile, though, we are generating valuable additional outreach services for local people, to include a 'beefed up' mobile service and regular family reading events at St. John's Church.
A regular programme of children's Storytelling sessions is now happening at St John's Seven Kings on a monthly basis. Future dates include Friday 13th March; Wednesday 1st April; Friday 24th April; Wednesday 13th May; Friday 5th June; Wednesday 24th June; Friday 17th July; Wednesday 5th August; Friday 28th August; Wednesday 16th September; Friday 9th October; Wednesday 28th October; Friday 20th November; and Wednesday 9th December. The times of these Storytelling sessions will be: Fridays - 11.30am to 12pm; and Wednesdays - 2.00-2.30pm.
A book group is also being started. Intended as quite a casual set up, without set questions or structured feedback and just an open ended discussion about how each person responded to the book. It will meet about four times a year and the first book to be discussed will be Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet. The group will meet to discuss this book on Thursday 23rd April at 8pm. The venue is to be confirmed but will probably be at St John's. The group is open to anyone who wants to come along and for more details, contact Huw Jacob on: huw.jacob@gmail.com.
The next Library Services Coffee morning at St John's is being planned for 11.00am on Wednesday 8th April and will feature a talk on gardening by Nick Dobson. Finally, for the moment, an Evening of Poetry featuring Tim Cunningham and Naomi Foyle will be happening on Monday 27th April at 7.00pm at St John's as part of the Redbridge Book and Media Festival. Tickets are just £2.
Money for Westwood Recreation Ground
Good news- funding has been secured by the Council to allow for an upgrade to play facilities at Westwood Recreation Ground, on Meads Lane. The sum, thought to be around £60 000, will allow for an upgrade to the old school style play equipment, and officers are consulting with the community on how it might best be spent.
TASK have offered some opening thoughts on the desirability of imaginative free style play kit, maybe using the same kind of interesting and stylish designs now being installed at Valentines Park, and suggested leisure staff talk first to the young audience - and their families - who we hope will make good use of it.
The hope is that consultation can happen fast over the spring, allowing action in time for this summer's peak use season. If you have any thoughts on this development, do please address them direct to Leisure Officer, Edward Smith, at Edward.Smith@redbridge.gov.uk, or by phone to 020 8 708 3745, mentioning you are responding to a call for input from TASK.
As we go to press, we have also just heard that there will be a public consultation meeting on Thursday March 26th, starting at 7pm at Farnham Green School. All local residents are welcome so do please let your family, friends and neighbours - and their kids - know so the borough can benefit from the widest possible pool of ideas.
(Yet) more consultation on the Roman Road
It seems like public authorities love to consult more and more often, and having made some input in January to a group looking at the design of urban high streets on behalf of London Mayor, Boris Johnson, we are now giving feedback on a much more specific project aimed at regenerating the Roman Road- basically the road out of Ilford to Romford, covering the entirety of run down Seven Kings High Road. The local press have made much of this new action plan, and we are hopeful too that with political will and funding support, real advances can be made.
Our initial points are summarised below:
- although we are committed to consultation and action for change, the creation of Action Plans that don't result in action does over time lead to the building up of cynicism amongst local people;
- local people strongly associate with the High Road but think it has been run down over generations;
- currently it has a limited and inadequate shopping base dominated by too many takeaways;
- a mixed economy is needed along the High Road; we need a greater variety of retail outlets and community facilities/organisations with a new local library as the major priority;
- introducing this mixed economy may involve changing usage in some instances to enable community services to be delivered from what are currently retail outlets and/or using existing community building (such as schools and faith community buildings) for the delivery of local community services;
- new developments should be high quality which includes environmentally friendly and aesthetically pleasing;
- equivalent parking to that which is currently available should be delivered in new developments in order to sustain business levels for local traders;
- encouraging walking and use of bikes will be best achieved by locating community facilities locally. When libraries and post offices are more than one mile away most people will use cars to get to them; locate these and other community facilities locally and many more people will walk/cycle;
- attention should be paid to enhancing local heritage, where it exists, and enhancing awareness of that heritage. Public art could play a part in doing so;
- the area looks generally run down and needs: better street cleaning; trees/flower displays; enhancing of shop frontages; aesthetic new developments; and public art;
- the area in front of Seven Kings station is dangerous because it is used as a cut through; pedestriansing the area would be an option;
- although the railway is a major barrier, there would be little benefit to building more pedestrian crossings over the railway. Attention should be paid to traffic congestion caused by limited road crossings over the railway.
Blood and guts on Cambridge Road
Residents on Cambridge Road have been having a tough time recently, with a spate of violent incidents, racist taunting and anti-social behaviour coming from tenants of two rented houses on the street. Despairing residents contacted local councillors and TASK, who, after hours of feverish email exchanges with cabinet member Cllr Vanessa Cole, council staff and the local safer neighbourhoods police team managed to get the tenants moved on. Overall, it was a good team effort that worked on this occasion, but not before time, and with some evident service lapses we need to learn from. The real worry is that these tenants will simply be shuffled to a new location, possibly even locally, where they will reproduce the violence and mayhem once again. This cannot happen and TASK hope that we can all learn lessons, and develop practical strategies and actions, that allow other residents in other streets to benefit from much more rapid responses to displace this kind of offensive behaviour.
It is an issue that is bound to come up at our next Area 5 meeting at 7.15pm on Monday 23 March, at Barley Lane School, which majors on crime and policing. All major players will be there and it really has never been more important to come along.
Next walkabout date
The next community walkabout is scheduled to happen on Friday April 24 starting at 0900 from outside Goodmayes station heading towards Seven Kings station. It is designed to get local residents to join council officers, the police and councillors to pick up on, and immediately address, irksome streetscape issues like dumping, graffiti, public drinking, vandalism, highways, planning and licensing breaches. This time round rail operator national express will also be taking part, and can update us on what is happening at and around our station, the subject of radical and much needed upgrade throughout 2008.
Area 5 festival
Plans continue to develop a small community event at Barley Lane Recreation Ground this summer ahead of a much bigger festival idea for 2010 and a dedicated working group now meets regularly on this to work up a programme and schedule. Already confirmed are martial arts displays, dancing, community group stalls and sale of allotment products. With scope for lots more to happen.The hope is that this will run on Sunday September 20 from noon until 5pm The next working group meeting is on Wednesday April 1 at 7pm. The venue is Barley Lane Primary School.
Redbridge Green Fair is on Sunday 24 May
The biannual Redbridge green fair has now been running for the best part of 20 years and comes around again over the late May Bank Holiday weekend when Melbourne Fields - at Valentines Park - is appropriated for one day only as a giant community and environmental festival space. Its always an inspirational event, with live music, a solar powered cinema, brilliant food outlets and lots of community information and stalls. TASK are hoping to be one of the exhibitors and need volunteers to run our stall across the day. Please contact Chris at chrisconnelley@ntlworld to find out more and/or offer time.
That is it for now. Expect more soon. And do please share your news and stories with us at chrisconnelley@ntlworld.com or ahai@deloitte.co.uk.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over the Rhine - The World Can Wait.
Monday, 23 February 2009
Books, stories, coffee & poetry in Seven Kings
Community outreach events by Redbridge Library Services, which were initiated through discussions with TASK, are continuing to develop.
A regular programme of children's Storytelling sessions is now happening at St John's Seven Kings on a monthly basis. Future dates include: Friday 13th March; Wednesday 1st April; Friday 24th April; Wednesday 13th May; Friday 5th June; Wednesday 24th June; Friday 17th of July;
Wednesday 5th August; Friday 28th August; Wednesday 16th September; Friday 9th October; Wednesday 28th October; Friday 20th November; and Wednesday 9th December. The times of these Storytelling sessions will be: Fridays - 11.30am to 12pm; and Wednesdays - 2.00-2.30pm.
A book group is also being started. Intended as quite a casual group, without set questions or structured feedback just an open ended discussion about how each person responded to the book, it will meet about four times a year. The first book to be discussed will be Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet. The group will meet to discuss this book on Thursday 23rd April at 8pm. The venue is to be confirmed but will probably be at St John's. The group is open to anyone who wants to come along. For more details contact Huw Jacob on: huw.jacob@gmail.com.
The next Library Services Coffee morning at St John's is being planned for Wednesday 8th April and will feature a talk on gardening by Nick Dobson. Finally, for the moment, an Evening of Poetry featuring Tim Cunningham and Naomi Foyle will be happening on Monday 27th April at St John's as part of the Redbridge Book and Media Festival.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leonard Cohen - A Thousand Kisses Deep.
A regular programme of children's Storytelling sessions is now happening at St John's Seven Kings on a monthly basis. Future dates include: Friday 13th March; Wednesday 1st April; Friday 24th April; Wednesday 13th May; Friday 5th June; Wednesday 24th June; Friday 17th of July;
Wednesday 5th August; Friday 28th August; Wednesday 16th September; Friday 9th October; Wednesday 28th October; Friday 20th November; and Wednesday 9th December. The times of these Storytelling sessions will be: Fridays - 11.30am to 12pm; and Wednesdays - 2.00-2.30pm.
A book group is also being started. Intended as quite a casual group, without set questions or structured feedback just an open ended discussion about how each person responded to the book, it will meet about four times a year. The first book to be discussed will be Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet. The group will meet to discuss this book on Thursday 23rd April at 8pm. The venue is to be confirmed but will probably be at St John's. The group is open to anyone who wants to come along. For more details contact Huw Jacob on: huw.jacob@gmail.com.
The next Library Services Coffee morning at St John's is being planned for Wednesday 8th April and will feature a talk on gardening by Nick Dobson. Finally, for the moment, an Evening of Poetry featuring Tim Cunningham and Naomi Foyle will be happening on Monday 27th April at St John's as part of the Redbridge Book and Media Festival.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leonard Cohen - A Thousand Kisses Deep.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)