Graham Fawcett
writer, teacher, translator and broadcaster
e-mail: grahamkfawcett@gmail.com
telephone: 020 7405 3997
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Events and Courses Calendar
with Graham Fawcett
London |
Other Locations |
Italy |
Spain |
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Poetry Places 1 Milton and Galileo |
2011 Florence |
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Poetry Places 2 Eliot's East Coker |
returning 2010 Somerset |
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Poetry Places 4 Leopardi |
2012 Recanati |
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Dorset |
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Poetry Places 5 |
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(January-July) |
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this calendar is usually updated every two or three days
2010
WINTER INTO SPRING
Saturday 13th March 2010, 1030am-430pm
BOOKING OPENED 1ST DECEMBER 2009
15 tickets already sold, 7 tickets left
DORCHESTER, DORSET
DANTE’S DRAMATIC JOURNEY PART TWO
with Graham Fawcett of The Poetry School
Judge Jeffreys' House, 6 High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1UJ
An introduction to, and close reading of, Dante’s Divine Comedy §2 – Purgatorio
Saturday March 13th 2010, 1030am-430pm
“Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them; there is no third”, declared T S Eliot in his 1929 essay on the poet. Dante’s Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line verse narrative of heart-stopping brilliance, written in terza rima, the beguiling aba bcb cdc rhyme scheme which he had invented, tells the apparently autobiographical story of how, at Easter in the year 1300, Dante had set out, with the ghost of the Roman poet Virgil as his guide, on a life-changing pilgrimage.
Dante gazes at Mount Purgatory in an
allegorical portrait by Agnolo Bronzino,
painted circa 1530
Part Two of The Dramatic Journey of Dante Alighieri - Purgatorio begins in the Southern Hemisphere on the shores of the Mount of Purgatory as Dante, recovering from his perilous trek through the Inferno and still spurred on by the promise of a reunion with his beloved Beatrice and the saving of his own life, prepares to climb towards the Earthly Paradise at the mountain's top. But first there are new challenges to face at every turn of the mountain path. Walking at the poet's shoulder, we will explore Purgatorio, the second book of his Divine Comedy, with plenty of close reading and discussion of key passages in English translation. A restaurant room at Judge Jeffeys' House is reserved for us through the day, including for lunch.
Enquiries to: Graham Fawcett on grahamkfawcett@googlemail.com or 0207 405 3997.
Further details of Graham Fawcett’s work are available at www.grahamfawcett.co.uk
Rail travellers from London should catch the 0630am from London Waterloo to Dorchester South. It is recommended that you confirm this service with Train Enquiries.
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BOOKING OPENS 1ST DECEMBER 2009
Dante’s Dramatic Journey – Part Two
Saturday 13th March 2010
I’d like to enrol on Dante’s Dramatic Journey – Part Two in Dorchester on Saturday 13th March 2010.
NAME(S):
POSTAL AND E-MAIL ADDRESSES:
TELEPHONE NUMBERS:
I enclose a cheque for £35* (or £25* concessionary rate for 18 years and under, senior citizens, full-time students, unwaged - ES40 - and disabled), which does not include refreshments or lunch. Please make your cheque payable to Graham Fawcett and send it with the completed booking form to Graham Fawcett, 2 Harpur Mews, London WC1N 3PE. You will then be sent your ticket(s) for the day.
Monday 12th April 2010 from 615pm (buffet supper with wine - see below) 645pm (the evening ends at about 830pm) Tickets may be bought at the door on the night LONDON ST OLAVE'S, HART STREET, LONDON, EC3R 7NB Nearest Tube: Bank or Tower Hill Buses: 15, 25, 40, 42, 67, 78, 100, 115, 135, 205, 254
NOW BOOKING - OR BUY AT THE DOOR ON THE NIGHT Admission: £15 per head (includes hot food, with vegetarian option, and wine). Catering by Sumo Salad - hot food and salads If you would like to book in advance, make payment out to St Olave Churchwardens and send to: Phil Manning, Church Manager, St Olave Rectory, 8 Hart Street, London EC3R 7NB Phil Manning may also be contacted at: sanctuaryinthecity@mac.com Click here for a printable map (new window - Adobe Acrobat is required, which can be downloaded here) Said of the 2008 series: ". . . so hugely enjoyable. The best value in town."
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Wednesdays (weekly) 21st April to 23rd June 2010, 645pm-845pm LONDON READING SHAKESPEARE'S POETRY
open to all Graham Fawcett is editor of Poems For Shakespeare 2, Globe Playhouse Trust, 1973, a collection of newly commissioned poems by Ted Hughes, Wole Soyinka, Seamus Heaney, Peter Huchel, Fleur Adcock, Douglas Dunn and others Softest Music To Attending Ears, Graham Fawcett's Radio 3 feature on Romeo and Juliet, is in the National Sound Archive Graham's Shakespeare acting credits include Cymbeline (Cymbeline), Constable of France (Henry V) and Snug the Joiner/Lion (A Midsummer Night's Dream) . . . For thoughts on Shakespeare's poetry, return to the home page here and click on [poetry school] To enrol, go to www.poetryschool.com |
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Friday 7th and Saturday 8th May 2010
CHIPPING CAMPDEN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE
CHIPPING CAMPDEN LITERATURE FESTIVAL
DETAILS AT
www.campdenlitfest.co.uk
Saturday 15th May 2010, from 1000am for 1030am-430pm
FERRAR HOUSE, LITTLE GIDDING, CAMBRIDGESHIRE
POETRY PLACES 5
ELIOT’S LITTLE GIDDING DAY
DAY EVENT WITH TAUGHT AND GUIDED SESSIONS
What brought T S Eliot to the village of Little Gidding in 1936, and why, 6 years later in the middle of the war, did he decide to make it the setting and presiding spirit of the fourth and last of his celebrated Four Quartets ? On location in Ferrar House and Little Gidding Church, Graham Fawcett will seek to recreate the poet’s own experience of this place, and point to clues in the poet’s life and work and his choice of moods and images, to help unravel the mysteries of Eliot’s Little Gidding. Highlights of the morning and afternoon of this Spring day will include a close reading, one by one spaced through the day, of the five ‘movements’ of what is widely believed to be his finest work.
The cost of the day will be £38 for the teaching sessions (or £28* concessionary rate for 18 years & under, senior citizens, full-time students, unwaged - ES40 - and disabled) and a further £22 for coffee, lunch, and tea at Ferrar House.
Please make your cheque, for £60 or £50 concessionary rate, payable to Graham Fawcett and send it with the completed booking form (available below TIMETABLE here) to him at 2 Harpur Mews, London WC1N 3PE.
You will then be sent your ticket(s) for the day.
Enquiries to:020 7405 3997 or grahamkfawcett@gmail.com
COMMENTS FROM THOSE WHO CAME TO THE FIRST ELIOT'S LITTLE GIDDING DAYS IN 2008 and 2009
Thank you for a really splendid day last Saturday - so much to mull over and follow up - and Little Gidding itself and the
surrounding landscape in the sun were such a pleasure, not to mention the food and general welcome.
Sue MacIntyre
I wanted to say thank you personally for yesterday's day with TSE. . . It was marvellous and revealed so much to me about a poem which travels with me everywhere
Debbie Price (Brisbane)
It was a most enjoyable and stimulating occasion, and I especially appreciated your skill and sensitivity in addressing different perspectives and contributions given. I did not catch the name of the author of the last piece you read in the church and wonder if you could let me have it so I could follow it up.? I am the person who said nothing ...but I hope learned much!
Anne Ackroyd
It was a great session – so lively and enlightening, and you were so informative. I hadn’t read Eliot in any detail for years and years, and it made me aware of so much about his writing, and anxious to go back and read more. You gave us all so much to think about and mull over and go off and pursue further. Thanks for that. What I realised when re-reading the Quartets on the train(s) up to Huntingdon was just how much of Eliot has become part of my mental landscape – a bit like the Bible and Shakespeare.. I kept finding myself muttering, “Oh, of course, that’s where that quotation comes from !”
Joan McGavin
TIMETABLE (subject to slight variation during the day) From 1000 Coffee on arrival.
1030-1125 Eliot’s Little Gidding 1 with GF in the Dining Room area at Ferrar House. The story of the house and how Eliot came there, the origins of his Four Quartets and then of the fourth quartet, Little Gidding. Close reading of Little Gidding §I.
1125 Break.
1140-1240 Eliot’s Little Gidding 2 with GF outside the house and in Little Gidding church 100 yards from the front door. Close reading of Little Gidding §2. 1240 Break
1300 Lunch
1405-1510 Eliot’s Little Gidding 3 with GF initially outside the house and then in the Dining Room. Close reading of Little Gidding §3.
1510-1530 Tea
1530-1630 Eliot’s Little Gidding 4 with GF in the Eliot Room at Ferrar House and, to end, in Little Gidding Church. Close reading of Little Gidding §§4 and 5.
Your ticket for the day includes coffee, lunch and tea, and excludes transport
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Eliot’s Little Gidding Day with Graham Fawcett
□ PLEASE TICK BOX: I’d like to enrol on Poetry Places 5 – Eliot’s Little Gidding Day - to be held in Little Gidding on Saturday 15th May 2010.
I’ll be coming to Little Gidding by car/ via Huntingdon/Peterborough by train from ________________ (delete whichever does not apply).
I enclose a cheque for £60* (or £50* conc. rate for 18 years & under, senior citizens, full-time students, unwaged - ES40 - and disabled), to include coffee, lunch & tea. I understand this does not include transport to and from Little Gidding.
Please make your cheque payable to Graham Fawcett and send it with the completed booking form to him at 2 Harpur Mews, London WC1N 3PE. You will then be sent your ticket(s) for the day.
NAME(S), POSTAL AND E-MAIL ADDRESSES/TELEPHONE NUMBERS:
□ PLEASE TICK BOX: Please send me details of other events planned for 2010.
TO ALERT FRIENDS TO THIS AND/OR OTHER EVENTS:
□ PLEASE TICK BOX: Please send details of this event/all events to (ADD NAME(S) AND E-ADDRESSES HERE)
JOURNEY PLANNING
The Ferrar House web-site (click on Location) gives a clear indication of where the house is.
Those who would like to come by train should aim to get to Huntingdon by 0930am at the latest if you plan to take a taxi all the way to Little Gidding - however, the 0722am from Kings Cross to Huntingdon is a safer train as regards timing. Further details on trains, buses and taxi sharing possibilities will appear here in the coming weeks.
LONDON
THE POETRY SCHOOL
JOHN DONNE DAY with Graham Fawcett
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South Kensington (0.7 miles), Gloucester Road (0.9 miles), Sloane Square (0.9 miles) (District and Circle Lines)
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LONDON
THE POETRY SCHOOL
JOHN KEATS DAY |
It is quite possible that thanks to Jane Campion and her 2009 film Bright Star, more people in Britain than ever before now know that John Keats fell in love with the young woman next door and also where that door was – one of two doors to Wentworth Place, now Keats House, in Hampstead.
Keats Day will devote the morning - at the beautifully renovated and recently reopened house - to recreating Keats’s life there between December 1818 and Spring 1820, illustrating those months with the poems (and letters) he wrote, including the Odes To a Grecian Urn and To a Nightingale; and, after a bring-your-own picnic lunch on Keats House lawn, to a walk through the still almost country lanes of Hampstead to retrace Keats’s own footsteps and those of Fanny Brawne, Byron, Coleridge, Cowper, the Lambs, Leigh Hunt, Shelley and Wordsworth with appearances by Constable, Crabbe, Hopkins, Lawrence and Tagore along the way.
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Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say, And been well nurtured in his mother tongue. Whether the dream now purpos'd to rehearse
The opening lines of Canto I of The Fall of Hyperion |
KEATS DAY DRAFT TIMETABLE (Bring a picnic)
1015–1025 Meet at the gate outside Keats House, Keats Grove, Hampstead. 1025 Enter gate together. 1030-1055 Keats 1 with GF in the Chester Room. 1055-1130 Exploring Keats House – the story of each room. Keats 2 with GF 1130-1225 Context for and close reading of poems Keats wrote while here. Keats 3 with GF 1230-1330 Picnic lunch on the Keats House lawn. 1330-1530 Keats 4 with GF Keats, The Romanics and Identity walk in the neighbouring lanes and green spaces, featuring Fanny Brawne, Byron, Coleridge, Cowper, the Lambs, Leigh Hunt, Shelley, Wordsworth - with Crabbe Constable, Hopkins, DH Lawrence and Tagore. 1530 Return to Keats House for tea. Keats 5 with GF 1615 End of Keats Day. |
Also forthcoming in 2010
Full details will be posted here soon, including on how to book
Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th July 2010 ALDEBURGH, SUFFOLK Benjamin Britten's Poets Weekend with Graham Fawcett The popularity of the Poetry School’s original Benjamin Britten’s Poets Day 2008 with Graham Fawcett in July 2008 prompted, first, a sell-out repeat day in July 2009 with new works by Britten to explore and, more recently, has led to a request, over supper at the end of Benjamin Britten’s Poets Day 2009, for an extended follow-up in 2010, this time over a whole weekend in Aldeburgh, including at the Red House which was Benjamin Britten’s and Peter Pears’s home and where he composed many of his best-known settings of poetry. There will be a wonderful range of works to explore, from song to opera. Britten is the greatest setter of poetry in England since Henry Purcell. Full details, including on how to book, will appear over the coming weeks. For now, these are the dates for your diary.
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Returning in 2010 - date to be announced soon
EAST COKER (NEAR YEOVIL) SOMERSET
POETRY PLACES 2
“Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated . . .”
(T S Eliot, from ‘East Coker’, in Collected Poems 1909 -1962, faber & faber 1963)
ELIOT’S EAST COKER DAY 2010DAY EVENT WITH TAUGHT AND GUIDED SESSIONS
in East Coker (near Yeovil), Somerset
COMMENTS AFTER ELIOT'S EAST COKER DAY 2008
What a good day. I drove away from it feeling a bit like when you've seen a totally absorbing film and you can’t quite reconnect with the real world - or you want very much to connect what you've just experienced to the real world. Thanks so much for bringing that amazing work to such life - and death (!) - for us all.
Greta Stoddart
Thank you so much for the wonderful East Coker Day. It opened out my reading of Eliot in the best possible way & has given me much food for thought and for writing.
Pam Hope
Why did American poet T S Eliot choose this village in Somerset as the setting of East Coker, the second of his world-famous Four Quartets? Graham Fawcett recreates the atmospheres of the poem on location, explores Eliot’s choice of moods and images for this setting, and seeks to unravel the poem’s mysteries with the help not only of East Coker itself and the autumn day we’ll spend there but also clues in the poet’s life as he worked on the poem.
1045 Coffee at Helyar Arms. Pre-order lunch: fine menu from sandwiches to meals.
1100 Eliot’s East Coker 1 with GF at the Helyar Arms. The story of T S Eliot’s Somerset connections, of his Four Quartets and then of East Coker. Close reading of East Coker §1.
1210 Leave Helyar Arms and walk (5 mins) through the orchard to the church, St Michael and All Angels, the church of Eliot’s ancestors and where the poet’s ashes are buried and there is a corner dedicated to him.
1215-1325 Eliot’s East Coker 2 with GF in the church and churchyard. Close reading of East Coker §3.
1330-1430 Lunch at the Helyar. Eliot’s East Coker 3 with GF. Close reading of East Coker §3.
1430-1545 Eliot’s East Coker 4 with GF at the Helyar Arms. Close reading of East Coker §4 and 5.
1545 End of Eliot’s East Coker Day. Taxis or cars back to Yeovil stations.Your ticket for the day excludes refreshments, lunch, transport (the taxi ride in each direction for train travellers) and a £1 donation to church funds.
Enquiries to: 020 7405 3997 or grahamkfawcett@gmail.com
COMMENTS AFTER ELIOT’S EAST COKER DAY 2007
"Thanks so much for a colourful, enthusiastic and enlightening day of East Coker and T S Eliot's beginnings, much food for thought remains and now I feel more able to be in the poem and look around."
Michael Scott Byrne
"Thank you for such a great and thought-provoking day. It had tremendous depth in it – which Eliot would have appreciated - and I think it was really great for all the participants (myself included) who don’t get offered that kind of breadth of discussion or teaching so often. It was really inspiring."
Catherine Simmonds
"Many many thanks for a wonderful and illuminating day in East Coker. I am sure Eliot would have approved. Rarely do I ever get the chance to analyse a pome in such depth . .
James Crowden
Returning in 2011
FLORENCE, ITALY
POETRY PLACES 1 – (dates to be announced)
Milton & Galileo in Florence
A weekend recreating Galileo's life and work in Florence and the atmosphere in the city leading up to the moment when the young John Milton came to visit him under house arrest here in 1638, and the impact it had on his poetry, notably Paradise Lost - with specially arranged access to Galileo's own notebooks in the Florence National Library's Galileo archive and to his villa overlooking the city, a visit to the Galileo collection (including his two surviving handmade telescopes) in the Museum of the History of Science, and a walk into the hills retracing Galileo's footsteps. Information will be available about flights and accommodation.
Comments from students on the first Milton and Galileo weekend
"It was a truly wonder-filled trip, and I'm very grateful to you for organising it."
Vishal Pathak
"Thank you for our wonderful visit to Florence. The people and times we were thinking about - 1638 and all that - still feel very vivid and tangible. I've been catching up on Dava Sobell's book, recognising Galileo's houses as they crop up in the book, how they look now, and remembering the views you can see from there. I've been trying to tell people about what we did. It was breathtaking to be able to see Galileo's manuscripts and his drawings of the moon with our group in the back room of the library . . . "
Lucy Moy-Thomas
"I would like to add how much Neil and I enjoyed the week-end in Florence. Neil has waxed lyrical over the firm's intranet."
Frances Spurrier
Enquiries to: 020 7405 3997 or grahamkfawcett@gmail.com
Returning in 2012
RECANATI (NEAR ANCONA), ITALY
POETRY PLACES 4 – (dates to be announced)
Giacomo Leopardi weekend
Within sight of the Adriatic in the lovely medieval hill-town where Leopardi was born and lived nearly all of his life, a weekend in which to enjoy the poems of Leopardi where they were written and set, and to reflect on the challenges involved in translating him. There will be specially arranged visits to Palazzo Leopardi where the Leopardi family still live and to the Centre for Leopardi Studies, both of which also offer excellent exhibitions on the poet's life and works.
Comments from students on the first Giacomo Leopardi in Recanati weekend:
Thank you very much indeed for such an interesting and enriching Recanati visit. A real pleasure.
Madeleine David
I very much enjoyed the Recanati session. I feel that I know Leopardi, the man, much more now after your talks and that wonderful introduction to the libraries we were given, and when I wander round the town in the future (usually on Sunday mornings to browse round the antique/junk market ) I'll have a stronger and even more distinct impression of Leopardi's presence. It should also send me back to his poetry.
Caroline Maldonado
I wanted to say a big thank you for a great weekend. I learned a lot and am grateful for how much you gave to all of us of your time and enthusiasm. I also really valued the time to reflect away from the pressures, and that has been a bonus for me!
Contented participant