Graham Fawcett

writer, teacher, translator and broadcaster

e-mail: grahamkfawcett@gmail.com

telephone: 020 7405 3997

Graham Fawcett


[home]  [events calendar]  [events on request for 2010]  [lectures]  [poetry school]  

[broadcasting, language work & publications]  [translation coaching]

Events and Courses Calendar
with Graham Fawcett

 
London
Other
Locations
Italy
Spain

Brand new series on Pepys's Diary

Continues 12th April 2010

St Olave's EC3

Poetry Places 1
Milton and Galileo
   
2011
Florence
 
Poetry Places 2
Eliot's East Coker
     
Poetry Places 4
Leopardi
   
2012
Recanati
 

13th March 2010

Dorset

Poetry Places 5

Eliot's Little Gidding

Pepys 350 lecture tour

Pepys and The Royal Society

Friday 19th March 2010

Chalfont St Giles, Bucks

     

Dates For Your 2010 Diary

(January-July)

Poetry School

Gerard Manley Hopkins Day

1st May 2010

Oxford

Poetry School

John Donne Day

29th May 2010

London

Poetry School

Thomas Hardy Weekend

5th-6th June 2010

Dorchester, Dorset

Poetry School

John Keats Day

12th June 2010

London

     
 
 
 
 

 

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.

------------------------------------------PLEASE CUT HERE--------------------------------------------

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.  


Friday 19th March 2010, 730pm for 8pm

CHALFONT ST GILES, BUCKS

PARALLEL LIVES AND PEPYS 350 LECTURE TOUR 2010

PEPYS AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY

a lecture by Graham Fawcett in aid of the Friends of

Chalfont St Giles Library to celebrate the 350th anniversaries

of Pepys’s Diary and the founding of the Royal Society in 1660

 

PARISH CHURCH,  2 DEANWAY,

CHALFONT ST GILES HP8 4JH

      

Tickets £5 on sale in advance in the Chalfont St Giles Community Library (High Street, Chalfont St. Giles, HP8 4QA - Telephone 01494 874 732) or at the door on the night

PARALLEL LIVES AND PEPYS 350 LECTURE TOUR 2010

Lectures available: Pepys and 1660 - The Diary Begins, But Why ?

                                 Pepys and two Januaries - 1660 and 2010

                                 Pepys and Milton

                                 Pepys and John Evelyn

                                 Pepys and Andrew Marvell

                                 Pepys and John Bunyan

                                 Pepys and 1667

                                 Pepys and John Dryden

                                 Pepys and the Royal Society

                                 Pepys and Aphra Behn

                                 Pepys and Daniel Defoe

Taking the Parallel Lives and Pepys 350 lectures on tour - dates in 2010 available on request from: grahamkfawcett@googlemail.com

                                  

 

 

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

                      PEPYS 350

              A PASSION TO RECORD

                              Pepys and March - 1660 & 2010

  

    COMPARING - MONTH BY MONTH - THE WORLD OF SAMUEL PEPYS AS CONFIDED IN SHORTHAND TO HIS   

             SECRET DIARY AND THE MONTH 350 YEARS ON WHICH WE HAVE JUST LIVED THROUGH

         with the help of Newsnight, The Andrew Marr Show, Channel 4 News, Radio 4's Today and PM 

        programmes, the Guardian, the Independent, the Times, the London Evening Standard

                                                             and many more . . .

“A perfect blending of today with Pepys records of the time, all wonderfully enjoyable”

(Member of the audience for the first of the Pepys 350 supper talks on February 1st)

 

The Historical Performance department of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama is promising to provide an exciting programme of music and musicians as part of the Pepys 350 supper lecture evenings

 

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."

FORTHCOMING IN THIS SERIES

NEW

Monday 10th May 2010

Pepys and April - 1660 & 2010

Monday 7th June 2010

Pepys and May - 1660 & 2010

Monday 5th July 2010

Pepys and June/July - 1660 & 2010

 

Wednesdays (weekly) 21st April to 23rd June 2010, 645pm-845pm

LONDON
THE POETRY SCHOOL

READING SHAKESPEARE'S POETRY  

A ten-week reading course at The Poetry School, 83 Lambeth Walk, London SE11 6DX

The newly discovered portrait of William Shakespeare.

 (Credit: Image courtesy of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust)

This recently discovered portrait of William Shakespeare - the existence of which was only announced to the world in March of this year - is believed to be the only one painted in his lifetime. Our imagination’s batteries are unprecedentally recharged as we finally look into his face for the first time and feel compelled to ask ourselves afresh so many things about him. Here's one: to what extent didthe author of the Sonnets felt he was writing poems in his plays as though momentarily staging a poetry recital of set pieces to hold an audience’s breath in mid-drama ?

 

Over ten weeks, Reading Shakespeare's Poetry will attempt to answer this very question. To do so, we will explore many of the Sonnets, the longer poems ‘Venus and Adonis’, ‘The Rape of Lucrece’, ‘The Passionate Pilgrim’ and ‘Verses in Love’s Martyr’, and run across the poetry Shakespeare writes at key moments in the lyrical plays, the tragedies and the late Romances. 

  • Activities in class: reading and discussion
  • By the end of the course, participants will be likely to have learned what distinguishes Shakespeare poet from Shakespeare dramatist, how the sonnets work, what relation there is between the longer poems and the plays, and where in particular the plays become poetry
  • Handouts provided weekly. No need to prepare or bring anything.

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

 


      

     Saturday 1st May 2010

                  OXFORD

     THE POETRY SCHOOL

 

 

 

 GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS           

                     DAY

 

       with Graham Fawcett

www.poetry-chaikhana.com/H/HopkinsGerar/index.htm

                           Balliol College Garden 

        Lithograph by W. Gauci after Delamotte, c.1842   

     www.sandersofoxford.com/list?...Balliol%20College

 

 

By the time that the 19-year-old Gerard Manley Hopkins went up to Oxford to study Classics, he was already writing poetry. Hopkins in Oxford Day will cross the thresholds of his creatively vibrant and spiritually fast-moving years in specially arranged visits first to Balliol College, and then to the Oxford Oratory (Catholic Church of St Aloysius); see his manuscripts at Campion Hall; re-visit his life-changing meetings with Walter Pater, Robert Bridges and John Henry Newman; and explore how they, alongside the Greek poets, Langland, Milton, Herbert, the Romantics, the Pre-Raphaelites and Tennyson helped him to tune and speak the extraordinary poetic voice to which the ultimate homage of imitation and even mimicry continues to be paid.

  HOPKINS IN OXFORD DAY DRAFT TIMETABLE

 

0821  (0918) 

0830   (0934)

0850   (0948)

Suggested trains from London Paddington for Oxford (arr.times)

 

1015  Meet outside the front entrance to Balliol College,

          Broad Street, Oxford

1030 -1130  Tour of the college (with specific reference

          to Hopkins’s time there, 1863-1867) with Dr Penelope

          Bulloch and GF – Hopkins 1 with GF

1130–1230  Exploration and close reading, in Balliol

          College, of some of Hopkins’s writing during that

           period. Hopkins 2 with GF.

1230   Leave Balliol College for short walk to Campion Hall.

1245-1345 Tour of Campion Hall led by the Hall’s Hopkins

          Archivist Father Philip Endean, who will guide us in a

          recreation of Hopkins’s time here in the late 1870s and  

          provide access to the Hall’s notable Hopkins manuscript

          collection. Hopkins 3 with GF.

1345–1500 Lunch in Oxford

1500  Meet outside the Eagle and Child pub, 49 Saint Giles,

          Oxford

for the short walk to St Aloysius Oratory.

1515-1615 At St Aloysius Oratory,  Father Daniel Seward will

          enable us to get a sense of Hopkins’s life and work

          during his curacy there in 1878-1879. .Hopkins 4 with GF.

1615  End of Hopkins in Oxford Day.

 

Booking opens Monday 22nd February – call the Poetry School on 0207 582 1679

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

 

  

------------------------------------------PLEASE CUT & PASTE HERE AND PRINT OUT -------------------------------------------------------

                        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.   


Saturday 29th May 2010

LONDON

THE POETRY SCHOOL

 

Between 1624 and his death in 1631, John Donne, poet and priest, divided his time between being Dean of St Paul’s and Rector of St Dunstan’s-in-the-West, Fleet Street, less than half a mile from his old haunt, as Jack Donne, poet and law student in the 1590s, and as the Reverend John Donne, chaplain, from 1616, in Lincoln’s Inn.

 

But did Donne separate these two versions of himself, as some have claimed, or was he always both ? Answers to that question, as part of the illustrated story of Donne’s life and writing in the City, will be revealed during the morning of Donne Day. After lunch, we will re-live the moment in June 1627 when Donne preached at the funeral of George Herbert’s mother, Magdalen, to whom he was devoted, in Chelsea Old Church on the Embankment.

 

JOHN DONNE DAY

with Graham Fawcett

     John Donne, ‘The Sun Rising’

        BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
        Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?
        Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
        Late school-boys and sour prentices,
    Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
    Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

        Thy beams so reverend, and strong
        Why shouldst thou think ?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
        If her eyes have not blinded thine,
        Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
    Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
    Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

 

She's all states, and all princes I ;
        Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
        Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
        In that the world's contracted thus ;
    Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
    To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.


Source:  Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.
E. K. Chambers, ed. London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 7-8.

    DONNE DAY DRAFT TIMETABLE

 

0930  Meet outside the gates of Lincoln’s Inn, at the south-east corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. 0930-0950  Donne 1 with GF at the gates.

0950-0955  Short walk to St Dunstan-in-the-West, 186a Fleet Street, London WC2

1000-1055  Donne 2 with GF at St Dunstan-in-the-West, where Donne was Rector from 1624 to 1631.

1055-1110  Coffee and tea served at the church.

1110-1145  Donne 3 with GF at St Dunstan-in-the-West.

1150-1250  Lunch break

1250  Meet outside St Dunstan-in-the-West for the journey (by a number 11 bus or by District Line tube to Chelsea Old Church), 64 Cheyne Walk, London SW3.

The church is situated between the Kings Road and the River Thames and between Battersea and Albert bridges.   

Nearest tube stationsSouth Kensington (0.7 miles), Gloucester Road (0.9 miles), Sloane Square (0.9 miles) (District and Circle Lines)   

 

1340  Meet outside Chelsea Old Church.

1345-1515 At Chelsea Old Church, we will recreate the moment in John Donne’s life and work when he preached here at the funeral service of George Herbert’s mother Lady Magdalen Danvers. Donne 4 with GF.

1515 End of Donne Day. 

Booking opens Monday 22nd February – call the Poetry School on 0207 582 1679    

 

 

 


Saturday 5th-Sunday 6th June 2010

DORCHESTER
THE POETRY SCHOOL

                                               Thomas Hardy in his library at Max Gate

                

  THOMAS HARDY      

       WEEKEND

   with Graham Fawcett

   and Tamar Yoseloff

 

A weekend of poetry walks, talks and writing workshops inspired by Thomas Hardy, fellow Dorset writers and the beautiful Dorchester countryside.

 

Graham Fawcett will lead walks and talks through the countryside, focusing on locations which were inspirational and dear to Hardy. Tamar Yoseloff will guide you through writing exercises based on Hardy’s work and local landmarks, prompting you to create new poems.

Writers attending the Thomas Hardy weekend will need to pay for the complete programme of workshops, walks and talks. Individual tickets for the walks and talks for non-writing companions are as follows: Introduction £10 (£7 concs); Walk #1 £15 (£12); Walk #2 £10 (£6) - or £35 (£25 concs) for all non-workshop activities.

To book, call 0207 582 1679

 

 

Monthly e-mail bulletin of up-to-the-minute news available from programme@poetryschool.com  

      The Shadow on the Stone

    I went by the Druid stone
  That broods in the garden white and lone,
And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows
   That at some moments fall thereon
   From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,
   And they shaped in my imagining
To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders
   Threw there when she was gardening.

      I thought her behind my back,
   Yea, her I long had learned to lack,
And I said:  "I am sure you are standing behind me,
    Though how do you get into this old track?"
    And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf
    As a sad response; and to keep down grief
I would not turn my head to discover
    That there was nothing in my belief.

    

    Yet I wanted to look and see
   That nobody stood at the back of me;
But I thought once more:  "Nay, I'll not unvision
   A shape which, somehow, there may be."
   So I went on softly from the glade,
   And left her behind me throwing her shade,
As she were indeed an apparition -
   My head unturned lest my dream should fade.

                                                                                                                                         Begun 1913: finished 1916          

       

 

 

 


Saturday 12th June 2010

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.

 

Booking opens Monday 22nd February – call the Poetry School on 0207 582 1679    

 

Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect; the savage too
From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep
Guesses at Heaven; pity these have not
Trac'd upon vellum or wild Indian leaf
The shadows of melodious utterance.
But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;
For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,
With the fine spell of words alone can save
Imagination from the sable chain

And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say,
'Thou art no Poet - may'st not tell thy dreams?'
Since every man whose soul is not a clod
Hath visions, and would speak, if he had loved

And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.

Whether the dream now purpos'd to rehearse
Be poet's or fanatic's will be known
When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave. . .  

 

         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

Dates for your 2010 diary  

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.

 

 


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 2010

DAY 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

Click here for booking form

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

 

 


 12

3

4