News
July 6, 2010 - Robert Graves and the Mediterranean: Tenth International Robert Graves Conference, Mallorca, Spain, 6-10 July 2010
The Robert Graves Society is pleased to announce its Tenth International Robert Graves Conference, to be held in Palma and Deià, Mallorca, Spain, Tuesday 6th July – Saturday 10th July 2010. The subject of the conference will be ‘Robert Graves and the Mediterranean: Mythology, Classicism, religion, literature’.
By courtesy of the Fundació “la Caixa”, the conference will be held, as in 2006, at the Foundation’s cultural centre in Palma de Mallorca. This superb art nouveau building was formerly the Gran Hotel, where Robert Graves and Laura Riding stayed on their arrival in Palma in 1929.
A highlight will be a private visit to Ca n’Alluny, Robert Graves’s home in Deià, which has been meticulously restored under the direction of William Graves and open to the public since 2006.
The conference is being organised by the Robert Graves Society in co-operation with the Fundació Robert Graves, Universitat de les Illes Balears, and Fundació “la Caixa” in Mallorca and St John”s College Robert Graves Trust in Oxford, England.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers on Robert Graves’s work on the history, mythology, classicism, religion, culture, or other themes related to the Mediterranean region where Graves lived for more than 46 years, or on his life and work as a writer there. Please send a 250-word abstract by 31 January 2010 to the Academic Programme Organiser:
Professor Dunstan Ward
President, Robert Graves Society
3, rue des Grands Augustins
75006 Paris
France
Tel.: (33 1) 43 29 33 48
E-mail: dunstanward@yahoo.com
PARTICIPANTS
The conference is open to all. It will be of interest to academics, teachers, researchers, students, and anyone else who is interested in the life and writings of Robert Graves and his circle.
To register or propose a paper for the conference online or seek further information, please visit www.robertgraves.org and follow the links there to the Society’s pages, or contact the Robert Graves Society, e-mail: pjvilla@aol.com, fax/answerphone: +44 (0)1275 376916.
November 2, 2009 - 'Where Are All the War Poets? Poetry of the Second World War'. WPA/IWM Event at the IWM London, Monday 2 November, 2009, 7pm
Poet and writer Owen Sheers, presenter of BBC 4’s TV series ‘A Poet’s Guide to Britain’, will join John Stallworthy (University of Oxford) and Fran Brearton (Queen’s University, Belfast) at the Imperial War Museum, London, on Monday 2 November at 7pm, to explore the poetry of the Second World War – the poets, their influences and their legacy.
WPA President Professor Paul O’Prey of Roehampton University will chair the evening. Tickets are on sale now from the IWM’s Box Office, with discounts available for War Poets Association members. Space is limited so book your tickets soon!
October 31, 2009 - Gods with Stainless Ears: Lynette Roberts Conference, Dylan Thomas Festival, Swansea, Saturday 31 October 10am - 5pm
2009 is the centenary of the birth of Lynette Roberts,(1909-1995), the modernist war poet who produced her most important work in West Wales.Organised in association with the University of Oxford, CREW (Swansea University), the Dylan Thomas Festival and Carcanet Press, the conference will open on Friday 30th with a showing of the recent BBC4 film about Roberts (see separate posting on this WPA website), in the company of writer and presenter Owen Sheers, and end on Saturday 31st with a poetry reading by poets from Wales and beyond. Conference speakers will include Deryn Rees-Jones, Patrick McGuinness, Stella Halkyard, John Goodby, Charles Mundye, Zoe Skoulding. The poets will be Deryn Rees-Jones, Menna Elfyn and Nigel Jenkins. Angharad Rhys, Lynette's daughter, will talk about her mother's life, and there will be an exhibition of photographs, books and papers from the Lynette Roberts family archive. More information and a full conference programme are available from Professor Patrick McGuinness, St Anne's College, University of Oxford, OX26HS, E-mail: patrick.mcguinness@st-annes.ox.ac.uk Registration should be made with the Dylan Thomas Centre, tel: 01792 463980. Cost for attendance at the Saturday conference, including reception, poetry reading, and tea and coffee is £40.00. Concessions: £30.00. An open reading of some of the works of this extraordinary Welsh modernist poet, by fellow poets and admirers of her work, including Nigel Jenkins, Menna Elfyn, Deryn Rees-Jones and Margot Morgan. Further details from the Dylan Thomas Festival website.
October 30, 2009 - Owen Sheers introduces his BBC film on Lynette Roberts, Dylan Thomas Festival, Swansea, Friday 30 October 2009, 7pm.
Friday 30 October 7pm
Lynette Roberts Film – as a precursor to the following day’s Conference, poets and writer Owen Sheers will introduce his recent BBC Poetry Season film on Lynette Roberts, much neglected modernist poet and friend of Dylan Thomas, followed by:
8.00pm – An evening with Fflur Dafydd and Owen Sheers
Fflur Dafydd is a novelist, singer-songwriter and lecturer in Creative Writing at Swansea University. Fflur won the Literature Medal in the National Eisteddfod in Swansea in 2006 for her novel Atyniad (Y Lolfa, 2006). In June this year she was announced as the first winner of the Oxfam Emerging Writer of the Year Award. Owen Sheers is an award-winning poet and novelist. His debut prose work The Dust Diaries (Faber, 2004) won the Wales Book of the Year Award in 2005 and his first novel, Resistance (Faber, 2008) has been translated into nine languages. Together Fflur and Owen will perform their work in a unique bilingual evening of poetry and song.
In association with Academi.
Full Price: £6.00. Concessions: £4.20. Swansea PTL: £2.40 to cover both Friday events.
Further details from the Dylan Thomas Festival website.
May 15, 2009 - Copies of Two Sassoon Publications For Sale
Mr and Mrs Dennis Silk have available for sale copies of a CD of Siegfried Sassoon reading 15 of his own poems (GBP 10) and the printed version of Dennis Silk’s 1998 talk at the Imperial War Museum: ‘Siegfried Sassoon and The Great War: The Making of a War Poet’ (GBP 5). Postage and packing is GBP 1.50 for one or both publications. Former England Cricket Captain, Chair of the England Cricket Team Selectors and Headmaster Dennis Silk was a friend of Siegfried Sassoon for many years.
Mr and Mrs Silk give all proceeds of sales to ‘Hop, Skip and Jump’, a children’s charity which supplies respite care for children with special needs, and care and support for their families.
Please e-mail orders for the CD and booklet to publications@warpoets.org, or in writing to our Bristol address at www.warpoets.org/join. Orders will be passed onto Mr and Mrs Silk. Please make cheques payable to Dennis Silk.
February 8, 2009 - 6 New Titles published in Cecil Woolf Publishing's War Poets Series
A series of booklets on war poets and war poetry, published by Cecil Woolf Publishers and produced under the general editorship of Dr Jean Moorcroft-Wilson, was launched in November 2005. Several other titles have been added each year since 2005. Six new titles have now been published, bringing to total number of titles to 20 or more. The six new titles are:
Drummond Allison by Ross Davies; Randall Swingler by Andy Croft; Rupert Brooke by Alan Byford; People’s Poetry of World War II by Phil Carradice; Frederic Manning by Michael Copp; Isaac Rosenberg’s Journey to Arras, by Shaun Levin.
All of these and the earlier titles, where available, can be obtained directly from Cecil Woolf Publishing, 1 Mornington Place, London NW1 7RP, UK, Tel: 020 7387 2394 (or +44 (0)20 7387 2394 from outside the UK). Titles typically cost £5-6 each, plus postage.
Please mention the War Poets Association website when ordering. (We don’t receive a commission, but just like the publishers to know!)
February 7, 2009 - 'Songs of War' St James's Church, Piccadilly, London. Saturday 25 April 2009, 7.30pm
The War Poets Association and several single war poet societies are supporting this concert of songs set to poems written by First World War Poets. Organised by the Wilfred Owen Association. The concert will take place at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, London W1 on Saturday, 25 April at 7.30pm.
Programme:
NICHOLAS MULROY tenor
WILLIAM COLEMAN baritone
ANNA TILBROOK piano
Musical settings of First World War poetry by distinguished and contemporary composers, including several first performances:
George Butterworth – Six Songs From a Shropshire Lad
John Ireland – Spring Sorrow, The Soldier, In Flanders Fields
Ivor Gurney – In Flanders, Lights Out, Severn Meadows, The Muggers Song
Edward Eastaway Thomas – Tall Nettles
Gerald Finzi – To Joy, Channel Firing
Benjamin Britten – At a Calvary Near The Ancre
Elaine Hugh-Jones – Songs of War, A Strange Journey
John Jeffreys – Horror Follows Horror, Near Omiecourt
Ian Venables – Pain, Flying Crooked
Cyril Rootham – Everyone Sang, Idyll
Alan Bullard – A Swan, A Man
Tickets: £20, £15, £10 (students £5 off)
Box Office: 01323 641520
Sam Gray: e-mail: swgray@tiscali.co.uk Tel: 01323 641520 Download a booking form (HTML format) to print out and send by post to Sam Gray. Cheques should be made payable to “WOA – Events” please.
Further details: Wilfred Owen Association: www.1914-18.co.uk/owen/activities.htm
St James’s Church, Piccadilly www.st-james-piccadilly.org
St James’s Church, Piccadilly (diary pages – scroll down to 25 April): www.st-james-piccadilly.org/diary.html
January 22, 2009 - Postponed: The Poets of the War Battlefields Tour October 2009
The War Poets Association was planning a tour of the battlefields for October 2009, with the emphasis on some of the First World War poets. These plans have now had to be postponed, but will possibly be re-instated for Spring 2010. If you are interested in joining the tour, please contact the Wilfred Owen Association’s Secretary, Mrs Vanessa Davis, by email: vcedavis@hotmail.com, or by post: 29 Arthur Road, London SW19 7DN, UK.
January 10, 2009 - Dominic Hibberd's The Winter of the World: The Poems of the First World War published in paperback
Dominic Hibberd's new anthology of First World War poetry, edited with John Onions,
The Winter of the World: The Poems of the First World War, published early in November 2007, is now available in paperback. Follow the links here to order a copy through the WPA's Amazon website.
January 10, 2009 - Discounts for IWM London Event: Modern War Poetry, Monday, 23 March 2009, 7.00pm (doors open 6.30pm)
The Imperial War Museum is offering members of the War Poets Association tickets at the concessionary rate for this key forthcoming event in the Cinema Room at its London site in Lambeth:
Monday 23 March 2009
7.00pm (doors open 6.30pm)
Modern War Poetry
Drawing on the work of poet soldiers who are serving, or have recently served, in Iraq or Afghanistan, this event will provide a fascinating insight into the nature of modern war, from the viewpoint of those who have experienced it at first hand.
Introduced by Max Hastings, distinguished military historian, and Christina Lamb, foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times, and featuring: Brian Turner, a former US Marine and author of Here, Bullet, the most acclaimed poetry collection to emerge from Iraq; Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Brown, still on active service in Iraq; and Major David Hamilton, who formerly served in Afghanistan.
To book your tickets now visit https://www.maximweb.co.uk/iwmlambeth/events.asp?inst=iwmdatabase or see the Museum’s own site at http://london.iwm.org.uk/server/show/conEvent.2857