Sing-A-Song-A-Black-Death

One of my day-jobs is working in a school for deaf children and last week, to mark World Book Day, I went in to talk to the younger pupils about being a writer.  To make it a bit more interesting, I took my illustrator, Dru Marland, along with me, and Reg Meuross came too to sing and play his guitar. And if that sounds like a strange thing to do in a school of severely and profoundly deaf children, well, yes, it is.

But it seemed to work pretty well, thanks to the efforts of staff and children and especially our in-house interpreter, Helen.  In fact, it was a wonderful collaborative effort.  

First I spoke about the Black Death, the process of writing my book (one day a week for seven years!), and the story of how I became a writer in the first place (basically because I couldn't not be a writer), while Helen interpreted into British Sign Language for me.  

Then Dru showed the children her amazing pictures.  She explained how she put the cover components together on her computer and how she used Google Earth to draw the map.  She also showed them my dog Ted's Christmas card for next year while I burst with pride.









Then it was Reg's turn to sing his song The Boundary  Stone, which is about two lovers separated by the quarantine at the time of the outbreak of plague in Eyam in 1665.  Helen signed the lyrics and the children joined in the choruses.  

After that, some of the Year 5 and 6 children showed a PowerPoint presentation about Dick Turpin, after which Reg sang his song Lizzie Loved A Highway Man, the true story about Dick who was far from the folk hero he is made out to be.  

And then we swept up all the crow and skull confetti and crow feathers, put out the tables for school dinners, and Reg, Dru and I went down the pub.

Histories and Our Stories at the Berkeley Square Hotel

If you missed the recent launch of my novel, Dart, at Halo Cafe Bar, Bristol, there will a sort of mini reprise at the The Berkeley Square Hotel from 8.30pm on Thursday 28th March, when talented Somerset singer-songwriter Reg Meuross and I will be taking a slantwise look at how history becomes folk tale and song.  (Don't worry, it's Reg doing the singing, not me - I shall restrict myself to reading from Dart and maybe a poem or two.)  So expect pus, buboes, quarantined lovers, decidedly anti-heroic highwaymen, mist-wreathed murders, frittenings and summats, not to mention the truly terrifying Bloodless and Boneless Behind The Door ...  

A man suffering from buboes and splotches, by Matthias Grunewald

(detail from the reverse of the Isenheim altarpiece, 1506-1515)

Also on the bill, Stroud storyteller Kevan Manwaring, Stephen W Lake and Richard Devereaux, so don't miss it!  

Darts of Love

Photo by Nicola Stantiford

The launch of 'Dart' on Friday night at the Halo Cafe Bar in Bristol went pretty well: apart from a rather wobbly lectern, there were no hitches, the audience was attentive and appreciative, and I sold enough copies of the tome to off-set costs, which, of course, is what a launch is all about.  

Or is it?  I'll remember the evening for other, more special reasons.

First, the sight of two of my colleagues from the school for deaf children where I work signing my words, and Reg Meuross's songs, so that a third, who is deaf, could be part of the evening.    To see 'Dart''s first translation into a different language in process was beautiful, moving and exciting.  I must have the best colleagues in the western hemisphere.

Hearing the voices of my characters, which for years resounded only in my  head, somehow cross the 665 years between them and me was just brilliant.  And that some of them were read by my son, Samuel, who has autism and learning difficulties but who performed with confidence and aplomb, was miraculous. 

The last hour before the launch started, when the room filled up with people I love from all eras and areas of my life, was so warm and sustaining that I'll keep the memory in my pocket and take it whenever I need it.  

Photo by Maxine Fone

I'd like to say a few thank yous:

to my troupe of readers, Pameli Benham, Ruth Boston, Maxine Fone, Samuel Grashoff and John Terry (who has also taken my lectern home to fix); 

to my mediaeval troubadour, Reg Meuross, whose songs dovetailed so well with the themes of the night (except, maybe, for 'It's Me or Elvis' although, as Reg pointed out, the King of Rock and Roll is dead,  much like most victims of the plague); 

to Hazel Hammond for being a warm and capable MC and for bringing three turnips along to add to my collection of root vegetable lanterns gurning from the sides of the room;  

to Andi Langford-Woods for the loan of her PA and her reassuring expertise; 

to Jenny, my daughter, who filmed it;

to the wonderful writer for young adults, Julie Hearn, for providing me with a quote for the back cover, becoming a dear friend and fellow-jaunter, and travelling down from Abingdon to be there on the night;

to my cousin Sandra who made a blizzard-defying flight across the Atlantic from New Jersey;

to my friend, Jill, for providing late night curry, champagne and company,

and to everyone else who attended.  You have all made my inner seven year old, who always wanted to be a writer but whom I ignored for far too long, very happy indeed.   

Illustration by Dru Marland

Off to the Printers ...

Excuse me while my inner seven-year-old goes off for a little weep. 

Carol Ann Duffy and John Sampson - Poetry and Song : A Celebration

Had a brilliant hour and a half this evening listening to Carol Ann Duffy reading a selection of her poetry from works spanning the last decade, accompanied by John Sampson, a virtuoso musician who played a wide variety of pipes (including, at one point, two recorders at the same time!)  The event was billed as Poetry and Song: A Celebration, and it was good to hear Duffy's beautifully crafted poems interacting with the sometimes playful, sometimes elegiac playing of Sampson.    

The (free - hooray!) event was to launch the brand new Bristol Poetry Institute, a venture dreamed up by the University to bring together 'scholars, students, poets and poetry-lovers across the University of Bristol and the wider community.'  Bristol has a very lively and varied culture of poetry outside of the hallowed halls of academia, so it will be interesting to see how successful this outreach is.  If it means more freebies like tonight, count me in!  

I've long been fascinated by the way poems by different poets converse, but over the last year I've become increasingly interested in the interaction of poetry with other arts also.  I was lucky enough to be able to launch my collection, Communion, with accompanying songs by maestro Reg Meuross, and more recently, one of the most enjoyable parts of last month's Bristol Poetry Festival was the encounter between Hazel Hammond's poems and Alison Wills' beautiful nocturnal photos, entitled 'The Woman Who Slept With Bones'.  Still to come is the evening celebrating the collaboration between poets associated with the Bath Poetry Cafe and three portrait artists from Bath Artists' Studios, entitled Faces {Bath}, which is due to be held on November 3rd at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution.  

One of the most moving parts of this evening was when Carol Ann Duffy read her recent poem about Hillsborough and the findings of the Inquiry, while John softly played Abide With Me in the background.  After the event I had the opportunity for a few quick words with her, and told her how grateful I was that we had a Poet Laureate who was writing about 'the things that matter, rather than ... you know ... Prince Harry'.  Then, having thought for a moment, I added that actually there were probably lots of poems in that lad, and she confided 'Yes, I've written quite a few rude ones!'

Staddle Stones

Off to Priston near Bath today to see me old mucker, Reg Meuross, who was playing this year's festival on the village green.  But first a little diversion to the Church of St Luke and St Andrew ... which was padlocked shut, boo hiss.  Though I suppose it's sensible when the village is flooded with outsiders and attention is focused elsewhere.

I did see the panel above the door which reads 'Priston repent and believe the gospel. Thomas Watts Preacher of the word of God Departed ye world the 20th November 1589 ...
... but not the ancient stone coffin inside, which was found in a nearby field in 1917.  Apparently it housed the body of a woman with bronze bracelets on each of her arms.  Lamentably, some of the hundreds of sightseers at the time threw stones at the coffin, which had already been damaged by a pickaxe during its excavation, and broke the lid.  It is said that they confused 'Roman' for 'Roman Catholic'.  Hmmmm.  Ah well, it's not too far away for a return visit.

After an excellent pint of Bounders Cider and an excellent gig by Reg, we wandered back up towards the church where I'd spotted something extraordinary earlier.  A set of staddle stones not lining the drive of some rich toff but actually doing what staddle stones were designed for and that is holding aloft a granary.  Except, its owner informed us from the other side of the garden wall, it's known as the apple store, and we agreed that it seems odd to go to so much trouble to store apples away from vermin, as opposed to the precious and vulnerable grain harvest.

The store, which dates from the 17th/18th century is in a perilous state of repair, despite the fact that it is a Grade II listed building.  Unfortunately listed status doesn't mean that there are funds forthcoming to preserve it for posterity.  I could only suggest rather lamely that maybe the owner should approach the National Trust, as I'd never seen anything quite like this - a bit of local Somerset vernacular that surely merits intervention.

We were even allowed up the beautiful worn steps to have a poke around inside, where we heard the sad story of a previous owner who used it to store her coal, and who, one night, went outside to collect some for her fire, only for a barrel of cider to roll on top of her.  She died of her injuries shortly afterwards.    

Despite the warning inherent in such a sad fate, I determined that such a place would be an excellent writing space.  If I don't get a narrowboat or a Romani caravan - you know, when my ship comes in - I think I might settle for an apple store on staddle stones in a secluded village in the south-west of England.  

Here's some pictures of Reg to finish off with,  doing what Reg does best ...

... despite an occasionally less than attentive front row audience ... 

'Communion' reviewed in Bristol Review of Books

Sensuous Energy

New Work by Deborah Harvey

It’s always good to stumble on a surprise – in this case a hidden pulse of activity that has been just under my nose but I didn’t notice. A stone’s throw from me, the Halo Bar on the Gloucester Road hosts the Bristol Acoustic Nights – a fine mix of music and poetry, along with various related events including, the other week, the warmly communal launch of Bristol poet Deborah Harvey’s first book of poems, Communion. Interspersed with lyrical, intelligent songs from singer/guitarist Reg Meuross – a wonderfully calm, humorous and engaging performer – Deborah and friends read her sensuous yet precise poems.

            These often unerringly home in on things close to home – families, relationships – 

though also often getting there via historical or mythological themes which erupt suddenly and compellingly into the present. The poems are most successful when this happens – when Harvey manages to strike a kind of bright, resonant

overtone of personal meaning from the old iron of    

historical context. Such meaning is frequently just hinted at, present between the lines as much as in them – but you know it’s there by the charge of energy.

             The title poem, for instance, subverts the 'warning against lust' of a mural in St. Winifred's Church, Devon, by describing in the most sensuous language the 'communion' (itself a clever subversion of a Christian term) of the lustful couple, who 'partake of each other...in sanctuary, chapter house and chantry'. A rampant paganism, oblivious of, or perhaps feeding on ecclesiastical suppression of sexuality, comes alight in the poem.  Even the 'thrust' of the devil's spear in the couple's sides is appropriated by a charged eroticism.

               Poems often work through such tension or juxtaposition – two or more disparate elements playing against each other to create something alive and resonant.  A more overtly personal but similarly sensuous poem, 'Nettle Rash', starts from the straightforward and, one might have thought, unpromising process of making junket, to lift into a Proustian moment of sensuous memory in which the sting of nettles strangely enhances the immediacy of a sexual tryst:

   

Nettle Rash

Every now and then

I get out the milk pan

to make junket,

warming the milk and the rennet

to the temperature of blood,

then letting it thicken and cool.

Barely set and freckled with nutmeg,

its taste conjures

moon daisies, drowsy peonies,

a windfall of laughter and stories

in apple-deep shadows,

licking fingers,

sticky with raspberries

and bottled cream,

and the memory of you,

tracing the nettle rash

staining the milkiness of my skin,

in the treacherous depths

of our thicket bed,

our lips stung with kisses,

our quickening breath.

After the first six, factual lines – essential for rooting the subsequent memory in the mundane, against which it is juxtaposed – the poem raises its ghosts in a single, increasingly breathless sentence (just one small quibble: a few unnecessary commas slightly impede the flow). The last, highly charged verse takes your breath away with its auditory culmination: ‘the treacherous depths / of our thicket bed’ with those thick, close-packed consonants – aptly conveying close, dark confines – suddenly kindles through the three bright i sounds of ‘thicket’, ‘lips’ and ‘kisses’ into a blaze of surprise in the word ‘stung’. Robert Frost said, ‘No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader’ – and it is moments like this that convey a truth that no logic can quite account for.

            The best poems in this collection have a honed economy and complex simplicity. In ‘Duplicity’, starting from the mythological figure of Janus, who looks both ways – back to what is old and dead and forward to the new – Harvey again conjures the involuntary resurgence of a relentless sensuality. Note here too the highly sexual ‘sliding’ of the key in the lock and the way the shock of that single line compellingly changes the whole tenor of the poem:

Duplicity

Janus is dead.

She has eclipsed his eyes with pennies.

She has zipped his bloodless flesh in a bag and buried it.

She has painted her walls white.

Now his key slides in the lock.

He is as dangerous as buttercups

gilding their bane

at the turn of the stairs.

At times, some of the historical themes don’t quite find the personal resonance that gives life to a poem. For instance, one dedicated to William Morris, despite genuine feeling and a sensitive meditation on the relic of his overcoat, ends up a little lamely, telling us what to think rather than really conjuring meaning in us. But elsewhere, especially perhaps in her sense of generations of unsung women, Harvey shows historical awareness that invokes the past without merely enlisting it.

In ‘This Healing Hour’, about a grandmother to whom the whole collection is dedicated, she connects her own, dishwasher-aided life vividly with a very different and tougher past, and her own poems with the scribbled, pencilled verses on greaseproof paper of a woman who could only make time for writing by, for brief moments, ‘shouldering back’ her innumerable tasks. In her first collection, Harvey has, one senses, also shouldered away some of the difficulties of her own past – a number of poems hint strongly at the ending of an unrewarding relationship – to kindle some vivid poems in a new hearth of her own making.

Communion

Deborah Harvey

Indigo Dreams, £6.99

www.indigodreams.co.uk


Review written by Matthew Barton

Third Review of Launch for 'Communion'

This review is from local free magazine, filtonvoice. OK, so it isn't the Times Literary Supplement.  It's a positive review, though, and filtonvoice is an excellent magazine. (I should know, I'm the arts correspondent ... though I didn't write this!)



Book Launch for 'Communion' by Deborah Harvey, Halo Cafe Bar, 4th November 2011

I had never been to a book launch before, let alone one for a book of poetry, so I did not really know what to expect from the launch night of Deborah Harvey's first collection, Communion. I now fear the bar has been set rather high: Harvey delivered a night of excellent entertainment, interspersing her poems with arch commentary on their origins, and thoughtful folk music from Reg Meuross.

Filton poet Harvey led her audience into a labyrinth of ideas and themes ranging from local places (Bristol, Somerset and Dartmoor all made appearances) to relationships to mythology to war. In spite of this variety, and the weight of some of the subject matters, encountering her poetry felt a consistently personal experience: the poet has a particular knack for drawing out the more intimate aspects of her themes and making her work accessible and relevant for her audience. Although being witness to her poetry was, at times, an emotional experience, Harvey is no sensationalist: she evokes others' feelings with consideration and precision. 

Part of the success of the evening lay in the way Harvey's poems dovetailed with Meuross's songs: he echoed her themes in his work, at times performing songs about the same places and people. They functioned seamlessly as a double act, each enriching the other's work with their own and, between them, maintaining an atmosphere of laughter and sharing. Rather than watching disparate artists perform, it felt as though we were observing a conversation between song and poem, a sense that was particularly heightened by the use of multiple voices in some of Harvey's poems.

Now I am no longer a book launch virgin, I greatly look forward to the launch of Harvey's debut novel, Dart, in 2012.


'Communion' is published by Indigo Dreams, and is available from their website, or from Amazon.co.uk and .com, W H Smith online, or good independent bookshops, price £6.99 (or less).   To read some of my poems, click here.

Photos © Dru Marland

Another Review for the Launch of 'Communion'

Another review for the launch of 'Communion' last Friday, from my old mucker, Tony - plus a photo of when he had hair and I wore mine big and back-combed ... 

'Communion' is published by Indigo Dreams, and is available from their website, or from Amazon.co.uk and .com, W H Smith online, or good independent bookshops, price £6.99 (or less).   To read some of my poems, click here.

Review of Launch for 'Communion'

Just had my attention drawn to a nice review of Friday's launch of my poetry collection, 'Communion'.  Thanks, Miss BLT! 

'Communion' is published by Indigo Dreams, and is available from their website, or from Amazon.co.uk and .com, W H Smith online, or good independent bookshops, price £6.99 (or less).   To read some of my poems, click here.

Fly, My Pretties

I'd wanted a big brass lectern with an eagle on it for the launch of my poetry collection, 'Communion', but they cost over £4,000, so I had to settle for a plain oak one off eBay for 50 quid. However, Dru Marland brought a  chirrupy little robin along instead, and under his tutelage, my poems teetered out onto the branch and jumped.  

The evening went as well as I could have hoped, with a packed room despite the filthy weather. (At one point, as I was unloading the car over a torrent of water pouring down the road, I thought I'd be reading to thin air, but lots of people made a big effort to be there, including poets Dónall Dempsey and Jan Windle from Guildford, my sister from Nottingham, and a couple of people I'd only been friends with over Facebook/My Space up until now.)  

Thank you to everyone who braved the elements to support me.   Also, thank you to Nila, the manager of the Halo Café Bar; Reg Meuross who played and sang valiantly despite his inflamed pharynges; to Dru, Alana Farrell, John Terry and Liza Sylvian who read some of the poems which needed more than one voice; to Hazel Hammond, who opened and closed the proceedings with aplomb; and to David Bosankoe who recorded them.

 

'Communion' is published by Indigo Dreams, and is available from their website, or from Amazon.co.uk and .com, W H Smith online, or good independent bookshops, price £6.99 (or less).   To read some of my poems, click here.

Reading at Holt Acoustic Club, 18th October 2011

This is me reading at Holt Acoustic Club on 18th October 2011. Also on the bill were Wiltshire, based singer Jacqueline Sharp, and Reg Meuross, and we all had a warm reception and a thoroughly enjoyable evening in friendly company.

Coming up on Friday 4th November is the launch for my poetry collection, 'Communion'. It will be held in the Halo Café Bar at 141 Gloucester Road, Bishopston, Bristol BS7 8BA, and will feature Bristol poets Alana Farrell, Dru Marland, and John Terry, along with singer-songwriter Reg Meuross.  It starts at 8pm and entrance is free.

At this point, I feel compelled to point out that my definition of Communion is very broad, encompassing love and sex and friendship. Therefore, Sunday best need not be worn, and alcohol will be on sale in the bar.  See you there, I hope!

A Poem for National Poetry Day 2011

For this year's National Poetry Day, I'm posting a poem about poetry - British Sign Language Poetry, to be exact. It's also about being a hearing, non-signing person in a Deaf environment.

Mute

                                                                  

for Jo G

The room is rapt, in silence,

unless the shepherding of air

makes a sound I cannot hear,

like the gasp of leaves in free-fall,

the shrill of flowers

as they are picked.

Words that filled my mouth

with their flavour

wither to husks,

stick in my throat. 

I am mute

in this place of poems,

plucked from nothing

and given form

with a clap like a dove

starting into flight,

while my hands hang,

dumb lumps of meat.

In time

I might trace

that shimmer of purple,

conjure voice from empty space,

sign the infinite shape  

the word poetry makes.

© Deborah Harvey 2011

My first poetry collection, Communion, is published by Indigo Dreams and now available to buy from their website, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, and good independent bookshops. 

A launch for Communion will be held on 4th November 2011 at the Halo Café Bar, 141 Gloucester Road, Bristol BS7 8BA, with singer-songwriter Reg Meuross, and guest poets Alana Farrell and John Terry.  Entrance is free.  All welcome!

A Foretaste ...

If you live in the same small factory town as I do, you can now pop into the local library and borrow a copy of my poetry collection, 'Communion'.  If you don't, well, it's also available to buy, price £6.99.  


There are a couple of ways of doing this. The first is to visit my author page in the Indigo Dreams Bookshop, where there's a selection of poems from the collection posted -  a sort of foretaste of the heavenly banquet, if you like. And indeed, if you do, then you can buy a copy by clicking on the Central Books logo.  


Signed copies are available from me. Please email me at deborah.harvey@ymail.com for details on how to get one.  




‘Deborah Harvey’s … poems are raw and true. She is the real thing.’                                          Hugo Williams

‘A vision of the past in the present. Communion is a gift of blood to the ghosts.’                       Reg Meuross