Longbarrow Press

The three events organised by Longbarrow Press as part of the inaugural Sheffield Poetry Festival were highly acclaimed and well-attended (with the Saturday events attracting capacity crowds). Death and the Gallant (an exhibition by the artist Paul Evans and the poet Chris Jones) was expertly introduced by Matthew Clegg, who offered some thoughts on the nature of ‘collaboration’; this set the tone for a reading, talk and discussion that was both tightly plotted and animated by wit and invention. For more information about the exhibition please visit http://bankstreetarts.com/exhibitions/death-and-the-gallant-2/

‘Collaboration’ was a theme common to the weekend’s events: we returned to Bank Street Arts in the evening for the keenly anticipated Yannis Told Us, a unique synthesis of poetry and music by Tria Kalistos (Kelvin Corcoran and multi-instrumentalists Maria Pavlidou and Howard Wright). This was the debut public performance of the work (and, indeed, the group); the level of communication between Corcoran, Pavlidou and Wright – and their connection with the audience – had many listeners thinking otherwise. Intimate, urgent and assured, the set was enthusiastically received by the packed-out room. Yannis Told Us will be released on CD by Longbarrow Press later this year.

The third and final event, Making It Up, was a specially commissioned talk by Kelvin Corcoran on the nature of dialogue (real and imagined) with other poets (living and dead). Corcoran’s discussion embraced the cultural politics of late modernism, the value of chance experience, and the primacy of song; a dialogue with a dead poet (Ezra Pound) led to a dialogue with a living poet (Peter Riley), with Corcoran and Riley closing the event with a joint reading that drew on Riley’s Alstonefield and Corcoran’s own response to reading the poem.

Many thanks to all who attended, supported and helped with the events; in particular, the Sheffield Poetry Festival team, Bank Street Arts, Matthew Clegg, and Karl and Hayley. Thanks also to Ian Gracey for photographing the Death and the Gallant exhibition.

A selection of Longbarrow Press titles will be available at the Sheffield Poetry Festival’s Festival Bookshop over the weekend of 2-3 April. The Festival Bookshop will be open at Bank Street Arts from 12.30-19.00 on Saturday and at the Showroom from 11.00-18.00 on Sunday.

Longbarrow Press at Sheffield Poetry Festival

The first Sheffield Poetry Festival www.sheffieldpoetryfestival.org.uk will take place during the weekend of Friday 1 – Sunday 3 April 2011, with fringe events being held between 26 March and 6 April. Longbarrow Press has organised three events as part of the festival:

DEATH AND THE GALLANT

Reading, talk and exhibition by Chris Jones and Paul Evans

Saturday 2 April 1.30pm – 2.15pm, Bank Street Arts

Drove road to Saint Botolph’s; psalms of wind
sound the tree-tops. None to meet us
when we wade the flooded meadows of the parish…

Two men move from church to church in a remote valley looking for the remnants of Catholic wall art to destroy. Chris Jones’s poem Death and the Gallant, which has been given a contemporary visual interpretation by the artist Paul Evans, explores iconoclasm in seventeenth century English culture. The poem and paintings focus on the relationship between Brown and the narrator as they travel towards a final reckoning. This presentation will offer a full reading of the poem by Chris and a discussion of how reflections on the English Reformation have affected the collaboration between poet and artist.

An exhibition of Death and the Gallant will run at Bank Street Arts from Thursday 30th March through to Friday 8th April.

www.chris-jones.org.uk

www.pkevans.co.uk

www.origin09.org

Kelvin Corcoran will be appearing at two special events during the festival:

YANNIS TOLD US

Tria Kalistos: Kelvin Corcoran, Maria Pavlidou, Howard Wright

Saturday 2 April 7.00pm – 7.45pm, Bank Street Arts

Yannis Told Us takes three long poems from Kelvin Corcoran’s Backward Turning Sea and sets them to traditional Greek music performed by accomplished multi-instrumentalists Maria Pavlidou and Howard Wright. Corcoran’s lyrical poems about Greece and the retelling of myth are the ideal material for setting to music; the traditional musicianship of Pavlidou and Wright the perfect medium to let us hear the poetry in performance.

MAKING IT UP: THE ORIGINS AND ACCIDENTS OF POETRY

Kelvin Corcoran joined by Peter Riley

Sunday 3 April 1pm – 2pm, Bank Street Arts

The reading and talk will be on two possibly contrary elements of what we can know of the origins of poetry: cultural precedence and chance experience. The question lurking here might be: how poetry comes to be made up out of known and previously unknown experience. Alternatively, we might ask: is this sort of enquiry a species of apophenia? Perhaps it’s an example of how poetry comes to be made up out of common interests, imagined dialogues – a form of talking to other poets, living and dead. For this reading and discussion, Kelvin Corcoran will be joined by the poet Peter Riley.

www.shearsman.com/pages/books/authors/corcoranA.html

Admission to each of these events is £4 (£3 concessions).

All three events will take place at Bank Street Arts, 32-40 Bank Street, Sheffield S1 2DS

www.bankstreetarts.com

Festival website: www.sheffieldpoetryfestival.org.uk

Festival Box Office: www.showroomworkstation.org.uk/festivals/sheffieldpoetryfestival