A Poetry Pilgrimage - Belonging - with George Szirtes
by ArtfulScribe
Sun, November 15, 2020
10:00 AM – 11:30 AM GMT
ArtfulScribe and Winchester Poetry Festival present: A Poetry Pilgrimage workshop on the theme of Belonging, led by George Szirtes
What does it mean to belong? To what? To whom? Is it of comfort to belong to a nation, a community, an organisation, a group with this or that cause, a family, a relationship, or anything else? When do we first feel the sense of belonging? What obligations does belonging impose on us and what do we welcome? Do others feel that obligation to us or should we feel it to others? Which others? Above all, how might poetry express a sense of belonging? Do anthems of various sorts perform that task? And what is the opposite of belonging? Is it the sense of exclusion? The excluding of others or our own sense of being excluded?
These are complex questions and there are plenty more waiting behind them, as always. But how to go about the task?
We could recall our own experiences of belonging or exclusion. We could use a variety of pronouns beyond the central 'I'. What difference would it make if used the first person plural 'we'? We could speak for others using 'I' or 'we' or we could speak for ourselves using the third person singular or plural, or a proper name, or even the second person 'you'. What difference would it make to use any of these pronouns as voices.
Be prepared to bring along your memories, visual sources of either a personal or social kind, and a news item, a quotation or a poem that seems interesting or offers a starting point.
This is a place of exploration and shaping. Let's see what there is to explore, and what shapes it offers us.
To attend, please email artfulscribe@artfulscribe.co.uk with the subject header 'Belonging with George Szirtes'. Priority will be give to Southampton residents and SO postcode holders who will need to email proof of address. Non-Southampton residents are welcome to join the waiting list and if space is available, will be added to the event. A zoom link will be sent nearer the event date.
George Szirtes was born in Hungary and emigrated to England with his parents—survivors of concentration and labor camps—after the 1956 Budapest uprising.
Szirtes studied painting at Harrow School of Art and Leeds College of Art and Design. At Leeds he studied with Martin Bell, who encouraged Szirtes as he began to develop his poetic themes: an engaging mix of British individualism and European fluency in myth, fairy tale, and legend. Szirtes's attention to shape and sound, cultivated through his background in visual art and his bilingual upbringing, quickly led to his successful embrace of formal verse. In an essay in Poetry magazine defending form, Szirtes argues that "rhyme can be unexpected salvation, the paper nurse that somehow, against all the odds, helps us stick the world together while all the time drawing attention to its own fabricated nature."
His first book, The Slant Door (1979), won the Faber Memorial Prize. Bridge Passages (1991) was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize. Reel (2004) won the T.S. Eliot Prize, and his New and Collected Poems was published by Bloodaxe in 2008.
Szirtes did not return to Hungary until 1984, when he visited on the first of several Arts Council traveling scholarships. He has since translated, edited, and anthologized numerous collections of Hungarian poetry. For his translation work Szirtes has won several awards, including the Dery Prize for Imre Madach's The Tragedy of Man (1989) and the European Poetry Translation Prize for Zsuzsa Rakovsky's New Life (1994). His own work has been translated into numerous languages and widely anthologized, including in Penguin's British Poetry Since 1945.
He is the author of Exercise of Power (2001), a critical study of the artist Ana Maria Pacheco. He co-edited, with Penelope Lively, New Writing 10 (2001). Szirtes has written extensively for radio and is the author of more than a dozen plays, musicals, opera libretti, and oratorios.
Szirtes lives in England with his wife, the painter Clarissa Upchurch, with whom he ran the Starwheel Press. They collaborated on Budapest: Image, Poem, Film (2006). He is a member of the Advisory Panel of the British Center for Literary Translation, and is on the Advisory Board of the Poetry Book Society. He has been a member of the Royal Society of Literature since 1982.
This event is supported by funding from Arts Council England, Southampton City Council, and other partners as part of the Mayflower 400 project.
About Mayflower 400 Southampton
Southampton's Mayflower 400 is led by Southampton City Council and is delivered with cultural, corporate and community partners all across the City. The year will focus on the themes of journeys, migration, maritime heritage and innovation. It seeks to celebrate the city and those who live and work here, it will explore the stories of all the people of the world, including the Mayflower passengers, who have come to, or through, Southampton in search of a new life. Matching grassroots activity with major projects, the city's creativity and heritage will be showcased through a series of culture, learning and community programmes. The programme is delivered with the financial support of Arts Council England, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Barker Mills Foundation, GO! Southampton and Paris Smith.
Originally planned for June to November, plans are currently being reshaped so that (subject to Public Health England/ Government guidance) there is still an exciting and engaging programme of activities between August 2020 and February 2021.Go to www.mayflower400southampton.co.uk for further information on events and stories. Further press information on Mayflower 400 Southampton available from Nick Upton, Senior Communications Officer, Southampton City Council: Nicholas.Upton@southampton.gov.uk
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