Profile: Jennifer A. McGowan

Jennifer A. McGowan lives in Oxfordshire.  She attended Princeton University, graduating cum laude, and obtained her MA and PhD from the University of Wales.   Despite being certified disabled at age 16, she became a semiprofessional mime and performed in five countries.  More recently she has taught both under- and postgraduates at several universities, in subjects as varied as English, history, and heritage studies.  Her poems have appeared in many literary journals on both sides of the Atlantic, including Acumen, Envoi, Agenda, The Connecticut Review, and Gargoyle; a chapbook, Life in Captivity, is available from Finishing Line Press.  She has been anthologised alongside such poets as Ursula K. LeGuin and Lyn Lifshin; songs she has written have been recorded on several independent labels.  Her website, with more poetry and examples of her mediaeval calligraphy, can be found at http://www.jenniferamcgowan.com


Poem for the exhibition

DEEDLEDAMMER

O, woe the freddled deedledammer,

for he sardels with a stammer!

He cannot choi the kun-wa-dim;

no fili-fimberbaugh for him!

The deedledammer’s tursid plack

Goes neither forward-wise nor back

So micturation cannot be

A frim follute for such as he.

Accursed be the frycted sam

that will not let him deedledam. 

Happy Birthday Edward Lear; The Press Launch

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-19662168

 

I was invited to join the press launch of the exhibition this morning, the day before it opens to the public.
I asked the curator Colin Harrison to mention our part in it, but he did not have time.

Christopher Brown at least made mention of our poetry as part of the exhibition.

It was a great privilege to hear David Attenborough speak about someone he is passionate about.

He believes Lear has a very special place in our history and I believe him.

      I am sharing my reply to Colin's e-mail this afternoon, which expresses my feelings on the morning pretty clearly.

Dear Colin,

I was delighted with the launch. I hope you were. What a great job you have done.

I felt that Christopher had at least mentioned poetry at the museum in passing.

I was able to connect with a number of journalists about it.

I am posting some photos I took at the launch, including yours. Feel free to download the pictures if you like any.

There was something very special about DA live.

When he said thank you on behalf of Lear, you could almost believe Lear was speaking through him.

I wish I had set my camera to video.

Nick Owen

David Attenborough waxing lyrical on a subject he is passionate about

David A

David A

 The Director of the Ashmolean, Christopher Brown

CB

Colin Harrison, curator of the exhibition.

and not forgetting the man himself, an oil of Venice by Edward lear.

Introducing the Lear exhibition which starts this week.

Happy Birthday Edward Lear: 200 Years Of Nature And Nonsense

Please note that Lear was one of the best British landscape artists of the nineteenth century. 

Oxford poets now add poetry to the exhibition about his famous landscape work as well as his nonsense poetry.

20th September 2012 to 6th January 2013

To celebrate the bicentenary of Edward Lear (1812–1888) the Ashmolean is holding an exhibition covering all aspects of his work.

The bicentenary of the birth of Edward Lear is being celebrated with events and exhibitions throughout the English-speaking world. As the home of the largest and most comprehensive collection of his work in the UK, the Ashmolean is mounting a retrospective exhibition covering all aspects of his career. From early natural history illustrations and extraordinary landscape sketches, to the nonsense drawings and verses for which Lear is so well known, the exhibition presents 100 works of art from the Ashmolean’s own Lear collection and important loans from the Bodleian Library and works from private collections, many of which will go on public display for the first time. 

Edward Lear is one of the most notable artists and popular writers of the Victorian period. Although best known for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose, Lear saw himself primarily as an artist. HAPPY BIRTHDAY EDWARD LEAR presents his work chronologically, with watercolours, oil paintings, manuscripts, and illustrated books carefully selected to reflect every aspect of his artistic output. Among the highlights are watercolours of animals and birds; sketches made during his travels in Greece, Italy, Egypt and the Near East, and India; and a group of the Tennyson illustrations on which he spent the last twenty years of his life. Lear’s work as a painter in oils is represented by rarely seen evocations of Beachy Head, Venice, and landscapes in the Near East; and the great view of Jerusalem, painted in 1865, now in the Ashmolean. 

More than 30 loans from the University of Oxford’s libraries and private collections will bring together editions of the books Lear illustrated early in his career. These include copies of Lear’s travel books; the natural history publications to which he contributed; and the principal editions of his nonsense books. The exhibition also shows examples of the sketches and self-portraits he gave to his friends, as well as a nonsense alphabet composed for Ruth Decie, who was only a few days old, on 22 June 1862. 

“Edward Lear is one of the most extraordinary figures in Victorian England. He was one of the greatest of all natural history illustrators, a highly original artist who travelled more widely and recorded the landscape more faithfully than almost any other, and also an endearing writer whose experiments with words long predate those of Lewis Carroll.” Colin Harrison, Senior Curator for European Art at the Ashmolean. 

Exhibition | 20 September 2012 – 6 January 2013 | Galleries 58 & 61 | £4 / £3 Concessions

The exhibition has been supported by: 

Arader Galleries For 40 years Arader Galleries have been the leading dealers in European, Asian and American Natural History Watercolors, color plate books and engravings. With galleries in New York, Philadelphia, Houston and San Francisco the masterpieces of Edward Lear have been a special focus along with John James Audubon, Joseph Wolf, John Keulemans, John Gould, P. J. Selby, Pierre Redoute, George Ehert and Nicholas Robert. Exhaustive research on historical significance, aesthetics, condition and most especially provenance has always been guaranteed to our clients. For more information visit: www.aradergalleries.com  

Edward Lear (1812–1888) Edward Lear was the 20th child born to Jeremiah and Ann Lear on 12 May 1812, in Holloway, London. He became one of the most extraordinary figures in Victorian England. Sociable and immensely engaging, he was also an epileptic, prone to long fits of melancholy, and once declared that “I HATE LIFE unless I WORK ALWAYS”. Lear’s earliest work was as an ornithological draughtsman, his outstanding achievement being the Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots (1830–32). Between 1831 and 1837, he was a regular visitor to Knowsley Hall, where the 13th Earl of Derby kept the most important menagerie in Europe, and Lear’s studies of the animals were privately published as Gleanings from the Menagerie at Knowsley in 1846. While he was at Knowsley, he began to invent nonsense rhymes and drawings to amuse Lord Derby’s children. These were first gathered together as A Book of Nonsense in 1846, but it was not until the third edition of 1862, including wood engravings, that Lear’s nonsense began to enjoy the extraordinary popularity it still does today. 

It was landscape painting which Lear himself most valued and for which he wished to be remembered. From 1837 onwards, he travelled more extensively than any other painter of the 19th century, recording the landscape as he went in an apparently endless succession of topographical drawings in pencil, which he annotated with the date, time, and a running number for each tour. These he later inked out and kept as a dictionary of compositions for his more commercial work, the finished watercolours he made in long series and, from the early 1850s, the oil paintings he made on commission. 

Edward Lear Conference 2012 marks the bicentenary of Lear’s birth, which is being celebrated in museums and libraries in Europe and the United States. Oxford will host the first international conference devoted to Edward Lear, to be held at Jesus College on 21–22 September 2012, with participants including Dame Gillian Beer, Matthew Bevis, Richard Cronin, and Seamus Perry. For more information visit www.english.ox.ac.uk/news-events/upcoming-events  

Profile: Diana Moore

 

Diana Moore

The Oscillating Octobells

who somersault in the sea

playing Over The Waves

to the Quivering Quaverfish

Diana Moore

Writer, poet, playwright and author of the illustrated children’s book:

A Fishy Coat Tale And Other Poems

(see link below)

I am very excited to be taking part in the Edward Lear celebrations.  I would love to have had a one-to-one, tête-à-tête, (or even tea and a ‘noddle conflabious chinwaggling’ as, perhaps, Mr Lear might have put it…) with such a likeable, crazy, clever, sensitive man. 

I look forward to working with families on 2^nd November where Mr Lear’s ‘Land of Nonsense’ will be brought to life during the week in fun activities such as the creation of a runcible world where nonsense botany, limericks and ABC worlds join together with animals, birds, insects, fish and totally made-up runcible spoonistic characters and creatures –just head for the ‘Ashmo-LEAR-ean’  and follow the signpost to Runcible Rhymes.  There will also be readings and extracts from Lear’s works as well as newly created verse by me.

I will also be sharing my work (and a drawing or two) with visitors to the gallery recitals on November 3rd.

I offer sessions to primary children on Creating and Writing Humorous Poetry.

'A Fishy Coat Tale And Other Poems' is available directly from: www.diana-moore.com  at £6.99 + p&p.  Also via Gardners and Bertrams Booksellers.  Also stocked in: Coles, Bicester, The Book House Summertown, The Bookstore and Mostly Books in Abingdon, Pen to Paper, Headington, Wallingford Bookshop, Waterperry Gardens and via Amazon and Oxfordshire Libraries.

For the Lear Exhibition

ASHMO-LEAR-EAN  by Diana Moore

Based on his NONSENSE POETRY AND THE LEAR EXHIBITION

Jerusalem, a work in progress by Nick Owen

Jerusalem (a work in progress not a finished poem-picture) 

Comments appreciated.

We look over his shoulder                                              

At Shepherds standing by,  

Unmindful of the city.

The open sky is heaven enough for them.

But shining on the other hill

The artist shows so clear

The place they call Jerusalem

So far and yet so near.

A valley lies below us, bare and dark

To me this has to be the shadow of death

A place of desperation, not a country park

Where all too many soldiers took their final breath

The armies of the past, and of the future too

We do not see them now upon the ground

And yet I think I hear their dreadful sound

Out of nowhere, a God without a face

Compels the souls of men to make for this.

It whispers to the world, “This is the place

Which, more than any other, is the source of bliss,

More powerful and wonderful than any lover’s kiss.

For, if there is redemption, it is here.

Come all ye, and enter without fear”.

Over his shoulder we see some goats or sheep

In pastures almost green

A peaceful, restful, pastoral scene

Even the rocks are bright and clean

He might have drawn on William Blake

These could be Northern English hills

An English man’s Jerusalem to make

Not covered in Satanic Mills

Our fathers went on pilgrimage to reach this holy City

A pure white shining citadel beyond decay

In hope to reach eternity, they made their way,

With prayers in many tongues, and oaths to say.

Some came in peace, some came in holy war

They shared a sacred dream,

Something, for them, worth fighting for.

Thousands fought and thousands died

And thousands more will fight and die

To hold this land.  Many have tried

To find a way of peace, but many lie

And will lie again. I ask you why?

When you believe that God is on your side

You do not count the dead, or lose your pride

We look over his shoulder

For a dream that we hope to come real

A place of beauty love and peaceful games

A place with magnetism, a serene appeal

Where conflicts end in happy resolution

But all these hopes are turned to desolation

The darkness spreading higher on the hill

As war threatens death to every Nation

The beaten child that Lear had left behind

Escaping into nonsense or fine birds

And pastoral landscapes of this remarkable kind

Where sheep and goats go grazing without turds

And men sit silently, no words

Upon their lips. Perhaps his promises had all been kept

Or maybe he stood here, painting while he wept.

There is one more stanza to come

Profile; Nick Owen

 Nick and Gabrielle 2011

A biographical note          

Artist, playwright, educator, coach, counsellor, poet, teacher, and student of life.

Member, The Art of Dying at The Dying Well Group.

“A Journey Through Grief,” in prose, poetry and pictures. Published in 2012

A play, "Happiness in the South," published by the UK Arts Council and performed in Brighton

Digital Art and Photography published in an American Art Magazine

Featured in "Universe d'Artistes," an on-line fine art nude magazine

Featured in "Oxford Inspires," Celebrating Oxfordshire in “Poetry and Pictures”

Created "Poetry and Pictures International" and "Poetry and Pictures England" groups hosted on Flickr

Published poet, with a book of fairy tales in verse, "Telling It Like It Is," published in 2004, and a contributor to many poetry anthologies, both UK and Internationally. Works increasingly taught in schools across Oxfordshire

Poem-Picture Artist of the Year 2006, 2007 on Flickr.

Prize winner, landscape art competition, "Outside In," Nuffield NHS Trust and OVADA

Contributor to the 75th Anniversary Sylvia Plath Oxford Symposium, and the first edition of the American based on-line Plath journal

Taught counselling and psychotherapy at the London School of Economics, Oxford University, Westminster Pastoral Foundation, The Oxford Centre for Human Relations and many other colleges.

Retired director of “The Oxford School of Psychotherapy and Counselling.”

.
            I seek to promote my "poetry and Pictures Arts genre, and find people who want to buy my work or create art with me.

            I live in West Oxfordshire with my wife, Gabrielle. I have four children.

Profile: Louise Larchbourne

Louise Larchbourne’s mother was the poet Rosamund Stanhope; and she grew up both intimate with poetry and slightly daunted by her mother’s minor but consistent success, combined as it was with extreme efficiency – she was also a teacher of English – and considerable glamour.

In her early twenties she graduated from Birmingham University in English, and then became an actor and a ‘local poet’, performing regularly in Birmingham. Michael Pinney, of Bettiscombe Press, attended a reading and asked if he could publish a collection; unfortunately he went bankrupt shortly afterwards, on the verge of publishing her book. Some poems were subsequently published in a Birmingham Arts Lab collection of four women poets. 

Her acting career was suspended after 12 years when she became a single mother.  She wrote little during her son’s childhood, when the work of supporting him, through freelancing in publishing, preoccupied her. 

A few years ago she started writing more and joined Oxford Backroom Poets. Now she is steering her career back into performance and writing. As well as acting, she is interested in performance art, which she sees potentially as 3-d moving poetry; she had the opportunity of doing some when she was acting professionally, and loved it. For a year she has also been giving readings and history sessions, and teaching creative writing, in residential homes. 

Among her favourite poets are John Donne and Wallace Stevens.  She is edging towards a collection

Earthwash             August 2012

    

On The Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph and the young Saint John the Baptist attributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti, brush drawing in a thin wash of brown oil paint (probably bistre), on a ground prepared with a green earth colour. The unusual treatment of the subject shows it as probably after 1520.