On Valentine’s Night, three of our Fellows – Wendy Cope, Jackie Kay and Hugo Williams – read and reflect upon their favorite poetry about love, both from their own and others’ work.  Chaired by Piers Plowright.

Speaking of Love (Wendy Cope, Jackie Kay, Hugo Williams)

Margaret Atwood began writing poetry in high school, and the most thrilling moment of her writing career was the publication of her first poem: ‘I mean, all the other things that have happened since then were a thrill, but that was the biggest.’ She has gone on to publish 19 collections of poetry, as well as 14 novels – including 'The Handmaid’s Tale', 'The Blind Assassin' and 'MaddAddam', published last summer. Organised and methodical in writing fiction, she writes poetry ‘in a state of free float’, very often in hotel rooms or on planes. Her poems tend to begin with a cluster of words, around which they form – she has compared the process to ‘dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation’ – and sometimes they result in novels. In a conversation with Peter Kemp, Chief Fiction Reviewer of the Sunday Times, Atwood talks about how she believes that poetry and fiction use different parts of the brain, explains how poems can open doors into rooms which novels then enter and explore, and reads from her work.

We are grateful to the Canadian High Commission in the UK for hosting this event at Canada House. We are grateful to the TLS for supporting this event.

Margaret Atwood reads her poetry

Background, context, and poem text: http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/05/28/keeping-quiet-sylvia-boorstein-reads-pablo-neruda

Excerpted from https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/what-we-nurture-with-sylvia

MORE / POEM TEXT

Sylvia Boorstein reads "Keeping Quiet" by Pablo Neruda

This is a new concept I'm trying out; A poem within a poem. I think it offers an interesting dynamic. Hope you like it. 
Instrumental: "We're All Leaving" -Arcade Fire (From the "Her" Soundtrack)
Lyrics: 
In my dreams i lose the concept of time, its something that i don't really mind because its gonna take me a while to find out everything about you that i can, from the gentle touch of your hands to your toes in the sand of this beach devoid of reality, these brief moments that you've given me have brought me to the brink of insanity, but i simply don't care; your hair swaying with the wind, our beating hearts making up the only sound in between whispers that carry secrets too heavy to be heard aloud. 

You see, in my dreams every touch is gentle and warm, every kiss is filled with bliss, and every word that you say plays back in my head like the most beautiful song; and i struggle to hold on to the memories of the days where we laughed and played under the soft white bed sheets, the sweet smell of your perfume as you entered the room, those times where we would lay beside each other and smile as we stared at the moon, wondering if it was looking back at us and smiling too. 
In my dreams, forever never seems quite long enough. 
So if this is all the time we have, just don't wake me up. 
But in case you truly cant stay, ill leave you with a final poem:

"find me beneath the porcelain stars, amongst fragments of memories that define who we are,
touch me like a snowflake grazes a cheek, feel me like warm sand sinking under your feet,
And like lights that adorn the edges of streets, we touch the hearts of others as they pass through;
People will come in to our lives and eventually they'll leave, but what always remains...is how they changed you."
- Written and performed by Igor Oro

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"In My Dreams" - A Spoken Word Poem

When it comes to life, it's all about perspective. 

Written and performed by Igor Oro
Music Sample credit: "Do What You Are Doing", by Dexter Britain

LYRICS
One day I asked a blind man if he knew what colors were. He said, "Well, I've never seen them, but in my mind the colour yellow...feels like the warm rays of sunshine. The color green, I imagine, is what covers the soft carpet of grass in an empty meadow; the colour red must be the screech of sirens and horns, and I could have sworn that I felt the calm of blue in the waters of the Atlantic"

"You see, my friend", he added, "I may not have the gift of sight, but I am thankful to be spared the blackness that engulfs the world at night. Although I cannot distinguish dark from light, I can still tell wrong from right; I can hear hidden tones in music that most people cannot, I can dream of beauty from just the scent of a rose, I can feel the crisp droplets of rain on my skin, and unlike others, I can actually see the wind."

"Never feel bad for a blind man," he said finally; "for you see the world for what it is..while I see it for what it could be." 

<a href="https://theartistunion.com/tracks/58ca38" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Download for free on The Artist Union</a>

"Thoughts of a Blind Man" - Inspirational Spoken Word Poetry

Background, context, and transcribed text: https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/04/13/james-baldwin-the-artists-struggle-for-integrity/

Recording by Pacifica Radio Archives.

CONTEXT / TEXT

James Baldwin: The Artist's Struggle for Integrity (full lecture)

My name is Hope Arden, and you won't know who I am. But we've met before - a thousand times.

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It started when I was sixteen years old. A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.

No matter what I do, the words I say, the crimes I commit, you will never remember who I am.

That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous.

THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE is the tale of a girl no one remembers, yet her story will stay with you forever.

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THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE by Claire North, Read by Gillian Burke- Excerpt

Bestselling author Joshua Cooper Ramo explains how to understand and survive the modern age.

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Not since the twin hammers of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution battered apart the foundations of old Europe has the world faced a shift as elemental, as epochal as what confronts us now. From Facebook to hacking attacks to ISIS, powerful network forces we barely understand are ripping through our connected world, tearing at our most fundamental ideas. What institution do you trust more today than you did ten years ago? Exactly. In this groundbreaking new book, Joshua Cooper Ramo explains a powerful new instinct that we need to understand if we want to see everything from the opportunities for fortune in our age to the most virulent dangers. Animated with experiences studying with Chinese Zen masters and advising generals and CEOs, The Seventh Sense will forever alter the way you look at our the world we now live in.

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THE SEVENTH SENSE Written and Read by Joshua Cooper Ramo- Audiobook Excerpt

My name is Tess Turner -- at least, that's what I've always been told. I have a voice but it isn't mine. It used to say things so I'd fit in, to please my parents, to please my teachers. It used to tell the universe I was something I wasn't. It lied. Words scare me, the lies and the truth, so I decided to stop using them. I am Pluto. Silent. Inaccessible. Billions of miles away from everything I thought I knew.

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Fifteen-year-old Tess Turner is happiest away from the action. She longs for life on the periphery; it's quieter there. But Tess's parents, outgoing and confident, would love for their only child to grow up to be as social and popular as they are. And there's nothing wrong with that -- at least, not until Tess discovers that her dad is not her biological father. She was conceived via sperm donor and, as if finding this out wasn't bad enough, reading on a blog that "dad" struggled to love his "alien newborn" shatters her world. 

Tess doesn't mean to become a mute. At first, she's just too shocked to speak, overcome by the betrayal. As she sees how her refusal to speak frustrates her parents' expectations of her, Tess begins to enjoy the silence. She can finally shut out "the overbearing din of human existence" and becomes determined to find out who her real father is. But when Tess feels the most alone, suffocated by the silence she's created, she learns that no matter how hard she pushes her family away, they will always be there to pull her back from the edge. 

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SILENCE IS GOLDFISH by Annabel Pitcher, Read by Jayne Entwistle- Audiobook Excerpt

A compelling and inspiring survival story about the immigrant experience

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This is the unforgettable true story of a young boy's remarkable journey: from civil war in east Africa to a refugee camp in Sudan, to a childhood on welfare in an affluent American suburb, and eventually, to a full-tuition scholarship at Harvard University. Following his father's advice to "treat all people--even the most unsightly beetles--as though they were angels sent from heaven," Mawi overcomes the challenges of racial prejudice, language barriers, and financial disadvantage to build a fulfilling, successful life for himself in his new home. Of Beetles and Angels is at once a compelling survival story and an inspiring model for anyone hoping to experience the American dream.

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OF BEETLES AND ANGELS Written and Read by Mawi Asgedom- Audiobook Excerpt

A thoughtful, gleeful encyclopedia of 154 emotions, both broad and outrageously specific, from throughout history and around the world.

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Have you ever tried to describe a feeling and failed? Don't despair any longer! Whether you want to feel smug and impress your friends or just want to communicate how hygge (the Danish word for cozy) you feel at home on a winter night, THE BOOK OF HUMAN EMOTIONS is for you. In this unique book, you'll learn the stories behind the names for some of our most anguished emotions, both familiar (love, rage) and unfamiliar (litost, greng-jai). For instance, did you know that Kierkegaard was the first person to identify anxiety as its own emotion? Or that apathy comes from the Greek roots a (without) and pathos (passion)? Besides, aren't you curious what Nginyiwarrarringu means?

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THE BOOK OF HUMAN EMOTIONS by Tiffany Watt Smith, Read by Suzanne Toren- Audiobook Excerpt

It is the present day, and the world is as we know it: smartphones, social networking and Happy Meals. Save for one thing: the Civil War never happened. 

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A gifted young black man calling himself Victor has struck a bargain with federal law enforcement, working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshall Service. He's got plenty of work. In this version of America, slavery continues in four states called "the Hard Four." On the trail of a runaway known as Jackdaw, Victor arrives in Indianapolis knowing that something isn't right--with the case file, with his work, and with the country itself.

A mystery to himself, Victor suppresses his memories of his childhood on a plantation, and works to infiltrate the local cell of a abolitionist movement called the Underground Airlines. Tracking Jackdaw through the back rooms of churches, empty parking garages, hotels, and medical offices, Victor believes he's hot on the trail. But his strange, increasingly uncanny pursuit is complicated by a boss who won't reveal the extraordinary stakes of Jackdaw's case, as well as by a heartbreaking young woman and her child who may be Victor's salvation. Victor himself may be the biggest obstacle of all--though his true self remains buried, it threatens to surface.

Victor believes himself to be a good man doing bad work, unwilling to give up the freedom he has worked so hard to earn. But in pursuing Jackdaw, Victor discovers secrets at the core of the country's arrangement with the Hard Four, secrets the government will preserve at any cost.

Underground Airlines is a ground-breaking novel, a wickedly imaginative thriller, and a story of an America that is more like our own than we'd like to believe.

--------

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UNDERGROUND AIRLINES by Ben H. Winters, Read by William DeMeritt- Audiobook Excerpt

An emotional, heartbreaking romance from the author of A Million Miles Away.

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They tell me that my memory will never be the same, that I'll start forgetting things. At first just a little, and then a lot. So I'm writing to remember.

Sammie McCoy is a girl with a plan: graduate at the top of her class and get out of her small town as soon as possible. Nothing will stand in her way--not even the rare genetic disorder the doctors say will slowly steal her memories and then her health.

So the memory book is born: a journal written to Sammie's future self, so she can remember everything from where she stashed her study guides to just how great it feels to have a best friend again. It's where she'll record every perfect detail of her first date with longtime-crush Stuart, a gifted young writer home for the summer. And where she'll admit how much she's missed her childhood friend Cooper, and the ridiculous lengths he will go to make her laugh. The memory book will ensure Sammie never forgets the most important parts of her life--the people who have broken her heart, those who have mended it--and most of all, that if she's going to die, she's going to die living.

This moving and remarkable novel introduces an inspiring character you're sure to remember, long after the last page.

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THE MEMORY BOOK by Lara Avey, Read by Casey Holloway- Audiobook Excerpt

A fascinating mystery set in Thailand in the vein of Alexander McCall Smith, where a nurse ethicist turns detective.  

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The first novel in a captivating new series...

Two nights ago, a young woman brought her husband into the emergency room of the Sriphat Hospital in Thailand, where he passed away. A guard thinks she remembers her coming in before, but with a different husband - one who also died.  

Ladarat Patalung, for one, would have been happier without a serial murderer-if there is one -- loose in her hospital. Then again, she never expected to be a detective in the first place.

And now, Ladarat has no choice but to investigate...

Meet Ladarat Patalung - the first and only nurse detective in Thailand.   

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MURDER AT THE HOUSE OF ROOSTER HAPPINESS by David Casarett, Read by Kristin Kalbi- Excerpt

ما عملش حاجة تستحق الذكر
موظف عادي في هيئة حكومية
إجمالي ما يحصل عليه
الف  تلتمية و حاجة جنية
لا يعول
 و غير مسؤول الا عن نفسه
لا يبوح للأصدقاء العابرين عن أمله او يأسه
كان عادي جدا مضموناً و شكل
مش شرير و مش طيب
مش موهوب و مش غبي 
مش مجذوب و مش نبي
و لا حتى عاش قصة كفاح ع اللقمة في بلد أجنبي
تِلهم بتوع السيما يحوّلوها لفيلم
او حتى يوحش حد ساعة الأكل
م النوع اللي تستغرب لو جه لحد ف حلم
بس النهارده ف المنام جالي
واقف على الشعرة اللي بين الوجود و العدم.. 
فاتح عينيه
ماشي ف شارعهم المليان تراب
خطاويه ما بتعلّمش ورا منه
و كأنه من غير قدم... ع الأرض و كأنه
كان ماشي بس الزمن هوّ اللي ما بيمشيش
كان ماشي و احنا متسمّرين حواليه
لحد ما بلعه الضباب بشويش
يشبه بطل أسطوري و خيالي
ما عملش حاجة تستحق الذكر
غير إنه واقف لسه على رجليه


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