Walt Whitman Talk with Graham Fawcett Thursday 29 June 6.30pm

‘Do go; these are very special occasions.’ Bridport Review

Walt Whitman

Talk with Readings by Graham Fawcett

Thursday 29 June 2017 6.30pm

Tickets: £10 or £25 with buffet dinner to follow

Please phone 01308 459511 to book now!

‘When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom’ is one of the most memorable titles in all poetry, and it helps to remind us how early Walt Whitman was.  Born in 1819, he wrote this deeply moving work in a double aftermath: within days of the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865 and of the end of the American Civil War. The poem appeared in the 1865 edition of Whitman’s signature collection and masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, ten years after its first edition in 1855.

With that book, Whitman had, at a stroke, revolutionised American poetry: what it could say (poets could sing about what they felt it was like to be alive as never before), how it could look on the page (long-limbed, rhapsodic and free), and how it could sound in the reading ear (orchestral, psalmic and incantatory).  Many poets since, on both sides of the Atlantic, and several composers too, our own Vaughan Williams and Delius first among them, have found new senses of direction, and solace for the spirit, from this outstanding voice.

GRAHAM FAWCETT has lectured or led workshops at literary festivals throughout Britain on reading and writing poetry. A highly entertaining lecturer, writer and educator, he has been a tutor for The Poetry School since 1997, devising and teaching new courses on poetry past and present from around the world. Previous to that he wrote and presented radio programmes about literature and music on BBC Radio 3 for many years.

Graham Fawcett’s talks explore leading poets, their lives, the political and cultural environment in which they wrote and, most of all, their work. The programme is two 45 minute halves with an interval followed by an informal and delicious buffet dinner served by Sladers Yard’s celebrated Licensed Café. The £15 buys a full main course from a choice of seafood, free-range meat or vegetarian dishes. A wonderful selection of wines, desserts and cheese are available à la carte.

Please phone 01308 459511 to book your tickets now.

A wonderful review of Graham Fawcett’s Coleridge Talk: John Pownall in Bridport Review.

A review of Graham Fawcett’s fascinating lecture on John Donne can be found here.

Review for Graham Fawcett’s talk on T.S. Eliot on 22 January 2015:

“We [the audience] were more than happy to stay the course, stunned and astonished in equal measure. Stunned by the breadth and depth of Fawcett’s criticism, astonished at our luck to be living miles from a university yet participating in what, to all intents and purposes, was a post-graduate lecture, presented with immaculate complexity by a master of ceremonies par-excellence.”

Elaine Beckett, Bridport Review