Poetry at the Parsonage - first weekend of July

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Matthew Withey and Mark Connors

On the Parsonage website (see links on the right of this page) you can read all about the significant and potentially spectacular gathering of most of the current species of Yorkshire poets in just a month's time. You will find a list of the main names there, but two which should be given a special mention right now are those of Matthew Withey, one of the main organisers at the Haworth end, and Mark Connors, seen together here at the launch of Charlotte Great And Small. Matthew is on the Parsonage staff and Mark is not only a poet himself but an energetic organiser of events who runs marathons in his spare time - most recently in Edinburgh. He can always be found at Word Club, which meets monthly at the Chemic Tavern in Leeds, and often at other poetry venues across Yorkshire. To get so many people together as performers for a weekend event is an amazing achievement. 

All that is needed now is a series of audiences, so please plan to come! The festival will take place in the Parsonage garden, the Old School Room and West Lane Baptist Centre (there's a substantial Fringe) with refreshments available. Admission is free (donations of £3 a head appreciated) and everyone is welcome.

The 'To Walk Invisible' Parsonage

Take a look at this Radio Leeds video on Facebook - about the construction of a replica of the Parsonage on Penistone Hill. Plenty of chipboard in there! It is for five days of filming for Sally Wainwright's television drama To Walk Invisible, which will be on screens at Christmas.

https://www.facebook.com/BBCRadioLeeds/videos/10153126772122824/

Brontë 200 at the Gaskell House in Manchester

Pamela Nash writes:
One of the North West's most pre-eminent literary venues will play host to a unique event this September as part of their “Brontë 200” celebrations. Elizabeth Gaskell's House in Manchester celebrates the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë's birth with two world premiere song settings by composer Robin Walker as well as readings from poets Philip Watts and Edwin Stockdale.   Soprano Lesley-Jane Rogers will be joined by pianist Janet Simpson and violinist Suzanne Casey.

The musical and literary inspiration for the programme is drawn from the themes of unobtainable love, from the writings of both Charlotte and Emily Brontë. Walker's setting of Charlotte's unrequited love letters to Constantin Héger, “Letter to Brussels” for soprano and piano and his dramatic scena setting of Emily's poem “Self-Interrogation” for soprano, violin and piano are complemented by readings of Stockdale's Brontë-inspired poems alongside the poetry of the Brontë sisters themselves.

Saturday, September 17^th, 7pm, Elizabeth Gaskell's House, 84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester M13 9LW.

Watch this space for further updates, but enquiries may be sent to Pamela Nash: nashhpschdnew@aol.com

Poems by Charlotte, Emily and Anne - pages by Julian Yanover

Julian Yanover writes:
I have built what I consider to be a unique page about the Brontës at http://mypoeticside.com/poets/charlotte-bronte-poems, http://mypoeticside.com/poets/emily-bronte-poems and http://mypoeticside.com/poets/anne-bronte-poems where I added several of their poems, their biography, a multimedia gallery and more importantly a timeline and time-map of their life, which can't be found anywhere else online.

I would be grateful to receive your comments  (click below)

Charlotte Brontë's Bicentenary in Italy

A member of the Italian Section writes:

Maddalena De Leo and Caterina Lerro

On Thursday 21 April Italy celebrated Charlotte Brontë’s bicentenary in a number of ways and the Italian Section of the Brontë Society was of course  involved through its representative, Prof. Maddalena De Leo. She was asked to take part to two radio broadcasts, the first on Rai Radio2 (Ovunque6) and the second on Rai Radio3 (Fahrenheit) where she talked of Charlotte, her importance today and the ‘feminism’ throughout her work.

The day in Italy was also celebrated in the Sicilian town of Bronte, where a meeting was held with journalists, teachers and students who spoke of Charlotte and read some of her prose. The Italian representative was invited there as well, and appeared on a Skype conference to greet all Sicilian citizens and to read a message expressly sent from the Brontë Society to the Mayor of the town of Bronte. It was a wonderful occasion to create a promising bridge between England and Italy.

In the afternoon a major conference organized by the Italian Ministero dei Beni Culturali was held in Naples at the National Library with Maddalena De Leo and Caterina Lerro as speakers in front of a large and involved public. Prof. De Leo read her interesting paper about Charlotte’s heroines in Juvenilia and in the novels mainly pointing to the differences existing between the first and the second group of them, Prof. Lerro spoke of the meaning of Jane Eyre as a novel, commenting on three of its most important pages (the incipit – the meeting with Rochester – ‘Reader, I married him’) with the help of her students who played the parts of the characters.

Celebrations at the Brontë Parsonage

Tracy Chevalier

A tour of the current exhibition - Charlotte Great and Small - with a series of commentaries from its curator, Tracy Chevalier, was one of the highlights of yesterday's bicentenary celebrations at the Parsonage. An item in a glass case in the Bonnell Room, where the tour started, is one of the letters which an agonised and infatuated Charlotte sent to Monsieur Heger at the Pensionnat in Brussels, which was first torn up by the recipient, then sewn back together by Madame Heger.

Interestingly, we were told that studies of the folds in the paper show that M.Heger kept it intact for years. One speculation is that Mme. Heger wanted to preserve it as evidence that her husband had not actually 'done anything' with his pupil. Four works by the artist Ligia Booton take off from this letter, and hang on a wall nearby, part of the exhibition.