TURIN: LUCI PER LA CITTÀ / LIGHTS FOR THE CITY

 

A lamp post at Mallaig, Scotland

 

LUCI PER LA CITTÀ / LIGHTS FOR THE CITY, hailed as a great Festival of Lights, opens today in Turin, Italy, thanks to the vision of Lidia Chiarelli, poet, creative and Charter Member (with Aeronwy Thomas, Gianpiero Actis, Silvana Gatti, Sandrina Piras) of the international poetic and artistic movement, Immagine e Poesia. The organisers from Immagine e Poesia are joined by Arte Città Amica in this enterprise.

 

LUCI PER LA CITTÀ / LIGHTS FOR THE CITY 

 

 comprises 

'two projects at the same time': 

-An Art Exhibition at the Villa Amoretti in Turin, 

which opens on 25 October2022.

 

-An International Website with Poetry, Aphorisms, 

Short Stories, Art, Music and Photography.

 

These two projects, the Luci per la Città Exhibition and the International Website, have been created as a tribute to Guido Chiarelli (1902-1982), on the 120th anniversary of his birth. Chiarelli is hailed as the man who transformed Torino into a "Ville Lumière" by illuminating the city streets with his futuristic designs in the 1950s and 1960s.  

 

* * *

 

I wish to thank Lidia very much for inviting me to supply a written contribution for the international Luci per la Città website. You can read my poem,  'Stars in Suburbia', here. 

I was born in London and spent the first couple of years of my life in the capital, before moving out with my family to Kent's 'commuter-land'. Our road began at the foot of a slope near the railway station. The public library was situated near the top, where our road joined the High Street at right angles. We lived at the halfway point, neither up nor down. 

My bedroom window looked out onto the road where a lamp post (like the one in my picture here) sent its beams into the night sky. Looking back, it seems hard to believe that we still had a gas lamp, requiring the occasional services of a lamplighter; but I have looked into this, and am assured by those who know these things that my memory is indeed correct. 

Unlike Leerie in the Robert Louis Stevenson poem, which I came to love, our lamplighter would not have had to make daily visits as the lamps had become partially mechanised by my the time of my 1960s childhood. But they would have required winding at regular intervals. The image of the lamp post also reminds me of the one in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis where Lucy Pevensie first caught sight of Mr Tumnus the faun. 

I have not had the opportunity of visiting Torino, but David and I lived in Rome from 1985 to 1986. How well I remember the beautiful lights around Spagna and Piazza Navona in the run-up to Christmas. I can still smell the scent of hot chestnuts and pizza rustica. I even remember the sparkle of snow! 

P.S. I couldn't resist including images of two of my favourite UK lamp posts, the top one in Mallaig on the Scottish mainland, where one can catch a ferry to Skye, and the one below from Lyme Regis, designed in the shape of an ammonite. 

 

Ammonite-style lamp post, Lyme Regis, UK

 

Celebration ~ C.S. Lewis, Westminster Abbey

Narnia-like lamp post with tree reflections ...

There will be a special service today at noon in Westminster Abbey to dedicate a memorial to C.S. Lewis, creator of The Chronicles of Narnia, to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Lewis as scholar, apologist and writer. The preacher will be the Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge and former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who is also author of The Lion's World: A Journey into the Heart of Narnia. The Abbey choir will sing a newly commissioned anthem, a setting of Lewis’s poem 'Love’s As Warm As Tears'.

A memorial stone will be unveiled in Poets' Corner.

The Order of Service can be found here. 

The event forms part of a symposium marking Lewis's achievements and celebrating his career as one of the 20th century's most notable Christian writers and thinkers. 

• BBC report on the C.S. Lewis anniversary in Northern Ireland
• BBC report: Professor Alister McGrath on the religious symbolism behind The Chronicles of Narnia
• BBC pictures: CS Lewis and his world

• C.S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia
• C.S. Lewis: Poems 

•  'The Future of Forestry' a poem by C.S. Lewis

• My previous C.S. Lewis post
  

Westminster Abbey

Books to Read ~ (Narnia) 'The Lion's World'

Lamp post with tree reflections ... where is Mr Tumnus?

Lucy Pevensie found Narnia by pushing through the coats in the wardrobe in the professor's house, or so we are told in the narrative of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. As you can see from the photo below, our home patch here in Suffolk has had the appearance of Narnia for much of this past week.

The photo above was taken some time ago in the Cathedral Close at St Davids in Wales (near The Thirty-Nine Steps, but I don't want to mix my favourite stories!). I always imagined that this lamp post, with its reflected tree branches, must have been similar to the one known to Lucy and Mr Tumnus the faun.

I am greatly enjoying one of my Christmas presents, The Lion's World: A Journey into the Heart of Narnia by the new Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge and former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

I first read about the book in The New Statesman last August. John Gray, the lead reviewer for that publication, wrote a review entitled 'Beyond the Wardrobe Door', with the subtitle, 'An Archbishop interrogates Narnia'. I read it at the time on a train journey from London to Swansea, and knew immediately that I would like to read what Gray describes as 'this mind-opening little book.'

The Lion's World is beautifully produced by SPCK (with a cover flap that doubles as a bookmark). There is a back cover endorsement by St Andrews theologian, Professor Tom Wright, who says,

      'Those who have tried to debunk Lewis and his children's books will find Williams 
       more than a match for them ...'

I have not yet reached the end of The Lion's World, but I am already in agreement with the assertion inside the front flap that this book is not only 'a rewarding and ultimately joyful read', but also one that highlights the allegorical and 'powerful spiritual insights' on offer in The Chronicles of Narnia.

I confess to a lifelong deep love of the book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I have always found the film disappointing, partly because the Pevensie children are not quite as I imagine them. However, we have been re-watching the film (a good thing to do when snowbound!), and I have to admit that I have greatly enjoyed the remarkable winter scenery. BBC Winterwatch at Aigas may have come to an end with its stunning footage of real wild beavers, but who could resist their talking substitutes in Narnia?

As I say, I have yet to finish the book, so will refrain from commenting on my view of the depiction of Aslan in this new volume. However, countless others have left Narnia footprints ahead of me through the snow, and you might enjoy this fascinating and substantial post by Mark Meynell on the Quaerentia blog. Mark explores the significance of Narnia, and 'why it matters' to Francis Spufford, as outlined in Spufford's work, The Child that Books Built.

Before I close this post, I would like to refer back to one of my favourite blog post readings of 2010. The post was written in three parts by Rosie of Leavesnbloom. You can find Rosie's writing about the C.S. Lewis trail  ... here and here and here. 

"I did not say to myself,
'Let us represent Jesus as he really is
in our world by a lion in Narnia.'
 I said, 'Let us suppose
that there were a land like Narnia
and that the Son of God,
as he became a man in our world,
became a lion there,
and then imagine what would happen.' "

C.S. Lewis

Writing Workshops (1): Gainsborough Community Library, Ipswich

The lamp post in Narnia? 

I joined others at Gainsborough Community Library in Ipswich yesterday for a Creative Writing Workshop. We were considering the topic of 'plot', which is not something that crosses my path very often in my poetry endeavours, although it certainly has a bearing on narrative poems. It made me realise (again) just how fundamental the concept of 'story' is to our lives.

The ancient Greeks knew this all too well, with their epic ring cycles that would allow the same yarn to be narrated in fresh ways. A child's version of Homer's Odyssey captured my own imagination at a young age. I went on to study and teach Classical Civilisation. We also think of Beowulf and of countless other myths and legends that became part of the warp and weft of our human society. The New Testament parables, stories told for a purpose, rely heavily on narrative. Think of 'The Sower' or 'The Prodigal Son'. Journalists tell stories. Most of us do.

But how often do we employ story-telling techniques in our poems? Should we be telling more stories if it is these tales that help us to come together and forge connections? We were talking yesterday about 'martyrdom' (among other things) as a feature that is common to many well-loved tales.'The Chronicles of Narnia', which we cited by way of example, speak for themselves at one level but also probe the heights and depths of something more - the Christian story, of good over evil, of the laying down of life for others.

The employment of an extended metaphor has been recognised as a popular and successful poetry ploy in recent years. Epic is 'out' in the traditional sense - or is it? There have been exciting re-workings of the old sagas and tales, but archaic language and sentiment have largely been abandoned or, at least, re-cast. I am currently reading 'Now All Roads lead to France' by Matthew Hollis, about the life and last years of Edward Thomas. It is fascinating to read about the Georgian poets and how very different they were to the emerging Imagists. Edward Thomas had a great gift for sharing small insights into the world of nature with his readers. Of course, he often employed narrative along the way: think of 'The Owl'. Today we worry whether it is 'enough' for a poem simply to paint a picture. Our response has sometimes been to use poetry as a vehicle for (often political) change. Adjectives and adverbs are treated with extreme caution - sorry, with caution - but are we sometimes in danger of aspiring to an art that is losing touch with its recipients? Poets may be driven to write for any number of reasons, but I found it helpful yesterday to be reminded that 'plot' is occasionally a useful tool to select from the work(shop) box.

P.S. And in case you were wondering, my organic writing in the workshop yesterday focused on an orphan, a multi-cololoured explosion and a rift in the cliff face ...

• Do check out the Magma feature on Imagist poetry here