Media Matters (3) David Gill on Air

David at Nestor's Palace, close to Homer's 'sandy Pylos'

David was a 'sofa guest' on Radio Suffolk this afternoon. You can find the programme on this link - and by pushing the slide-bar along until you get to '2.30', about three quarters of the way along the line. We found it took some seconds before the sound kicked in.

The programme was billed with these words:

'on the sofa Professor David Gill who has been described as Indiana Jones in reverse because he likes to return antiquities to their original homes.'

The chat show covers various aspects of David's 'relationship' with archaeology, from his first find as a boy to his 2012 Award from the Archaeological Institute of America (which is when the Swansea media came up with the 'Indie' nickname). David mentions his poetry, and recites his poem, 'From Syracuse to Manhattan'.

Magazine Moment (18): Cultural Horizon Magazine, Romania

The magazine arrives from Bucharest!

 Those who follow this blog will know by now that I have conducted several interviews with writers in Wales for Contemporan Orizont Literar | Cultural Horizon Magazine in Bucharest, Romania. The writers to date are:

• Peter Thabit Jones, poet, tutor - and editor of The Seventh Quarry
• Byron Beynon, poet and tutor
• Chris Kinsey, BBC Wildlife Magazine Poet of the Year 2008 and Greyhound Laureate
• David Gill, archaeologist - lecturer and writer
• Susan Richardson, eco- and polar-poet, with a regular slot on Saturday Live (BBC)

I was delighted today when editor-in-chief, Daniel Dragomirescu sent the following links to a YouTube video interview from Mexico and two Suite 101 articles in Spanish about this wide-ranging multicultual magazine. 

Sadly I am not a Spanish speaker, but with my knowledge of other European languages and the help of Google Translate, I was able to get a pretty good idea of the texts in the links below.

The poet, Marina Centeno, takes a seat in 'El sillón de la lectura'...






Marina's blog can be found is you follow this link.

The two Suite 101 articles by María Eugenia Mendoza Arrubarrena can be found here and here.

Photographs of members of the 'team' appear here, here and here.

Do take a look at the magazine site here. New subscribers are always welcome.

• MAGAZINE PRICE: 12 EUROS | 15 DOLLARS PER COPY (SHIPPING INCLUDED). PayPal details to the right of the magazine page if you click here. The latest issue is now available!

Media Mix (3): Poetry in the news...What does it 'do'?

Click here for a good article from the Huffington Post. You might also like this.

Media Mix (5): What is Poetry For? The Guardian

You can read the article here. A measure of excitement mounts as we await the announcement of the new Oxford Professor of Poetry.

• Oxford University
• The candidates (BBC)

P.S. Poetry in the recent Honours to mark the Queen's Official Birthday: here

Media Mix (4): PoetCasting comes to Swansea

Alex Pryce, founder of PoetCasting (left), with me at the Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea
Photo: © David Gill 2009

Readers of my Land&Lit blog will know that it is Dylan Thomas Festival time in Swansea. David and I went down to the Dylan Thomas Centre on Saturday to meet Alex Pryce of PoetCasting.

Alex set up the PoetCasting project in April 2007, with support from Ignite! and NESTA. Poetcasting has received funding from The Arts Council England since July 2008. Ignite! promotes creativity in learning and encourages creative development in young people. Initially a pilot project at NESTA, Ignite Futures Ltd. now exists as an independent and not for profit organisation.

Alex, poet and podcaster, has been dubbed the ‘one to watch' in the art world by judges of the Women of the Future Award. Alex was awarded the Booz & Company Art and Culture Woman of the Future Award, and was the youngest category winner when she was 20 years old. The award was for her work in conceiving and launching PoetCasting, which showcases poets who share the medium of the internet as a place where poets can be read and heard.

David has developed a number of (audio-visual) Podcasts for teaching purposes, and was interested in the applications of audio poetry. I was particularly impressed by the range of poets represented by PoetCasting. I enjoyed listening to the poets reading their own work. It was especially good to find the familiar names of fellow bloggers, Susan Richardson and Matt Merritt among the cast of those who had recorded work for the project. The Dylan Thomas Festival is dedicated to the memory of Aeronwy Thomas this year, and I was delighted to read that Aeronwy features on the PoetCasting iPod Shuffles, alongside the voices of more than 160 other poets.

PoetCasting is an amazing initiative. Do go and discover more if you find that Alex is visiting your area.

Other links:

• Alex Pryce (website)
  

• The Association of Poetry Podcasting
  

Media Mix (3): Poetry in the news...

Preserving memories / Andy Croft / Regulars / Culture

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Please read the article for an update on Maureen Almond and Horace.

Media Mix (2): Poetry in the news...

I am grateful to Matt Merritt of Polyolbion for alerting me to a recent (if downbeat) article in The Times (30 May 2009) by Giles Coren. I suppose it just goes to show that there are always two sides to a coin.

On a more positive note, today's Guardian features Elizabeth Burns, winner of the £5000 inaugural Michael Marks Poetry Pamphlet award.

News Stories (2): a place for poetry?

I felt that this article by Harry Eyres from (of all unusual sources) the Financial Times raised some thought-provoking issues. Is there a place for poetry? What is poetry for? What does poetry do? ... questions that confront us all the time in our writing life.

A Mix of Media (2): BBC Costume Drama

The Guardian reports that the BBC plans to spend less money on period drama productions. Little Dorrit failed, apparently, to pull in the punters. From Larkrise to Candleford, however, is due to run for a third series. The Diary of Anne Frank and the Penry Jones 'version' of The Thirty Nine Steps had high ratings and will set the trend for future adaptations. I, for one, would be very sad to think that there were not going to be many more productions of classic literature. I would love to see dramatisations of Buchan on television ... but only if the screen writers stick to the original storylines.

Media Mix (1): The Wye, 'My Mile of the River'

The first of a four-part series by Chris Tally Evans on the River Wye was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 14.45 pm yesterday. The fifteen minute programme is available on iPlayer for the next six days if you would like to catch up before episode 2 (featuring a wheelbarrow championship) comes on air next weekend. Join Chris, Director of the unusual Stage School, as he celebrates the sounds of the river near his home in Rhayader, Mid Wales, and goes in search of a 'yaffle' in the woods. Meet the supporting cast - the presenter's family, his hawk and his dog - who star alongside the river itself as it 'flows through the lives of the people' who live along its banks.

• Rhayader to feature in Radio 4 series
• The programme listed on the Arts Wales site
• The programme listed on the Disability Arts site (scroll down)
• The River Wye on the Waterscape site

• On the subject of frivers: Alice Oswald creates a River Dart community poem