Blakefestwebsite
The Vibrators are back!
TICKETS The Vibrators are punk rockers with history and attitude. “They performed the set tight, sharp, fast, loud and proud.” The Vibrators were the first punk band to be playlisted by BBC Radio 1 and have had a career spanning over 40 years with 20 released studio albums. Their first album, Pure Mania (available to stream, in full, on YouTube) is considered one of the greatest Punk albums of all time. The Vibrators combine a... read more »
We'll Do It
We'll Do It We’ll do it on the beaches with our arms about our chums We’ll do it with the triangle and bang bang on our drums We’ll do it like God’s warriors and do it meek as lambs We’ll do it like we’re bulldogs and we couldn’t give a damn We’ll do it when we fancy something different from the norm We’ll do it cos we’re rebels and we’ll do it to conform We’ll do it high on gladness and... read more »
The Secret
The Secret Where rainstorms spark to rainbows where conkers’ spikes burst to shine where trodden-on blackberries bleed underfoot, is where the secret hides. Around the secret is a hole. The hole it is a subtle hole, because it has been there forever. Around the hole a tree has grown. The tree it is a very old tree, with thanks to loads of perfect weather. Bumblebee quick on an ocular swift to the tree very old with the subtle hole wherein does live the secret. To know it... read more »
Curating a Cottage: Dr Naomi Billingsley
The BlakeFest weekend may be over for this year, but the exhibition at Bognor Library continues until 7 October (open 2-6pm, Thursday-Saturday). Here, Naomi Billingsley writes about her experience of curating the virtual tour of Blake’s Cottage that features in the exhibition. Last summer, I was approached by Rachel Searle of the Big Blake Project to work on an exciting project – to curate a virtual tour of Blake’s cottage in Felpham. Photographer Jason Hedges... read more »
Responses to BlakeFest
BlakeFest 2017 Dandelion Visions Responses September 16 Day 1 1. Anon contemplates, “The beauty of the dandelion”, would like to contribute to the word collection, but is queueing to experience The Non-Bifurcated Man and would like to see it first before he speaks. 2. Debbie Kennard, Cabinet Member for Stronger and Safer Communities has just experienced The Non-Bifurcated Man installation: “I think it made poetry more alive and intense having it in your ear, you’re sitting and... read more »
At Blake's, Sept 16 2017
What a perfectly wonderful weekend of art, poetry and song, the BlakeFest weekend proved to be. As BlakeFest’s Poet in Residence (PiR), I came prepared on both days with a notebook and writing implements. One of my roles within my PiR role was to facilitate community event poetry. That means speaking to event-goers one by one, taking their names, should they be willing to provide them and outlining my intention to use their words... read more »
William Blake’s Cottage Virtual Tour
This virtual tour allows the visitor to explore the garden and interior of the cottage in Felpham, West Sussex, where William and Catherine Blake lived between the Septembers of 1800 and 1803. Using 360 degree photography, the tour provides an immersive experience that can be viewed in the exhibition via virtual reality goggles. There are six viewing zones in the tour: four rooms and the stairwell inside the house, and the garden. The tour is a Big... read more »
BlakeFest Poetry Workshops Sat Sept 9 2017
INTRODUCTION ‘Dandelion Visions’ was the theme for two ninety-minute workshops held at Bognor Regis Library on Saturday September 9, facilitated by me, Stella Bahin, for Blake Fest. The first session was attended by Rachel Searle, Sedge Seymour, Sedge’s teenage daughter, Caitlin, and his nine-year-old son, Toby, the couple, Johnny and Sue, and Olivia Stevens. The second session was attended by the same people, minus Olivia. Here’s a transcription of some of the text we put... read more »
A Break - Stella Bahin, Poet-in-Residence
Next Saturday I’ll be in Bognor Regis Library facilitating two free community poetry workshops for BlakeFest; one starting at 11am, one starting at 1pm, both 90 minutes duration. Last Saturday was my 53rd birthday. At the early passing from my birthday evening into Sunday morning’s small hours, shortly after midnight – what a shock – I quite unexpectedly received a brand new bespoke ring. Wedding finger. Third finger of my left hand; that one.... read more »
My Bed & Blake, curatorial response (to the other one...)
According to the curators of the Tracey Emin and William Blake in Focus exhibition, the link between the two is existential pain leading to artistic truth. I'm not convinced Blake was a champion of existential suffering as a prerequisite to creating art. Yes, he had an insight into suffering but he was more interested in revealing our access to the creative soul as a means of emancipation from the institutionalised oppression of the goal... read more »
Bugger Bognor, my Republican Irish arse! Niall McDevitt
In the afternoon of Sat 16 Sept I will conduct a Bognor to Felpham walk encountering the great Blakeans James Joyce and Dante Gabriel Rossetti until we meet the main man himself. Later, I will be performing poetry with Michael Horovitz, Stephen Micalef, Vanessa Vie and more. read more »
Dandelion Visions
Dandelion Visions exhibition @ Bognor Regis Library In the unlikely location of the West Sussex seaside town of Bognor Regis a cultural stirring is occurring. The Dandelion Visions exhibition is the centrepiece of a townwide celebration of the life and work of William Blake (1757-1827) who is nowadays recognised as a visionary poet, artist, engraver and prophet despite dying unrecognised and close to poverty. This Exhibition is free to attend and will be running at... read more »
'Good For Poetry': Poet-in-Residence, Stella Bahin
My blog before last, ‘For Poetry’, quoted a friend who’d spoken positively and emphatically of a regular poetry event being good for poetry and good for the place it happened in. Although I’d partially concurred with their opinion, I’d also found my friend’s statement somewhat problematic. So, I’d begun, firstly, to explore what poetry might be for, and what poetry might essentially be, if we can do anything for it. Since that blog, after formulating... read more »
'Bognoring': Poet-in-Residence Stella Bahin
On Wednesday July 26, BlakeFest 2017 Poet-in-Residence, Stella Bahin, went what she subsequently termed, Bognoring. That is, she took a train from her home town, Portsmouth, to Barnham. Tapped on the INFORMATION door of the station and asked the official who emerged, “Bognor?” “Yes, a lovely seaside resort!” he replied with deliberate, jocular, misunderstanding of what she was asking. Before telling her, as was her point, which platform she needed for the train to... read more »
‘For Poetry’ Poet-in-Residence Stella Bahin
A few weeks ago, a dear friend made a firm upbeat comment about a flourishing regular poetry event in the city where she works and I live (and work), Portsmouth; that this event’s success was ‘good for poetry and good for Portsmouth’. I agreed, but not wholeheartedly. There were implications in her apparently self-evident statement upon which my heart snagged. Unable to articulate precisely what my hitches were in any non-pooh-poohing way, right there... read more »
PIR’s 1st BlakeFest 2017 meeting, Hayling, Tuesday 11th July 2017
‘You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone’ is a maxim I’m familiar with as a caution against taking – heck – anything for granted if I can help it. (Perhaps it’s meant, unaccountably, as a kind of curse, but I don’t take it that way.) For example, I already knew I appreciated owning my brown leather zip-around ‘Hamilton’ fILOFAX. Despite all the technological advances in the many years since it had become... read more »