Peter J. King

The Pink Chernobyl

‘Poetry at Pembroke’ is a series of poetry readings organised by Peter King, lecturer in philosophy at Pembroke College. The beautiful grounds bring together a wide range of national and international poets, readers, critics, musicians, students, on Mondays at 6pm.

With great joy and enthusiasm, I will be performing at Pembroke on Monday 19th February, at 6pm with the composer Janet Davey.

Janet Davey and Peter J. King performing at Pembroke College, 2017.

Janet and I have a few things in common. Radio broadcasting. Both involved in news. Janet worked for the BBC World Service, I worked for Radio Europa Nova and then for Radio Hit Romania. We share the love for music, for poetry and for sound. And we share a common memory. The Chernobyl accident 26th April 1986. I was eight years old and went to a nearby gymnasium school. 26th April 1986 was a Saturday. In those days, we went to school six days a week and, on Sundays, we had homework. There was nothing else for us children to do. We had no television during communism, there were no magazines and we had only two newspapers. I had started to write poetry by that time; write on old notebooks, on my mother’s factory coupons, on food wrapping paper. We had no books at home, so I wrote to have something to read in the evenings.

Once a month after that Saturday, the school’s paediatrician would come to deliver our iodine tablets quota. We had to swallow one every day for almost a year. We kept breathing and eating and learning and sleeping and growing, not knowing why the iodine was good for us. The boys mostly played with the sweetish small tablets or used them as crayons. I was a short-haired nervous girl. Shy and small for my age, and I think I took them all, with precision. Or maybe for fear of being publicly reprimanded during political propaganda lessons we had on Wednesdays.

Around the same time, Janet was in London producing a live telephone programme, with Sue MacGregor between London and Moscow for BBC World Service and BBC R4. Jan noticed on the “wires” a cloud over Finland and more. The interviewee, set up by Jan, was Georgi Arbatov, Soviet spokesperson. He was asked about this cloud……and told the world. The rest is history.

These two journeys met 31 years later. The composer Janet Davey and I will be performing at ‘Poetry in the Pink’. I will be reading from my collection ‘Imperfect’ published by Yew Tree Press (Philip Rush) and the forthcoming book ‘Uranium Bullets’, with original piano music and orchestration produced by Janet Davey’s grace.

Thank you, Peter King for your brilliance in promoting poetry and thank you, Janet Davey for your superb music.

The event takes place at Mary Hyde Eccles Room, Pembroke College, OX1 1DW.
Monday, 19 February 2018, at 6pm. 
Free entry and books available!

‘Seeds of War’ for a Nation of Slaves

 

Photograph: Performance Peter J. King

A moving and chilling reflection, last night at Pembroke College, Oxford University – ‘Seeds of War’ hosted by Peter J. King. An inspiring evening with performances by Adnan al-Sayegh, Jenny Lewis, Peter J. King, Jenyth Worsley, Matthias Dilling, with piano setting by composer Janet Davey.

Photograph: Performance – Jenny Lewis and Adnan al-Sayegh with piano composition – Janet Davey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we have been at war for thousands of years,

still,

barehanded,

catching bullets

now,

in these meat-eating days,

it is the pain which, finally,

makes us free, not words.

The silent joy of those who know

how very few

will make it through

a death sentence.

 

Photograph: Janet Davey and Peter J. King

 

Thank you for inviting me!

In conversation with David Caddy

It has been a privilege to be part of it. Tears in the Fence Poetry Festival gathered this year a multitude of diverse and poignant poetic voices and discourses. With a challenging theme – The Politics of Engagement. This created an opportunity for new paths of poetic inquiry as well as an opportunity to explore the concept of art / poetry as a dynamic and potent channel engaged within, not removed from, the current socio-political issues.

This is a snapshot from the discussion with David Caddy, the festival director. A conversation which looked at the tridimensional concept of a poet as a:

  • curse – he assumes the duty to observe the reality of current socio-economic developments and creatively responds to its imperfections.
  • marathon runner– he is preoccupied with expressing his vision through  long-term exploration of linguistic possibilities. Further, he identifies tensions between his conscience and the world.
  • subversive weapon – he recognises the artist’s responsibility to challenge complacency, to question authority and to, finally, place himself at the heart of what one defines the transformative power of change.

With many thanks to David Caddy and Tears in the Fence group and magazine.

And so many thanks to so many new friends: Valerie Bridge, Morag Kiziewicz, Gerald Killingworth, Peter J. King, Charlie Wilkinson, Steve Spence, Melisande Fitzsimons, Clive Gresswell, Aidan Semmens, Norman Jope, Mike Duggan, John Philips, Jo Waterworth, Camilla Nelson, Ric Hool, Sarah Alice, Nancy Gaffield, Anna Powney, Mandy Pannett.

Look forward to a bright future.