poetry

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!
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Restitutio

A new poem published this morning in ‘Stride’ magazine:

Photograph: @John Stadnicki – MMXVIII

I covered my face with black ink
rounded all my possessions up
and set fire to everything
at the top of a hill.

click here to read the full text.

 

 

Takeaway

Photography: ©International Times, 2018

(to Aidan Semmens)

Hello. I am a feature
on a CCTV camera, with
private resonance. At
the top floor, I
can barely sleep for the sound of gunfire.
I hear the poetry when I order a pizza.

Still there, are you?
…‘yeah, […published in ‘International Times’ to read click] here

Who We Are

Nobody belongs, de facto, to just one place, one culture. Our existence is defined by the involuntary interactions with the world in a continuous change, but we like to believe that we do belong. To a place, a space which can be defined and referred to. And when one belongs ‘somewhere’, everything seems easier to quantify, categorise. And, then, it becomes familiar. The common familiarity which emerges through similitude in language, taste, points of view, landscape brings people closer and it helps to build that sense of togetherness.

Most tragedies have been born out of rejection, out of a deep sense of ‘non-belonging’ and people felt mostly bereaved when they realised their uprooting. The recent developments in Europe, with Brexit, in North America, with Trump’s Wall, and across the world in Myanmar, Sudan, Congo, Somalia, Ukraine, Syria, Peru show that we are ‘on the move’ at a global scale. Politics and economics drive the migration at unprecedented levels and can cement a deep sense of social instability.

Millions of people move from one place to another and remain trapped in the complex process of social migration. In 2017, nearly a quarter of a million people came to Britain. And each person brought in a new narrative with elements of uniqueness and subjectivity. We could say that, in 2017, hundreds of thousands of stories came to Britain too. Untold life experiences, unheard voices; hundreds of years of education, culture, music and skills.

And this is the main focus of ‘Who We Are’ a project initiated by the artist Jen Whiskerd from University of Gloucestershire (UoG) supported by many art students, University of Winchester, illustrators, bookmakers, printers, writers, researchers, photographers. Using eight stories about migration (told by Adelaide Morris, Shelley Campbell, Fumio Obata, Anita Roy, Dolores Phelps, Maria Stadnicka, Ro Saul, John Stadnicki), the UoG art students (undergraduate and postgraduate courses) have produced a brilliant book which will be launched this weekend at Museum in the Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire.

Photograph: ©Emma Evans, 2018

The book, printed by Emma Evans UoG, Pittville Press, is a collection of poetry, photography, drawings, journal notes, animation.

The event is free and will take place at the Walled Garden Room, Museum in the Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire /

Saturday 20th Jan. 2018, at 2pm.

Come along to share your story and enjoy the launch or just to listen and to be inspired!

It has been my privilege to be part of this.

Maria Stadnicka, 2018

Gloria Mundi

II – MMXVIII

I – MMXVIII

 

 

 

 

 

 

III – MMXVIII

IV – MMXVIII

V – MMXVIII

 

 

 

 

 

 

VI – MMXVIII

VII – MMXVII

IX – MMXVIII

 

 

 

 

 

 

X – MMXVIII

 

XI – MMXVIII

XII – MMXVIII

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photography: ©John Stadnicki 2018

 

‘Acts of Survival’ – International Times

Illustration ©Claire Palmer 2018, ‘International Times’

– for Peter J. King –

Before the execution date,
each night,
lands I have never seen come to visit
this self-contained universe.
The only place for waiting, for submitting,
the place where god decided
it was the moment to shoot itself.
This captivity has become an act of survival,
for an industrious nation of slaves.
Here, the immediate!
The fear behind the hate sounds louder and louder
in each city where cathedrals
are now for sale
on detergent coupons.

A man is lost at sea, I hear,
total strangers marching East
minutes before the water-ropes bring the closure.

Here and now, my enemy,
the blood inside all my cavities has become
the last supper
for I,
chiselled, strapped, nailed to my crimes,
had confessed: ECCE HOMO!

My nation, my never-never land!

If we have been at war for thousands of years,
still,
barehanded,
catching bullets today,
in these meat-eating times,
it is the pain which, finally, will set us free,
not words.
The silent joy of those who know
how very few will make it through the
death sentence.

The poem was published today in International Times and can be accessed here.

‘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!