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StAnza: Poetry Festival comes to St Andrews
Jasmine Wheelhouse explores all that this extravaganza has to offer
literary enthusiasts
StAnza, Scotland's leading poetry festival returns for another year, and this
year is proving to be as exciting, if not more, than the last. Having run
successfully here in St Andrews since 1998, the festival is now one of the
principal poetry festivals in the UK, attracting audiences from across the globe.
StAnza is a fantastic opportunity to engage in a wide variety of poetry in a wide
variety of exciting and atmospheric venues.
Each year the festival has two themes, which are designed to intertwine with
each other creating a unique combination of sheer brilliance. Myth and Legend
features as a theme this year, a subject that has been a source of influence and
inspiration to many poets and encapsulates a range of topics from classical
Greek mythology to stories from the Old Testament and fairy tales. The second
theme is a tribute to Brian Johnstone; the man who has taken the festival from
humble beginnings to the brilliance of what it is today.
The line up this year boasts a plethora of more than sixty poets from around the world, including Canada, USA, Germany, Italy, Spain, Cuba, Croatia, Australia and the UK. As well as poets, there are writers, artists, musicians, actors, film-makers and comedians who will deliver a vast range of poetry and related art works.
This year, the festival is delighted to welcome back the legend that is Seamus Heaney, who returns to St Andrews after over a decade. Heaney will take part in three events; one being the ever-popular Round Table where participants can listen up close to the work of one of the most well known poets of our time. The festival also embraces this years Poet in Residence, Kei Miller; a Jamaican poet and novelist currently teaching at the University of Glasgow.
Although the festival centers around poetry, there are many other aspects that feature, making the festival unique. Since the dawn of the festival, music has played a prominent part in setting the ambiance, with specialist musical performances that aim to enhance the experience of the event. Workshops are one of the great features of the festival, and run throughout, giving the audience an opportunity to work with participating poets who teach the skills of creative writing. There is also a chance for the public to display there own talent at an Open Mic session or get involved in lively debate at Poetry Breakfast discussions.
Amongst the abundance of events catering for the more educated among us, StAnza also provides for the younger generation. There will be readings from childrens authors to staged performances, and also a Childrens Poetry Competition open to children who are residents in Fife.
The Forgotten Garden
Olivia Miossac goes on a generational journey in Mortons
novel
The Witches of Eastwick
Sophia Latorre-Zengierski joins the witches on their
scandalous adventures
The Forgotten Garden, by KateMorton, will put you in an awful dilemma; wishing, on the one hand, to get to page 500 or so and finally open wide that closet full of skeletons, but on the other hand simply wanting the book to never end because it is so absorbing. Morton narrates the story of three women: Nell Andrews, Cassandra, and Eliza Makepiece, whose lives intertwine during the unravelling of a scandalous family secret, unresolved for decades.
The book opens at the beginning of the 20th century. A little girl wanders alone on board of a ship bound for Australia, with only a white suitcase in her possession. Years later, that suitcase is the only clue the grown-up Nell has in her life-long search for her past and the family who either lost or abandoned her.
In 2005, Cassandra finds her own questions unanswered when her grandmother, Nell, dies and leaves her a key, whose lock belongs to a Cornish cottage near Blackhurst Manor. With no family left in Australia, she finds herself travelling all the way to Cornwall to try and connect this foreign location to Nells past, retracing the same journey her grandmother partook in thirty years previously.
Eliza Makepiece provides an essential piece to Nell and Cassandras puzzle. Sent as a young girl to live with her aunt, uncle, and sickly cousin Rose in Blackhurst Manor, she disrupts their lives with her wild manners and her talent for spinning wonderfully dark tales... tales later published in a book, a copy of which can be found in little Nells white suitcase.
As a reader, you will find yourself completely immersed in the story as you travel from the poverty-stricken streets of London, to the unwelcoming, mysterious Blackhurst Manor; where sacrifices are crucial in the quest for social status. Another leap through time brings the reader to modern day Australia and back again across the ocean to a cursed, decaying cottage in the wet Cornish wilderness. Morton creates a truly believable world animated by three multidimensional women haunted by past hardship.
This book is highly recommended for those who enjoy a good mystery, sans the dead bodies or detectives. Instead a scandalous secret, family dramas and a multitude of fairy tales embedded within the chapters account for the suspense. Morton welcomes you into her maze as she shifts from one storyline to another, guiding you through its never-ending turns. She fills the pages with Nells faded memories of the past, Elizas entrapment in the devious plottings of Blackhurst Manor and Cassandras desperate search for answers. She even slips hints between the subtle lines of Elizas tales, allowing the reader to recreate, piece by piece, the complex puzzle that is The Forgotten Garden.
It takes a strong man, as the author, to confront womens issues. Some have managed to do so successfully like John Irving in The Cider House Rules. Others have struggled, leaving women to take up the issue as Margaret Atwood does in The Penelopiad. John Updike, critic, poet, and novelist decided in the 1980s to attempt to appease his feminist critics and delve into the dark depths of womens issues. The result was the charming The Witches of Eastwick.
As usual, Updike sets his story in small-town America; this time in Rhode Island. Eastwick is the quaint home of the witches: Alexandra, a sculptress, Sukie, the gossip columnist, and Jane, a cellist. Their world is changed once the mysterious Darryl Van Horne, a New Yorker, moves into the old, dilapidated Lennox Mansion. Though pompous and irritating at first, the three quickly succumb to his charm. But after a series of town misfortunes, the young and volnerable Jenny Gabriel returns to Eastwick after the death of her father and inadvertently steps too far into Darryls world. The witches, despite a series of misunderstandings unknown to them, seek revenge.
While the book starts slowly, it quickly picks up the pace as the women irrationally jump to conclusions, taking an unhappy set of events to a whole new level. These women are realistically painted, each representing a particular branch of womanhood, and the towns characters delightfully quirky as you expect to find in the small town. In fact, the small town element is one of things that makes this novel work; its a place where everyone knows everything about everyone else or at least they think they do. The witches Thursday meetings and telephone conversations are full of exciting gossip that make this an excellent pleasure read. This gossip becomes currency, manipulation runs rampant and power is a driving force. This may sound like a grown-up version of Mean Girls, but it is only one story element.
The gender problem is certainly visible three powerful divorced women share the title role. However, the womens lives quickly become centred around Darryl and the other men in their lives. And as a trio they are very co-dependent, unable to function properly without each others company. Arguably, this re-enforces male dominance.
Still, the witches, despite their sins, are intriguing characters, both independently and as a group. They have a realistic female friendship, in which they are extremely open with each other and at the same time very protective of one another. The book may not directly address the issues raised by Updikes feminist critics, but it is certainly worth joining Alexandra, Sukie and Jane in their scandalous adventures.
