Voices of Poetry 2026

The long-standing annual Voices of Poetry event (founded by former English teacher John Fanagan decades ago) took place on Sunday evening in the BSR, the speakers picked out by spotlights at a podium in a darkened hall. This last general event of the school year is a quiet one, a complete contrast to the raucous House Quiz in early September. It is an evening of listening and attention, in the presence of lovely languages. It was again presented by Mr Girdham.

 

First off was Zlata Lazarieva, with an excellent rendition in Ukrainian, followed by Thea Ciofani with Dante from Italian. Next was a first for this evening, a poem in Old Dutch, a very distinctive sound voiced by Roemer Lodewijk. Two Romance languages followed: French (Rimbaud) from Daniel Passmore, and Spanish from Olivia Sanchez.

 

The first English poem of the evening was Emily Dickinson’s ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’, a staple of the Leaving Certificate course, read for us by Daisy Sherwood-Smith. Alex Kierski gave us a piece by the Polish Nobel Laureate Wisława Szymborska, and then Marie Weber reverted to English with the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

 

Camilla Steffani and Sidonie Wied (with her own poem) both read in German, and Charlotta Rosengren in a language not often heard at Voices of Poetry, Swedish.

 

A resumption of English came with the winner of this year’s Junior Poetry Prize, Daniel Brady and his poem ‘Forgotten Times’. He was followed by another Second Former, Ella Girdham, who read Wendy Cope’s poignant ‘Names’, and two more, Elena Campillo Aviles and Paola Reques Tovar, who shared a reading in Spanish.

 

As Mr Girdham said, many of those reading had also been seen on the BSR stage in November in the successful Shakespeare Society production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, including Alice McCarthy and Ferdia Murray (both with Irish), and then Oscar Cleland-Bogle (Kipling’s famous ‘If’) and Jason Otolorin (Maya Angelou).

 

Returning to Ukrainian (and to ‘hope’ as we heard from Emily Dickinson earlier), Pavlo Bezuhli read resonantly, followed by the utterly different Mandarin Chinese of Eric Wang. There was then a second German pair, Nathan Wachs and Friedrich Hinrichs.

 

James Breatnach recited Shelley’s famous sonnet ‘Ozymandias’, Daniel Moran (winner of the Senior Drama Prize for playing Puck in November) a speech from Hamlet, and the Warden gave us a taste of Latin in a Catullus poem. 

 

Safia Walker, the Senior Prefect, read out a work by last year’s winner of the Senior Poetry Prize, Stella Borrowdale, and the very last reader was Delia Brady, who was announced as this year’s winner of the Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry. The trophy (pictured, by sculptor Joe Sloan) commemorates Old Columban Peter Dix, who died in the Lockerbie bombing of 1988.  We headed out into the spectacular light of a sunny May evening, moved and uplifted.

Voices of Poetry 2025

 

As happens annually, and has done for about 40 years since former Head of English Mr John Fanagan initiated the event, Voices of Poetry took place on Sunday evening, the last major event in the BSR of the school year.

And as happens annually, many pupils and a handful of staff read or recited short poems in a variety of languages under a single spotlight in a darkened hall. It is a moment for attention and listening, a pause in the busy-ness of school life, and a celebration of our diversity. Mr Girdham presented the evening and introduced the speakers.

 

Violeta Mykhalova opened confidently with a Ukrainian poem about summer, appropriately as the holidays get close. An utterly different language is Akrikaans: Kasimir zu Bentheim used to live in South Africa and so read a piece in that language.

The first English poem of the evening was in ‘American’, in the extraordinary style of the great Emily Dickinson, ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’. Moving much further South, Spanish as spoken in Mexico was represented by Eleazar Reygadas Lopez, who read a piece by the 1990 Mexican winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Octavio Paz.

That variety continued in the first poem of the evening in Mandarin Chinese, recited vividly by Rachel Jiang, and it was further emphasised in Polish by Marianna O’Shaughnessy in a piece by another Nobel Prize-winner, Wisława Szymborska.

 

As Mr Girdham pointed out, it takes some courage to compose and then read out in such an arena your own words, and Nia Jessup was the first of the pupils to do so, with her poem 'The Wish I Regret'.

European languages came next, starting with Anna McGrath (French), Allegra Caccia (Montale in Italian), Otto Dalwigk (Bavarian dialect) and Carola Moreno (Spanish). The second composer-reader was Delia Brady, with 'The Green Island', about her family’s relationship to the Irish Famine of the 1840s. Irish was represented by Fleur Green. Then the third composer-reader was Finn Woolsey, who read an affecting personal poem about a friend, ‘Petals in the Wind’.

Four First Formers read short poems: Daniela Casasus Benitez (Spanish), Ella Girdham (German: ‘Wir’ by Irmela Brender), Fiona Zhong and Ada Yang (both Mandarin). Jason Otolorin returned us to English, with Ian Duhig’s ‘From the Irish’.

The Junior Poetry Prize was this year won by Suvi-Helene Cully, and Mr Kirwan read out her winning poem ‘When the Storm Comes’. As usual, the Warden recited a poem from the store of works he has learned off by heart, this time Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’. Then Mr Canning announced the winner of this year’s Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry, Stella Borrowdale, whose prize-winning poem he read out.

Finally, Senior Prefect Harry Smith Huskinson closed proceedings with Sylvia Plath’s ‘Song for a Summer’s Day’, which he had read at his mother’s wedding. This echoed the opening poem of the night: another about summer, and its lovely image ‘Sunday’s honey-air’, a perfect note on which to end.                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Voices of Poetry 2024

The long-standing Voices of Poetry event at the end of May provides a pause-point in the year. It is the last major event in the Big Schoolroom, and on a Sunday evening at the end of a busy weekend it gives us all a moment to listen attentively and appreciate great writing.

As always, it featured a mixture of English and other languages. It is remarkable how much one can get out of another language in terms of musicality even if the words are mysterious. Readers did give brief introductions to each of their pieces, and 23 poems were covered in 45 minutes, with Mr Girdham presenting and linking them.

Anton Demenko kicked things off in Ukrainian, followed by an utterly different language from a totally different part of the world: Bibiire Oke-Osanyintolu recited a poem in Yoruba from Nigeria.

The first English poem came from Eoin Siegel – Robert Frost’s famous ‘The Road Taken’, with its resonant final lines 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

On the thin grounds that both languages start with the letter ‘I’, but on the more substantial ones that they are both beautifully euphonious, Italian and Irish followed, with four poems intertwined and recited by Anna Luisa Sanminiatelli, Euan Flanagan, Francesco Malacarne and Molly Mann.

Shannon Walker Kinsella chose to read Cassandra Wright’s ‘Clandestine Meeting’, and she was followed by three ‘Iberian’ languages – Spanish (Pedro Olea), South American/Venezuelan Spanish (Manuela Nassief) and Portuguese (Kayra Mbanefo).

Congratulations to Nia Jessup, winner of this year’s Junior Poetry Prize for her touching poem ‘My Love’, about her grandmother, which she read out movingly.

Quite a jump then to one of the most unusual European languages, Hungarian (unconnected to any other, apart from, peculiarly, Finnish), from Gaspar Kekessy and Kasimir zu Bentheim.

And another jump to Mr Swift, who marked his interest in golf by reading out John Updike’s tribute to Payne Stewart, who came to a tragic end in 1999 at the age of 42.

Neighbouring France and Germany came next, with poems read out by Olivia Borbath and Vito Wieser, followed by two major languages from further afield, Arabic (Cecilia Corti) and Mandarin Chinese (Merida Zhang).

English rounded things up: Hal Somerville recited Byron’s dramatic ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib‘ from 1815, followed by the Warden again impressively performing one of his many learnt-poems, Rudyard Kipling’s classic ‘If’. Finally, the awarding of the Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry was marked by the Sub-Warden reading out one of Isabella Treacy’s winning poems from her portfolio. Congratulations to her on winning the prize for three years in a row.

As Mr Girdham said at the end, there is nothing better than catching up with some reading in whatever areas pupils like best. And why not some poetry?

Voices of Poetry 2023

Voices of Poetry has been going for many years: a unique event, it provides a punctuation point at a particular part of the school year: Sixth Form have finished classes, the Sports Day is over, and ahead are the St Columba’s Day weekend, the public exams, the excitement of trips week, and finally the school exams. For 45 minutes we pause in the middle of all this activity and listen in the BSR to voices in different languages, both pupils and staff speaking in a darkened hushed auditorium lit by a single spotlight. The event celebrates the great diversity of the College population, and, appropriately, this year it was Pentecost, with its associations with speaking in many tongues.

 

On Sunday evening, a group of three foreign languages started us off, linked tenuously by their first letter. Chinese (Mandarin) was spoken musically by Coco Xu, and she was followed by Czech - Phoebe Landseer, with a piece by 1984 Nobel winner Jaroslav Seifert - and Catalan (Tomas Rosa Echevarria). The rhythm of the evening was that then we reverted to English for three poems: Mr Kirwan was at the event for the first time, reading Thomas Hardy, followed by two Second Formers: Lexi Hunter with 'Prayer' by Carol Ann Duffy and Elizabeth Coffey with ‘The Great Blasket Island’ by Julie O’Callaghan, which you can hear the poet herself read here.

 

Romance languages formed the next cluster: French from Hugo Laurenceau and Ebah Assebian, Spanish from Eugenia Garcia and Olivia Valderrama, and Italian from Anna Luisa Sanminiatelli. Back to English: Mr Swift read the ever-excellent and amusing Billy Collins's ‘Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House’, followed by two more Second Formers, with both Jack-Francis McKeon (‘Earth Summit’ by Oliver Tearle) and James Breatnach (the famous ‘Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats) reading confidently.

 

An extremely eclectic group came next: Yoruba from Bibiire Oke-Osanyintolu, Irish from Naoise Murray, Ancient Greek from Edvard Zujest and Arabic from Anna-Cecilia Corti. You could hardly find languages with less in common, but all of them marked by a very different and beautiful music.

 

A First Former and the Warden followed: Harry Casey read his own work ‘Farewell’ and then the Warden recited one of the poems he learned years ago, Walter de la Mare’s dramatic and evocative ‘The Travellers’.

 

The final foreign-language group was from countries close to each other: German (Hannah Bergmann), Danish (Melina Paulsen), Ukrainian (Anhelina Khliebnykova) and Polish (Aleksander Kierski). The last of these was ‘Clouds’ by the 1996 Nobel Laureate, Wisława Szymborska, and Mr Girdham read out the English translation first.

 

The evening came to a close with Nikolai Foster representing Sixth Form and leavers with Berton Braley’s ‘The Will to Win’, some advice for those whose time at the school is not yet coming to an end. Then Mr McCarthy, whose time is, recited Langston Hughes’s ‘Life is Fine’.

We ended with Junior Poetry Prize winner Giacomo Borillo’s touching ‘The Beautiful Beach’, thinking of his grandfather who died a year ago. That reflective note was the right one on which to end, a recognition of how poetry can console us and express what truly matters to us.

Voices of Poetry 2022

Sunday evening saw the special event that is Voices of Poetry return to the Big Schoolroom in its long-lasting and infallible format: a pupil or teacher reading a short poem after a brief explanation in a darkened room, picked out by a single spotlight. Some of these were in languages other than English: it is amazing how powerful such readings can be, even if you don’t understand the lines. The evening was organised by Mr Swift, and the presenter was Mr Girdham.

Marianne Lee from First Form opened proceedings, with her own evocative poem ‘The Witching Hour’, followed by Mr Jameson from the English Department with a translation of a poem by the Swedish Nobel Laureate Tomas Tranströmer, 'The Tree and the Sky'.

The other languages kicked in: poems in Italian (Alexia Fantacci), German (Toni Ladanyi), Cecilia Corti (Arabic), Irish (Dairbhre Murray) and Chinese (Harry Wang). The aural contrasts were fascinating.

Mr Girdham then read out ‘Resistance’, recently written by the British Poet Laureate Simon Armitage in solidarity with all those under fire and bombardment in Ukraine, which led on naturally to Pavlo Shvalov reading a piece in Ukrainian celebrating his country’s independence.

Another step change was to Leonid Mylvaganam, who read out his own flowing work, close to performance poetry. Three European languages came next: Dutch (Josefien Hutchinson), French (Eole Mignot) and Spanish (Mateo Aliaga). Again, it was remarkable to hear the differences even though you can drive from one country to the next.

This year’s Junior Poetry Prize was won by Delia Brady, and her poem 'The Moon' was read by Anna Rose McManus.  She was followed by the Warden, who said that from a young age at prep school he had to learn poems off by heart, and he recited G.K. Chesterton’s ‘The Donkey’.

Then, Slavic languages were represented by Polish (Dr Pyz) and Czech (Phoebe Landseer).  

The next two poems brought us close to the end, with two people who are soon to leave the College: Ms Heidi Kavanagh (Yeats’s ‘When You are Old and Grey’) and the Senior Prefect, Evie Pringle, with Stevie Smith’s 'In My Dreams'.

And finally, Mr Canning announced the winner of this year’s Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry (pictured), Isabella Treacy, and read out a poem from her winning portfolio, 'The Knots'.

To conclude, Mr Girdham recommended Pádraig Ó Tuama’s podcast Poetry Unbound: a short podcast twice a week on a single poem, with Ó Tuama’s reflections. It does what poetry should do for readers: provide a space for attention away from the busy noise of the world. And that is just what Voices of Poetry does too.

Voices of Poetry 2019

That lovely late-season annual event, Voices of Poetry, took place on Sunday evening in the Big Schoolroom. It is a fine pause in the maelstrom of the ending of the school year, just before examinations start: listening to great verse in many languages is balm for the soul.

Again Mr Swift co-ordinated with his characteristic skill and lightness of touch. Helen Crampton started with a reading of the first poem she had learned as a child, Wordsworth's 'I wandered lonely as a cloud' (aka 'Daffodils'), followed by Mr Finn's strong recital of D.H. Lawrence's evocative 'Piano' ('Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me'). He was followed by Iona Chavasse's 'Wild Like the Sea That Raised Her', composed in the Poetry Slam in March, a haunting incantatory piece.

Then it was on to other languages, including Spanish (Anna Laurenceau with Neruda), French (David White with Baudelaire), Sicilian dialect (for the first time, from Ms Pirrone), Latin (Tania Stokes with Horace), Turkish (Liz Kolat), Mexican dialect (Camilla Garcia), Ukrainian (Dmytro Kasienenko), Dutch (Cato Oldenburg), German (Tatiana Hopkins), Igbo (Sarah Maduwuba), Irish (Naoise Murray), Cantonese (Sinéad Cleary) and Mandarin (Zong Yuan Kou).

In English we also heard Stella Jacobs with Whitman's 'O Captain, My Captain!' and Ms Morley with Liz Lochhead's thought-provoking 'The Choosing'. The Warden recited Newbolt's 'Vitaï Lampada', and Mr Swift paid tribute to his late brother in his reading of John Updike's 'Perfection Wasted' (here read by Garrison Keillor). Senior Prefect Harry Oke-Osanyintolu gave us Brendan Kennelly's optimistic 'Begin' from the Leaving Certificate poetry course.

Two highlights were readings by this year's winners of the poetry prizes, Emma Hinde (junior, with 'Tree-maker') and Tania Stokes (senior, with her sonnet 'Seeing Tunnels').

No better way to finish it all off than with William Carlos Williams's 'This Is Just to Say', read by Daniel Murray:

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Voices of Poetry 2018

That excellent annual event, Voices of Poetry, took place last night in the BSR. Every year it seems the sun is shining outside as the darkened space, lit by a single spotlight, gives us an hour's treat of great poetry. As Mr Swift, the compère in black tie, pointed out, there was a '175' tinge this time.

Again there was the mixture of poems in English and other languages, and of pupils and staff reading. The first off was appropriately the Senior Prefect, Kitty Morris, with a poem she had studied in Irish class, followed by two pupils with their own poems - Emma Hinde, winner of the Junior Poetry Prize, with 'Eye of the Storm' and Caoimhe Cleary, Commended for the Peter Dix Memorial Prize, with 'Electric Picnic'.

Mr Swift was proud to have unearthed possibly the most obscure yet in the history of the event, as Shannon Dent read a poem from a native pre-Columbian Ecuadorian language. This was followed i by Latin (JiWoo Park), Italian (Sveva Ciofani), French (Georg Mueller-Methling), Korean (JiWoo Park again) and Vietnamese (Florian Zitzmann). Tiernan Mullane read in 'American' Raymond Carver's 'My Death', and then there were Swedish (Gioia Doenhoff), German (Carla Ladanyi) and Swahili (Akin Babajide).

Poetry has featured throughout the Columban year, and Jasmine Williams read a piece from the 'Poem in Your Pocket' initiative on Ireland Poetry Day (and in Mental Health Week), Walt Whitman's 'I Dreamed in a Dream'. Poetry Aloud was represented by national finalist Harry Oke-Osanyintolu, who recited Thomas McCarthy's 'State Funeral'. Next Mr Swift sprang a surprise: a €10 tuck-shop voucher with a poem was taped to the bottom of one chair, and Polina Grakhovskaia had it. She sportingly came into the spotlight to read our 'The Dead' by Billy Collins (and retain the voucher). There was a bravura performance by Mr Swift himself of his own 'Poetry Slam' piece, written as lyrics for one of his songs. Next was Kate Higgins with another Irish poem.

Four teachers were next. Mr Girdham read 'Breaking-up Night', a poem from The Columban magazine of 1890 nostalgically recalling the old pre-Christmas tradition; it is reproduced in the new book Floreat Columba. The founder of Voices of Poetry, retired Head of English Mr John Fanagan, had written his own poem marking the College's 175 years, and read it out. You can see it at the bottom of this post. The Warden followed, impressively reciting from memory Rudyard Kipling's famous 'If' (written for Kipling's only son, who died in the Great War: this is marked in Wellington College, where the Warden previously taught). Mr Finn followed, also reciting from memory, this time Yeats's 'September 1913', which he had learned when studying for the Leaving Certificate (it is still often on the course).

Frank Meng's reading of a poem Mandarin was dramatic, as was Katie Lam's in Cantonese, and then Éile Ní Chianáin read the third Irish poem of the evening.


 Rounding off, as is traditional, was the recent winner of the Peter Dix Senior Prize for Poetry, Tania Stokes, with her 'Death of A Moth' (she is pictured above with Mr Swift and Mr Fanagan), and then Manuela Sanchez from Primary with Yeats's 'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.'

And so the final whole-school BSR event of the year came to a lovely close.

SCC 175, by John Fanagan

May in 1843 saw
St Columba's on its way.
From the plains of County Meath
To Whitechurch where we are today.

Wardens, teachers, pupils all
Have given of their very best.
We celebrate 175
Moving forward with new zest.

So much has changed, yet much remains
Of what has made us what we are:
Our friendships and our memories
Now span the world both near and far.

Next weekend it's party time,
With sports, a barbeque and ball.
Tonight, as one who loves this place,
I say happy birthday to us all.


27 May 2018

Voices of Poetry 2017

 Last Sunday evening saw the annual Voices of Poetry magic in the Big Schoolroom. Expertly marshalled by Mr Swift, a mixture of pupils and staff read out short poems in English and many other languages.

Primary pupil Carl Krenski kicked off with a Robert Service poem, and, from the other end of the school Senior Prefect Blanaid Sheeran gave us 'The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently' by the fine American Poet Thomas Lux.

The first Nigerian language, Urhobo, was represented by a poem read by Ella Ejase-Tobrise, and the second, Yoruba, by Seyilogo Braithwaite. Mimi Garcia (Catalan) and Casper von der Schuelenburg (Spanish) followed, and this foreign language section was completed by Elena Sirazetdinova reading her own poem in Russia with compelling intensity.

The winner of the Junior Poetry Prize, Tania Stokes, read this poem, 'Resonance', for which she was awarded the prize.

Kim Voggel (German), Aleksandra Murphy (Polish),  Lucas Cho (Korean), Vietnamese (William Zitzmann) and Irish (Katherine Kelly, with Megan Bulbulia providing the English translation) were next up.

Three long-term teachers, who are shortly retiring, gave their poetic 'valetes' - Dr Garry Bannister, Mrs Frances Heffernan and Mr Fraser Morris. There was a mixture of the light-hearted, the deeply personal and the grippingly emotional in the five poems they recited.

French (Nyla Jamison), Yoruba again (Harry Oke-Osanyintolu) and Latin (Julius Reblin with some Horace, and JiWoo Park with the translation) completed the foreign language poems, before the Warden gave a memorable rendition of Hilaire Belloc's 'Matilda', which he knew off by heart.

Finally, another Primary pupil brought us full-circle, with Nikolai Foster reading Yeats's beautiful 'Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven', an appropriately magical end to the evening.

Voices of Poetry 2016

Last Sunday evening saw again the lovely annual occasion which is Voices of Poetry, expertly co-ordinated for the eighth year by Mr Swift. As we have often mentioned, it is an infallible formula - lovely short poems in different languages read on the final 'full' weekend of the year. And so often it seems blissfully sunny outside, contrasting with the dark hush of the Big Schoolroom, which is broken by a single spotlight. The photograph was taken 15 minutes before the event began, on the way to the BSR.

Nyla Jamieson's 'Dancing', written for the Senior Poetry, was first up, followed by another entry, Oisin Large's 'The Time has Come'. Second Prefect Bunmi Oyateru then read a poem by Amiri Baraka. The foreign language poems started with one in Russian (Elizaveta Kozhevnikova). Douglas Boyd Crotty followed with Irish and Jack Thurk with 'American' ('On the Death of a Next-Door Neighbor').

French was represented by Ciara Gumsheimer and Spanish by Juliane Hastedt. Charlotte Moffitt recited her Poetry Aloud entry, Yeats's 'The Song of Wandering Aengus' and four poems followed in other languages read by Pia Zulauf (German), Swedish (Louvisa Karlsson-Smythe), Latin (Callum Pery-Knox-Gore) and Italian (Gabriella Castagna Rubio).

A tradition has it that retiring teachers are invited to read, and Mrs Haslett read out a hugely entertaining section of Carol Ann Duffy's 'The Laughter of Stafford Girls' High' (listen to a version in a Joanna Lumley programme here). She was followed by the Chaplain, who arrived this year, and who amused all by reading in a 'language' never heard before at this event: Cockney.

Catalan (Gemma Rodriguez, from Andorra) and Portuguese (Rafael Mendes) followed, and then the newest member of the English Department, Mrs Donnelly, read 'The Horses' by Ted Hughes. She was followed by the outstanding winner of the Junior Poetry Prize, Tania Stokes, with her winning entry 'Metaphorest'.

The Warden, Dr Haslett, retires at the end of this term, and he read two poems: Michael Longley's superb 'Ceasefire' (read by the poet himself here) and Tennyson's 'Crossing the Bar'. A real contrast was Chingrui Yan's short poem in Chinese.

Finally, three pupils wrapped up the evening: Helena Gromotka, winner of this year's Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry with 'Maybe', Senior Prefect Harvey McCone with his favourite poem, 'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven' by W.B. Yeats, and Sol Guitart Rivero from Primary with her own sweet poem 'Love'. A fine note on which to end an evening full of love for the written and spoken word.

Voices of Poetry 2015

The annual Voices of Poetry evening in the BSR last Saturday night was again lovely: 50 minutes of listening to excellent language in many tongues, expertly marshalled by Mr Ronan Swift.

He opened proceedings himself (fresh off the cricket pitch) by reading Simon Armitage's 'The Catch' (a former Poem of the Week). He was followed by Johnny Pollock, reading his own piece 'Sensing', and among the succeeding poems were ones in Polish (Heinrich zu Rantzau), French (John Clarke), Spanish (Nadia Al-Lahiq), German (Klara Schuster), Latin (Nikolaus Eggers), Portguese (Bethany Shiell), Romanian (Arantcha Giolgau), Catalan (Javier Ferrer), Italian (Gordian Fuchs), Ukrainian (Iryna Byshenko), Korean (Suji Frankel), Arabic (Robbie McDonald), Urdu (Hussein Khan), Irish (Ally Boyd Crotty) and Japanese (Sun Woo Park).

Interspersed with all these were poems in English: Samuel Clarke read Francis Ledwidge's 'The Lost Ones'. Tania Stokes read 'Tarzan's Pool', part of her recent Junior Poetry Prize-winning portfolio. The Sub-Warden read Michael Longley's moving 'Ceasefire', Blanaid Sheeran her Poetry Aloud entry 'Business Girls' by John Betjeman, Senior Prefect Arthur Moffitt 'Sea Fever' by John Masefield and finally Eliza Hancock read Clive James's lovely 'Japanese Maple' (recently on the Mock English paper) from his new collection Sentenced to Life.

Voices of Poetry 2014

The annual Voices of Poetry evening, one of the highlights of each year's weekend events, took place on the evening of Sunday 25th May, again expertly marshalled and presented by Mr Swift. 

The first reading, in English, was by Eleanor Moffitt, of Ifueko Bello-Asemota's poem 'Chibok', about the recent kidnappings in Nigeria, followed by Ugo Onwurah's excellent rendition of a pidgin English poem from the same country. We then zoomed over to Scandinavia with pieces from Louvisa Karlsson-Smthye (Swedish) and Nora Langguth (Norwegian) and continued on the Northern European theme with our staff visitor from the Netherlands Daan Dirksen, and a poem in German by Goethe, 'The Stolen Child', from Alanna Kerr (who leaves us this term). From the English Department, Ms Duggan went for Frank O'Hara's 'Animals'.

Some exotic locations followed: Ukraine (Anton Lysenko), Russia (Roman Sharykin) and Armenia (Kristina Danielyan), followed by a first - Farsi read by MJ McMullough.  The originator of the whole concept, our former Head of English John Fanagan, then gave a brief account of the reasons he had started Voices of Poetry many moons ago after experiencing a similar event at the University of Exeter International Summer School and read Seamus Heaney's fine sestina (which you can hear the poet himself reading at the following link) 'Two Lorries'. More English followed: Nyla Jamieson with her Junior Poetry Prize winner 'The Tear', and James O'Connor with the poem he recited at this year's Poetry Aloud competition, Robert Frost's 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'.

We moved back into non-English languages then, with Siobhan Brady (Irish), Nicholas Russell (Italian), French (Valentina Ascensio Munoz), Catalan (Laia Casas Abella), Indonesian (Aisha Burke), Korean (Sun Woo Park) and Cantonese (Tim Cheng).

The final group consisted of four leavers: our retiring Head of Geography, 'Ted' Sherwood, with Yeats's 'The Fisherman', a poem which, he said, has pursued him throughout his years in education, the Senior Prefect Alex Owens (Carol Ann Duffy's 'Valentine'), the winner of the Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry (Sadhbh Sheeran, for the third year in a row, with 'The Blight of Sunday Mass') and lastly Mantak Suen, with a memorable impact in Mandarin.

Many thanks to Mr Swift and all the readers for another lovely evening.

Voices of Poetry 2013

Always one of the highlights of the year, Voices of Poetry on Sunday evening was again a lovely occasion. We entered a darkened Big Schoolroom from the brilliance of a summer evening (pictured - the Deerpark just beforehand) for 50 minutes of great poetry from around the world, expertly marshalled and introduced by Mr Swift.

Jack Goulding opened proceedings appropriately with Billy Collins's 'Today' ('a spring day so perfect...'). He was followed by members of the I form sets reading two Seamus Heaney poems ('When all the others were away at Mass' and 'Mother of the Groom'), and then a group of poetry in romance languages, including Latin (Sadhbh Sheeran), Catalan (Cecilia Duran-Basso), Spanish (Richard Hartweck), Portuguese (Rebecca Jetter), Italian (Maria Trigo Puig) and French (members of Mr O'Shaughnessy's set). They were followed by the first staff reader, Mr McCarthy, who recited 'The Parthenon', a poem written by a Chaplain from the 1940s, F.A. Evelyn.

Following Irish (Mark Crampton), we headed back to more foreign-language poetry - German (Johanna von der Marwitz), Japanese (Saya Kasuze), Norwegian (Hakon Schug) and Arabic (Dena al Hamdan). A regular feature next - an entrant to the national Poetry Aloud competition, this time Henry Carroll with 'The Cold Heaven' by W.B. Yeats. Molly Buckingham followed, sportingly reading a poem on skiing (she had a close encounter with an Italian mountainside over Easter and is only just off crutches). 

The second staff member was Mr Jones from the Science Department, with Paula Meehan's 'Solace'. Three more foreign poems followed: Dutch (Pascal Dillenberger), Ukrainian (Anton Lysenko with a first) and Benin (Iyobosa Bello-Asemota).

This year's two poetry prize winners delivered a poem each from their winning portfolios - Lucia Masding (junior) and Sadhbh Sheeran (Senior), and they sandwiched Chinese (Mantak Suen) and Irish (the Senior Prefect Hamish Law read the latter, a poem by Máirtín Ó Direáin, as well as translating it). And finally, Candela Casasus read the perfect summer love poem, 'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven' by W.B. Yeats:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

We headed back out into the late evening sunshine, refreshed by our encounters with great literature from around the world.

Voices of Poetry 2012

Last night in the Big Schoolroom, we had one of the highlights of the year, the annual Voices of Poetry evening. As Mr Swift said in his introduction, it is the 'essence of summer'. The well-tried format worked its magic again in a warm Big Schoolroom illuminated only by a single spotlight. The evening provides us each year with a particular kind of mental space at the busiest time of all.

Douglas Boyd Crotty opened with Blake's 'Jerusalem', which he recited in the Poetry Aloud semi-final; he was followed by Samuel Clarke, with his poem 'It is Time', winner of the 2012 Junior Poetry Prize. Then came the first batch of foreign language poems - Italian (Dante, from Albert Kyd-Rebenburg), Latin (Catullus, from Friedericke Wagner), Spanish (Sophie Lamotte), French (Quirin v Blomberg). Hollie Canning read the first Irish poem of the evening, and then Primary as a group performed Rosemary Dobson's 'Folding the Sheets'. The first staff member to read was Mr Jameson, with Billy Collins's 'More than a Woman' (video link of Collins himself reading it, with commentary).

 

 

Noelle Knight read excellently a poem in Jamaican patois, followed by Bethany Shiell (Portuguese) and Russian (Ilya Zyzlaev). Two unusual languages followed - Azeri (Ricki Barnes) and Farsi (Aoise Keogan-Nooshabadi). Further eastwards we went - Chinese (Julia Xie) and Korean (Sun Hee Hwang). Then back to English - next year's tennis captains, Hamish Law and Kezia Wright performed Roger McGough's shape poem '40-love' as 'players'. Shannen Keogan, Second Prefect, chose a Máirtín O'Direáin piece in Irish. Mr Girdham contributed Sylvia Plath's poem about parenthood, 'You're'. Poems in German (Helene Peters) and Catalan (Anna Herrero) followed before the final cluster - Senior Prefect Jack Cherry contributed Rudyard Kipling's 'If' and a poem by his pal Angus Johnson from some years ago. The winner of this year's Peter Dix Award for Poetry (pictured), Sadhbh Sheeran, read 'Solstice', for a good friend lost recently. Finally, Chance Gustafson ended with American English.

 

 

Many thanks to Mr Swift for again providing us with another memorable evening.