'To Autumn' responses

We recently used Keats's great Ode 'To Autumn' as our Poem of the Week around the school. Liam Canning's Junior Certificate class wrote responses to this, and here are two : by Jessica Sheil and Jasper Pickersgill (since half-term winds have started to strip the beautiful leaves from the many trees around the College).

Jessica writes, in her piece 'Autumn - a painting' :-

There was an autumnal feel to the air and the view was so perfect you could almost swear you were in a painting, except it would be almost impossible to get so many different shades of greens and yellows and browns and reds into one picture.

Ireland's Other Poetry

Old Columban John Wyse Jackson, together with artist Hector McDonnell, is launching their new book Ireland's Other Poetry - Anonymous to Zozimus on Wednesday 14th at the Solomon Gallery in Dublin. It is published by the fine Lilliput Press. The website/blog for the book is here. John writes :-

You may reasonably protest that the good poets of Ireland are well known enough already. This may be true in the case of the so-called 'serious' ones - WB Yeats and Seamus Heaney being prime examples. But if on one side of the Irish literary fence these Famous Poets are preaching to their adoring public, on the other side, peering at them curiously, there is a ragged army of Anonymous Balladeers, Parodists, Stage Lyricists, Gifted Children, Comic Rhymesters, Advertising Copywriters, Poetasters, Academics, Rock Singers, Bards and Miscellaneous Versifiers. These neglected unfortunates, most of whom haven't got a public at all, are our ‘Other Poets’; Ireland's Other Poetry was put together to give them a home.

Gerry Evans

Here's the first of a series of pieces by the actors playing parts in our Senior Play at the end of next week, Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel. Oscar Nunan, new to the school this term, is playing Gerry Evans, the father of the narrator Michael, and occasional visitor to Ballybeg and the Mundy sisters. He writes :-

I play the character Gerry, the eccentric Welsh salesman. Gerry is important as he balances the other characters and injects liveliness and 'punch' into the play. Although maybe not completely honest, he is an undeniably likeable character, who keeps up the tempo of the play and adds humour and wit. He is an element of comic relief from the tense domestic atmosphere. [full piece here]

The Manhunt

For the latest Poem of the Week, we return to the author of our first one last term, 'The Catch'. In the Sunday Times, Simon Armitage this week wrote (here) a piece called 'Battlefield Salvos', about his experience of talking to those traumatised by war for a Channel 4 documentary (C4, 12.11.07, 10pm) :-

Forgotten Heroes: The Not Dead is a war film. It’s about returning soldiers. And, in keeping with the time-honoured and dignified tradition of war poetry, the mode of expression is verse ... the last word comes not from a man but from Laura, Eddie’s wife. Tracing the scar of a bullet that took away part of her husband’s face, then continued pin-balling through his body, grazing his heart along the way, she describes the slow and sometimes painful process of trying to reach him, touch him, love him and make him human again.

So this is both a war poem, and a moving love poem. Read it here.

Orpheus

Our good wishes go to a previous contributor to our blog, former pupil Ben Russell, who tonight and tomorrow night makes his opera debut at the Cork Opera House in a version of Gluck's Orpheus from Opera Works.

In their words :-
A celebration of young talent, the production will feature the Cork Children’s Chorus, exciting new discovery nineteen year old Benjamin Russell in the title role, while Euridice, normally a soprano, will be performed by young Irish Ballet sensation, Jane Magan.

Shakespeare MP3 Project

As we return from our half-term break, sincere thanks from the English Department and the Library to our Mathematics colleague (and Shakespeare fanatic) Noel Coldrick, who has put an immense amount of work into transferring old recordings of Shakespeare's works into digital form, so that (in our laptop- and Ipod-enabled world), pupils and staff can access this more easily.

The display case in the Library is now showing a sample of his work, which is explained here by the man himself in his article for the forthcoming Library magazine, The Submarine :

To preserve these recordings, particularly the older more fragile tapes, a joint project was setup between the library and the SCC Shakespeare Society to transfer the material to MP3 CDs. By moving to MP3 format we also make the recordings more accessible to pupils who can now listen to plays they are studying on their Ipods.

The new MP3 collection has over 60 MP3 CDs covering over 200 hours of recordings, and in addition to the plays contains the Sonnets and the Narrative poems, Pearson’s Life of Shakespeare, various compilations of famous scenes and soliloquies and old archive recordings.

Continued here.

The Kite Runner

Many thanks to our friend Terry O'Malley, who has sent in pictures and material relating to Khaled Hosseini's bestselling novel The Kite Runner, recently recommended here by TY pupil Mark Kavanagh who has read it for his Extended Essay. Above, an Animoto video of some of the pictures Terry took on a visit to Afghanistan, as Chair of the Irish aid organisation SAFE (Support for Afghan Further Education). On a recent visit in August, Terry had a lucky escape in an ambush in which two people were killed. (The music on the video is 'Spaceman' by The Lift).

He visited Noor Agha (whose house is near the two Sufi graveyards as pictured) and took pictures of some of his vivid kites. The string is impregnated with powdered glass ...

See more about the background in these two articles. See also a Time Magazine article here.

We're now starting half-term, so posting will resume on our return, from Monday 5th November.

Review of 'The History Boys'

Recently, our Transition Year all went to the National Theatre production of Alan Bennett's play The History Boys, in the Olympia Theatre as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. Here is a comprehensive review of the play and the production, by Fiona Boyd :-

Over all the play was a success. I really enjoyed watching it and seeing the characters and storyline develop. I enjoyed the different uses of music and images which made the play much more interesting to watch, giving it a little bit more rhythm and pace. I thought it was really well acted. I felt the actor who played Irwin was holding back a little but that may have just been how he interpreted the character. I thought the schoolboys were acted really well and even though they didn’t look 17 at a first glance they acted it!

Read Fiona's full review here.

To Autumn

The last Poem of the Week before our half-term starts on Friday is the most famous and anthologised of all poems about this time of year, John Keats's 'To Autumn' :

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Full text here. See the John Keats Forum here. Pictured, a couple of views of the College. The trees around the grounds are really stunning at the moment.

Haddon, Plath, Lynch

Further TY Extended Essay recommendations :-

Poppy Vernon has read the latest novel by Mark Haddon, A Spot of Bother : 'I really enjoyed reading this book. It has a wonderful style - it is humorous but also matter of fact. It is based on a family who are slowly falling to pieces: mother, father, daughter, her fiance and her child. The parents are unhappy about their rather unreliable daughter getting married, because they feel he is not good enough, but slowly realise that their own marriage is falling apart. Meanwhile, outside all the mayhem of affairs and arguments, the husband is slowly going mad.'

One of Fiona Boyd's books is Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar : 'I really enjoyed the beginning of this book, but it got a bit boring and slow towards the middle. The main character is a young woman who is troubled, but is very interesting and intelligent. She sees right through people's phoniness, and his a unique way of looking at the world. I like the style as it is very poetic.'

Henry Hatton has read Chris Lynch's Inexcusable : 'This is a story about a boy called Kier, who has very bad luck. He lives an ordinary decent life, and is very mannerly and trusting. He has a crush - a crush which is one-way. This book is about the unfortunate events which follow; it opens your mind about how monstrous a normal person can be. It gives Kier's thoughts in his ordinary life, in school, on the pitch and at home. When you read one chapter, you find that the next is totally different, and I think that makes reading it more enjoyable. Kier is a great character, and when reading, it is like you have a telescope and are looking into his thoughts. It is a truly great story.'

Shelley

The winner of the competition, based on Ronan Swift's song 'My Bookcase', to identify the author who died the youngest, is Zachary Stephenson, who gets a €10 booktoken for identifying the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was 29 when he died (some got it slightly wrong by saying 30).

II, I and Primary Plays

Last night we had the first drama productions of the year, the II form and I/Primary plays in the BSR. Both were highly accomplished and entertaining light-hearted one-acters. I form and Primary put on Martians are Really Nice People by Bill Condon, directed by Anne Hallahan and Tristan Clarke, featuring in the main parts Alexandra Owens, Chris Doherty, Michael Dunne, Zachary Stephenson, Lily Guinness, Jamie Boyd and Molly Buckingham.

The II form play, directed by Ronan Swift and Ulrike Riemenschneider, was King Chicken by Allan Mackay ('the play's action takes place in deepest darkest Africa'). Stanley (Hannah Wentges) and Bottomley (Patrick Tice) were rather nervous explorers looking for the lost Dr Livingstone (Opeline Kellett), and on the way encountering Tarzan (Robin Fitzpatrick) and Jane (Bronwyn Mallon), as well as the Bantu Chief Oyinda Onabanjo, plus some dancing lions.

Well done to all concerned - plainly, there's lots of dramatic talent for the years ahead.

Extended Essays

This coming week is the last one before half-term, and Transition Year pupils are coming to the end of their reading for their Extended Essay (the Essay itself must be completed by Wednesday 14th November). This week, they get classes to help plan and structure the pieces.

More on what they have been reading :-

Mark Kavanagh on the recent bestseller The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini (see his website here) :- 'The main characters are a boy named Amir and his friend Hassan. They begin as two young boys growing up in Afghanistan, and as the story progresses, so do their lives. The setting is sad because we see a once-beautiful land transformed into a war-torn wasteland. The book is split roughly into two parts, the first ending with Amir living in America and the second beginning when he must once again visit the land of his birth.'

Gina Mirow is doing her project on modern slavery, and has read Mende Nazer's Slave : 'I can highly recommend this book because it opens your eyes to how horribly cruel the world can be. Some people seem to think that slavery doesn't exist any more, but Mende has only been free since 2001. Although it is gob-smacking at times, it is consistently interesting and well-written.'

Emma Davies recommends Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, 'as it covers a wide range of topics such as religion, war and childhood. It also covers emotions such as love, hate and happiness.' See an impressive website for the book here.

Deane, Gilmore, and Family Secrets

More TY Extended Essay book recommendations:-

Lauren Meyler has been reading Seamus Deane's fine novel Reading in the Dark (which we sometimes study for the Leaving Certificate) : 'My Extended Essay is about Irish history. This book is very suited to my subject, particularly in the way characters react with each other; they are all well described. It is about a young boy trying to figure out his broken family's secret. It is very interesting and descriptive.'

Also on family secrets, Sebastian Stephenson is reading Mikal Gilmore's extraordinary family-autobiography Shot in the Heart : 'This is a very powerful book about a murderer who wished to be punished by death. This history is seen through the eyes of the youngest son, Mikal. It is very sad and even surreal, to the point where I almost thought it was fiction.'

Personal Reading, Personal Writing

This morning one of our Department teachers, Ronan Swift, gave a talk in Chapel about his reading over the years :-

Writing about our past, our memories, our home places and our ancestors is, I think, within everyone's grasp. You don't need to be a tremendously creative person to do it; we all have some story to tell. Which is why I enjoy books of this kind above nearly any other genre. Memories and autobiographies, the stories of other people's lives, told by themselves, fascinate me.

Ronan mentioned and recommended several books, including Hugh Leonard's Home Before Night, Laurie Lee's As I Walked out one Midsummer Morning, Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life and In Pharoah's Army, and his current read, John McGahern's powerful Memoir. Read Ronan's full talk here, and see the covers of the books he mentions above. Some of these books are being shown in the Library display case.

Then he sang a 'thank you' and 'apology' song to books, the lyrics to which are here. Pupils - a 10euro book token to the winner of the competition, working out which author died youngest, and at what age? (And who was the member of staff who was on 'Sunday Miscellany'?)

Scaffolding

The eleventh Poem of the Week is 'Scaffolding', by Seamus Heaney. Pictured, the scaffolding currently around the Cadogan Building, as its refurbishment and conversion into a music and performance centre continues (due to finish in December).

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job's done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.

Bullying Awareness

Today is Bullying Awareness Day at the College, when the whole school pays attention to this important issue in general discussions. Some of these are being prompted by Andrew Motion's poem 'The Game', which was specially written for Childline in 2000 by the British Poet Laureate.

It starts :-
I must tell you this:
there was a boy - Tommy Prentice.
The afternoon I'm thinking about
he stopped me with his shout
of just my first name,
all friendly-like - no blame,
jealousy, resentment or distrust -
telling me I must
come out with him now
and play - he had friends waiting, although
it was me that they wanted: without me
the game was no good. OK?
Of course OK. Tommy Prentice
was tall, handsome, cool, useful at fly-half,
with slick, black hair fringeing his level stare.
And he wanted me? Like I say,
of course it was OK.

Continued ...

Jordan, Blixen, Doherty

More TY reading recommendations for the Extended Essay :-

Molly Sanderson has been reading Berlie Doherty's novel Dear Nobody : 'I really enjoyed this book. As I am writing my Extended Essay on 'suffering in relationships', I though I would read it because it is about a relationship between young people, in which both suffer. I also enjoyed the way the book was written in two parts. Some was through the boy's eyes, and the rest was the girl writing letters to her unborn baby, who she describes as 'Nobody'. I really loved it!'

Jasper Mathews recommends Robert Jordan's Lord of Chaos : 'This is a well-written book with good characters. The author keeps you interested throughout the book by moving from character to character in different places. It is set in a fantasy world, where the struggle between good and evil is reaching its height. However, the book is number 6 of a series of 12, so unless you've read the first 5, it would be confusing and hard to understand.'

Sarah O'Mahony has read Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) : 'I really like the attention to detail, especially with description. The storyline is interesting and beautiful. It has a magical aspect to it, and I love the setting, in Eastern Africa.'