MARTHA LABARE enjoys a disparate evening of performance that made significant connections

THE SUNDAY performances at Woodwick House began with a circle of twelve renga poets reading their collaborative poems. Two musicians improvised with them and then performed their own extended improvisation.

At the interval, the audience wandered to read text installations beyond the function room – in the conservatory, the sitting room, the garden, and the doocot. They re-gathered to hear Shetland’s Poet Partner read her prize-winning poems and beloved poems of others.

Jen Hadfield reading

Though of multiple parts, the program was of a piece, just as organizer Alistair Peebles had wished. It was anchored in a sense of place and connections – poets to poets, poetry to music, musician to musician, the images and sounds of words in their settings, and all these to their audience.

This starts with Thomas A. Clark’s WE ARE A CONVERSATION, its elegant blue letters significantly above the hearth and legible from the doorway across the room.

Tom’s Woodwick installations are part of the Yellow & Blue exhibition, which presents also the art books of artist Laurie Clark. These are accordion-opened across shelves at Porteous Brae, presenting a gallery of strong and delicate images. Tom’s installations beyond Woodwick connect to Neolithic homes at Braes o Ha’Breck in Wyre, on a poster — ON THE EARTH / UNDER THE SKY / BESIDE WATER– and on the T-shirts of the archaeological excavators. Each line’s color and font is specific to its place and the artist’s intentions and intuition.

Circled before the audience, poets of Orkney’s renga group premiered their work. Every month, they meet to compose a 20-stanza renga, a collaborative and imagistic Japanese form of three- and two-line stanzas. The four poems presented by twelve poets on Sunday included the renga composed that day. They had met in various Woodwick House locations, including the dark and cool doocot, with Tom’s QUIET IS THE HOME OF NATURAL SOUNDS on the back of one of the benches. From that poem, ‘A Quick One':

evergreen ivy
in the burnside doocot

wood smoke
drifting out of sunlight
line after line

enjoy how these walls
avoid being too smooth

over the gateway
a bell
still, slilent

The renga were accompanied by the improvisations of Gemma McGregor on flute and Peter Stephenson on piano. They then performed their own improvised duet. Introducing this, Gemma, composer of three pieces for the St. Magnus Festival, talked about creative preparation, how imagining and planning contributes to spontaneity and gives her and Peter many choices as they improvise.

As Jen Hadfield read her own works, the Shetland-based poet also gave the audience a sense of collaboration, acknowledging influential poets such as George MacKay Brown. As Shetland’s Poet Partner, she brings a variety of poetry to her audiences, and reads others writer’s poems as fresh discoveries.

Her own work has been recognized for its originality, passion, and humor, winning the prestigious T.S. Eliot Prize. Jen’s visit was organized by Orkney’s Poet Partner, Pam Beasant, with support from Scottish Poetry Library/Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Poet Partners Scheme.

Jen’s reading held her audience rapt, their applause sometimes spontaneous after individual poems and lengthy and heartfelt at the end.

To participate in the renga group, contact Alistair Peebles (renga@braeprojects.com ).

© Martha LaBare, 2009

Links

• Porteous Brae Gallery