Jenny Lewis: News Archive

Mother / Ummun

Jenny — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:51:49 +0000

I was delighted with this beautiful recording by Iraqi poet, Adnan al Sayegh, of my poem Mother, from the sensitive translation into Arabic by Marga Burgui-Artajo.

Childbirth was like being excavated:
my belly rose on whalebone wings,
pain soared about me like a bloodied angel:

then you were born

I saw you with my own eyes
I held you day and night:
you lay in my arms, a glowing pupa.

At Kut-al-Amara you were back-lit,
the moon pointed you out against the ridge –
when Turkish gunners stopped your spade

you fell slowly, shedding iridescence

each night in dreams I fail to catch you –
your bones the fragile quills of rescued fledglings
you placed by the stove for warmth

Mother was first published in The Oxonian Review; it will be included in Taking Mesopotamia, my new collection, forthcoming in early 2014 from Oxford Poets/ Carcanet.

Adnan al-Sayegh (born 1955 in Al-Kufa, Iraq), "is one of the most original voices from the generation of Iraqi poets known as the Eighties Movement. His poetry, crafted with elegance, and sharp as an arrowhead, carries an intense passion for freedom love and beauty. Adnan uses his words as a weapon to denounce the devastation of war and the horrors of dictatorship."

In 1993 his uncompromising criticism of oppression and injustice led to his exile in Jordan and the Lebanon. After being sentenced to death in Iraq in 1996, because of the publication of Uruk’s Anthem, a long poem in which he gives voice to the profound despair of the Iraqi experience, he took refuge in Sweden. Since 2004 he has lived in London.

Hawthornden Fellowship

Jenny — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:20:51 +0000

I’m delighted to be offered a Hawthornden Fellowship for 2012: this enables me to go and live (with four other writers) at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland for a month on a writing retreat..

The Fellowship was established in 1982 to provide a peaceful setting where published writers can work without disturbance. The Retreat houses five writers at a time, who are known as Hawthornden Fellows.. Writers from any part of the world may apply for the fellowships. No monetary assistance is given, nor any contribution to travelling expenses, but once arrived at Hawthornden, the writer is the guest of the Retreat. Previous winners include: Les Murray, Alasdair Gray, Helen Vendler, Olive Senior and Hilary Spurling.
I will be at Hawthornden for the month of June 2012. I plan to spend the time translating more of The Epic of Gilgamesh. But;I might be tempted to walk in the Scottish countryside and write what comes, I’ll have to see.I am very thrilled and axcited about it."

Poetry Please

Jenny — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:30:40 +0000

My poem Pushkin is Everything (from my collection Fathom) was read on BBC Radio 4′s Poetry Please on Sunday 11th September at 4.30 pm, and is still available for Listen Again; and the programme will be repeated on Sunday 17th at 11.30pm.

And for those who like to follow the text on the page, here it is!

PUSHKIN IS EVERYTHING!

They told me it was a cleaning woman
who found Pushkin’s statue, face down
in the mud in a frock-coat of leaves, red
and yellow with tongues of fire in them:

apparently, she tried to clean him up,
felt it was wrong to leave him, poor man,
but no-one would help – his sort of thinking
wasn’t wanted any more, it was about
the same time they started to arrest books.

At last they’ve re-instated him on his plinth
and made his stories into wrought-iron
wreaths in Pushkin Square, so students
meeting at the benches for coffee can say
once more Pushkin is everything!

Indian Summer

Jenny — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:42:34 +0000

On 18 July, we had an Indian Summer reading at the Albion Beatnik Bookstore in Walton Street, Oxford, organised by Ambit Magazine. The readers were Sudeep Sen, Carole Satyamurti and myself – a lovely way to celebrate my friendship with Sudeep who invited me to read at the Delhi International Literary Festival in December 2008. This was on a very different scale – a lovely, intimate get-together of poets and people who love poetry.

This second photo shows Dennis Harrison (who owns the bookstore) and Martin Bax who has been running Ambit Magazine for 50 years.

MESH International Youth Arts Festival at Pegasus

Jenny — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 11:59:22 +0000

I’ve had an amazing 10 days leading the writing group (Patrik from Croatia, Emmanuelle from France, and Emma and Louis from Oxford) as part of the MESH International Youth Arts Festival at Pegasus Theatre. Over 300 young people from drama groups throughout Europe and further afield have been living and working together to contribute to the festival. Every day, the young people have been working with tutors on dance, acting, production, film and video and writing and we have seen a different play (matinee and evening performances) every day. These included the festival opener, After Gilgamesh (terrific final performances from the young cast) and the Gaza Monologues, presented by a groupo of young Palestinians who had to jump through hoops to get out of Palestine and make their way to Oxford. Their performance, based on their own experiences, were immensely moving and inspiring. The French play, The Doctor Despite Himself, by Moliere, used seventeenth century French, yet the young cast were such terrific actors that we all got the message and had a hilarious evening. There were stunning dance performances from Russia, Holland and Germany and the Croation play, based on an Ionesco script – And you? How are you? wowed the audience, created a huge amount of discussion and debate and left me longing to go to Croatia to see close up how they work with masks and improvisation.

Tomorrow is the grand finale – The Government Inspector, by Gogol – which will be performed at the Town Hall. There are some rehearsal pics on Facebook…

We’re all spending the day there, filming, writing, dancing, acting, building sets, making costumes etc etc, I really don’t want this to end. Perhaps I’ll have to runaway and join the theatre???

On a desert island

Jenny — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:06:09 +0000

I was featured as the July Castaway in the Oxford Times: people from Oxford who have had interesting lives and make a contribution to Oxfordshire life are asked what they would hope to find on the legendary desert island.

The editor has kindly permitted me to make this article available on my website, in PDF format: click here to download the first page – then use the ‘back’ button on your browser to return here and click here to download the second page.

Competition success

Jenny — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:37:47 +0000

I went to Norwich on Saturday to the reading and prize giving of the Café Writers Competition 2010. The reading was held in the vaults of an old building, probably orignally dating from medieval times. After a selection of readings from very good local poets, I read my poem What We Thought We Knew which is a sort of love poem to all the species that have become extinct and a rhymed Petrarchan sonnet. A highlight of the evening was a reading by Michael Symmons Roberts, the distinguished poet and judge of the competition. It was a terrific evening and very well attended.

What We Thought We Knew was Commended in the 2010 Café Writers Competition. You can read the poem here.

Delhi International Arts Festival December 2008

Jenny — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:18:55 +0000

At the October residency for the Oxford University Creative Writing MSc (on which I teach poetry) the renowned Indian poet, Sudeep Sen, was the guest reader. He brought a welcome sense of internationality to Oxford and read from several of his books, including the literary magazine he edits – Atlas. I also read a poem during the evening – Sur le Pont des Arts – which Sudeep praised. After the reading, he asked me to send my last collection, Fathom, to Atlas for review, and a few weeks later I was honoured to receive an invitation to read at the Delhi International Arts Festival – part of the Delhi International Arts Festival.

Writers from around the world will be gathering in Delhi for this prestigious five day event. There will be representatives from the following countries:

Their work has been published in (and translated from) the following languages:

As part of the festival, we will have the chance read our work and meet other writers from around the world as well as talking to publishers, magazine editors and agents.

I am especially excited as it will give me the chance to make contact with historians who might be able to help me with research for my next book which is based on my father’s role in the Mesopotamian campaign of WWI. Also, of course, the chance to do some sightseeing and Christmas shopping in fabulous India!

Sur le Pont des Arts

He’s looking at a painting of a river and trees,
houses roughly charcoaled in against a foggy smudge,
a foreground blob that could be a terrier’s shadow

or a black hole of invisible light, dark matter
sucking viewers into the artist’s untidy mind,
showing them the dissatisfied wife left clearing plates

after a silent Sunday lunch, the son who bores him,
the treasured daughter who ran off to the Pyrenees
with a specialist in sustainable energy

who builds houses out of cartons and solar panels,
where rotas of guests are needed so that they can pee
frequently in order to keep the bathroom lights on.

He’s looking at a painting of a river and trees
and thinking about his mistress whom he hasn’t seen
for three weeks because she’s gone to stay with a sister

he knows she’s just invented; now he’s thinking about
his new hat, a smart homburg, and how superior
it is to the artist’s floppy hat which is hiding,

probably, a mess of impasto passing for brains;
he’s thinking of the terrier, who has just caught up
and is now regarding him with small, adoring eyes.

He’s thinking it costs him more to feed the terrier
than buying the new homburgs he prefers to his wife.
He’s thinking his mistress is a liar, the artist

is an impostor, the artist’s wife and son should leave,
the artist’s daughter and her husband are complete fakes
and that his own wife is less attractive than a hat.

He’s thinking that his terrier is an expensive
excrescence; in fact, he’s wishing he was someone else.
He’s looking at a painting of a river and trees.

There are more of my poems on the DILF web site.