|
The Newsletter
The Journal
Powys Society Publication List
The Powys Society
Collection
A Powys Webliography
Powys titles currently in print
Resources
Conference 2012 DVDs
A note on Copyright
Cecil Woolf Publishers
Links
Philippa Powys
Littleton Powys
Powys Booksellers
A Visit to The National Library of Wales
Supplement to Powys Checklist & Readers’ Guide
2010
TFP The Voice of
God by
Michael Kowalewski
JCP OWEN GLENDOWER The Seen and the Unseen
by P.J. Kavanagh
First Powys Lecture in Ireland
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DUCDAME

AUTOBIOGRAPHY
(Reprinted by Faber
Finds)
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The
Brothers Powys
by
Richard Powys Graves

W.J. Keith
‘A
Glastonbury Romance’ Revisited

H.W. Fawkner
John Cowper Powys and the Soul

Contact
the Society
here
|
Kindling the Scarp: A
Jack Clemo Conference
31st
May and 1st June 2013
(see below)
|

PLACING JOHN COWPER POWYS
The Hand Hotel, Llangollen
Friday 16th August — Sunday 18th
August |
|
For the
2013 Conference we will return once more to The Hand
Hotel, Bridge Street, Llangollen. The Conference will start at 4
pm on Friday 16th August and end after lunch on Sunday
18th August 2013. Please decide on the option you prefer on
the form opposite and send this to Anna Pawelko at the latest by
31st May 2013 with a non-refundable deposit of Ł30,
cheques to be made payable to The Powys Society. In the current
Newsletter you will find further details of the
Conference.
The
Hand Hotel, which
always looks after us well, is still, after many years, a
favourite with most of us. As those know who have attended
conferences here, the hotel is set above the river Dee with
spectacular views of Dinas Brân and very near the town centre.
Once a coaching inn on the old Watling Street route to Ireland,
it combines antique charm with modern amenities; most rooms were
refurbished in 2010. All the rooms are in one (rambling)
building, both single and double according to need, and all with
private facilities. Note that the hotel does not have lifts! As
before we will be using the Dinas Brân suite for our reception
and meals, and the Denbigh Room for lectures. The popular bar is
open most of the time. Everything in this busy little town is
easily accessible. |
Please return the
attached PDF form as soon as possible.
It always helps the organisers to know numbers early. If you
with the pay the full amount at this stage feel free to do
so. We will be in touch nearer the time with those who book,
sending further details and a request for the remaining fee.
Our Conference organisers on the day will be Anna Pawelko
and Louise de Bruin, to whom you should address any
queries:
Louise de Bruin
600 Mappowder, Sturminster Newton,
Dorset DT10 2EH
tel
01258 817825 e-mail <lsedebruin@gmail.com>
Anna Pawelko
109 Heol Isaf, Radyr, Cardiff,
CF15 8DW
tel
029 2041 8813 e-mail <anna.pawelko@ntlworld.com>
If you wish to stay any extra
nights before or after the Conference, you can contact the
hotel directly (tel: 01978 860303).
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| |
Kindling
the Scarp: A Jack Clemo Conference and Associated Events
Wheal Martyn, Cornwall
31st May and 1st June 2013
Organisers: Gemma Goodman
(University of Warwick)
and Luke Thompson (University
of Exeter)
'It flashed in Cornwall, at Meledor,
My rebel vision, kindling the scarp'
Jack Clemo (1916-1994) was a novelist, poet, story writer
and autobiographer best known for his Cornish clayscape verse
and prose. Academic interest in his life and work continues to
develop both within Cornwall and beyond. There is also a
cultural reservoir of memory and experience of Clemo from within
the clayscape. This first ever Jack Clemo Conference will bring
together the local community of the china clay area and academic
communities engaging with this writer of international
significance. All are therefore welcome to all of the events we
have planned over these two days. So come and join us!
-
Academics and those with an interest in
Clemo and his work will be presenting 20 minute papers
across the two days on such topics as theology, biography
and his influences
-
The conference is just Ł10 per day and
this amount also includes access to the associated events
happening on that day such as: clay country tour, film
showings, literary readings and an evening at Trethosa
Chapel
-
Alternatively you can book for the film
showing of 'A Different Drummer' (Norman Stone's film of
Clemo's life) for Ł5.
-
There is also a 10-day Jack Clemo
exhibition taking place at Wheal Martyn - entry will be free
for conference attendees and the parts of the exhibition in
the foyer of Wheal Martyn will be free for all. Access to
exhibits displayed in the Wheal Martyn museum will be
charged at the usual entry price for the site.
For further information, please visit:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/current/engagement/jackclemo |
| |
‘John Cowper Powys: Celtic Colossus and Eminence Grise’ by Adam Daly
In the new issue of
Wormwood 20 Issue 20, Spring
2013 (Publication 19th April 2013)
Membership
Subscriptions increased on 1st January 2013 due to rising printing costs and
especially the cost of postage.
The new rates
are Ł22.00 for UK members and Ł26.00 for overseas members.
TWO POWYS DAYS FOR 2013: Ely, Saturday 13 April
and Dorchester, 8 June.
RECENTLY RELEASED: The latest
Conference double DVD 2012, 'MANY VOICES, MANY WORLDS', is
now available
priced at just Ł6.00.
Additions to the Powys webliography continue to be unearthed by the
Society’s secretary, Chris Thomas; the latest being a collection of letters
in the prestigious Huntingdon Library from John Cowper Powys to Charles Wood
as well as correspondence from Llewelyn and Alyse Gregory. Visit the
webliography page
here.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
John
Cowper Powys Lecture and Exhibit in Hillsdale.
An exhibit featuring the works of
John Cowper Powys, who lived and wrote in Hillsdale in the 1930′s, will open
at the Roeliff Jansen Community Library on Saturday, Sept. 22 with a talk by
New School Professor Nicholas Birns, followed by a reception.
From their website:
The
exhibit was organized by Hillsdale residents Jay Rohrlich and Maureen
Rodgers, co-chairs the Library’s Local Authors Committee, and will include
books, articles, photos, posters and an audiotape by Albert Krick, a local
resident who knew Powys well.
An expert on Powys (pronounced Poe-iss), Nicholas Birns is Associate
Teaching Professor at Eugene Lang College, the New School, where he teaches
American and British fiction. He was editor of
Powys
Notes, the journal of the Powys Society of North America, from
1995 to 2002, and organized the most recent American Powys conference in New
York in 2001.
Powys who lived from 1872 to 1963, put Hillsdale on the world literary map
when he moved to the town in 1930. For the prior 25 years in the United
States, he had written prodigiously, mostly novels and essays, and
crisscrossed the entire nation as a charismatic lecturer. So emotional were
his presentations on literature, culture, philosophy, politics, psychology,
and a multitude of other topics that he sometimes caused people in the
audience to faint. Powys claimed to have given 10,000 lectures across the
country! In 1930, he finally decided that he needed to rest and write, and
found peace in his new-found paradise in a small farmhouse in the
Harlemville section of Hillsdale.
Powys had many literary admirers, and the famed critic George Steiner said
that “Powys is the only 20th century English writer on a par with Tolstoy
and Dostoevsky.” His books were lengthy –900 pages was not unusual, which –
in an increasingly minimalist age – largely accounts for his lack of
enduring popularity.
His fans and intimates included Theodore Dreiser, Isadora Duncan, Edna
Millay, Edgar Lee Masters, Clarence Darrow, Will Durant, and Henry Miller.
He debated Bertrand Russell, and testified in the obscenity trial of James
Joyce’s
Ulysses.
He was a larger than life figure and his years in Hillsdale
resulted in an enormous outpouring of work.
To the poet Philip Larkin Powys was a “gigantic mythopoeic literary
volcano.” About reading
A
Glastonbury Romance (written in Hillsdale),
Henry Miller said, “My head began bursting as I read. ‘No,’ I
said to myself, it is impossible that any man can put all this—so much—down
on paper. It is super-human.”
Margaret Drabble called him “a genius–a fearless writer who writes with
reckless passion of flowers and graveyards, incest and teacups…”
Hillsdale was Powys’ “Utopia,” as several contemporary newspapers
celebrated. He wrote extensively about the peace and happiness he
experienced in his home at the base of Phudd Hill, which he named “Phudd
Bottom.” He kept detailed diaries filled with his fascination for the
flowers, animals, stone walls, streams, trees, and people near his home.
Powys believed that happiness derives from an ability to experience
sensation, particularly that which involves an immersion in nature.
“The coolness of sheets, the warmth of blankets, the look of the little blue
flames dancing on the top of a fire of hard coal, the taste of bread, of
milk of honey, of wine or of oil, of
well-baked potatoes, of earth-tasting turnips! – the taste of the airs, dry
or moist, that blow in through our opened window, look of the night-sky, the
sounds of twilight
or
of dawn, the hoarse monotone of a distant pinewood or of pebble-fretted
waves–all these things as one feels them, in the mortal pride of being able
to feel them at all, are the materials, eternal and yet fleeting, of the art
of being a man alive upon the earth…the man whose interior consciousness is
forever obstinately writing down, in the immaterial diary of his psyche’s
sense of life, every chance-aspect of every new day that he is lucky enough
to
live
to behold!”
In Hillsdale from 1930-34, John Cowper Powys found happiness. Here is his
diary entry from December 13, 1930:
Got up at 7.30. ‘Twas very cold. Saw the sun rise or rather half-rise. Very
cold. Very cold. Very cold. I am by nature too restless and impatient even
to stand staring at the beautiful Ridge that I like so well and the pale
gold sky till it comes up. But I watched every detail of its rising except
the second of its first emergement over the Ridge. Gold light on the
Waggoner house is the first sign — or rather on the East side of the great
Waggoner Barn — and then on the hill up there and on the hedge and trees up
there. Next on the top of Phudd as you see it over our house. The sun comes
up that curious, steel-blue, blinding light that you can scarcely look at …
but when it first appears in full circle you can see round the blue-blinding
circle inside, or rondure inside, a yellow band of candle-flame light not
blue or blinding at all. Tis as if you were looking into a gold ring or a
round port-hole into a blazing eternity that by reason of its blindingness
takes on a milky, metallic, blueish colour. Finally, the full sun hits our
little house and makes it gleam white as a shell, white as England’s cliffs,
white as the Dog’s teeth, white as Bone! Then does our house appear like a
Light-House or a coastguard’s house or even like a ship. I walked up and
down thrilled with happiness …
Soon after Powys and his companion Phyllis Playter arrived in Hillsdale, her
journal entry stated: “J. was so happy — all the time. . . . It is
such a simple and profound well-being — like a child’s or a dog’s or a
horse’s or a cow’s. . . .I was very happy too.”
The Powys exhibit is one in a series organized by the Roe Jan Library to
celebrate the many great – and not so great – writers and poets who lived or
spent time in Hillsdale.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
John
Cowper Powys Lecture and Exhibit in Hillsdale.
|
The Powys Society Annual Conference 2012 |
|

|
|
'MANY VOICES, MANY WORLDS'
The Wessex Hotel,
Street (nr Glastonbury)
Friday 17th to
Sunday 19th August
Further details
here.
1st June - Now fully
booked!
Featured speakers
include:
Michael Kowalewski
(JCP), Arjen Mulder (LlP), Marcella Henderson-Peel (JCP),
Larry Mitchell and Micheal Caines (TFP).
|
Theodore
Powys and The Paradox of Immortality
Sunday 29
July 2012 08:50 BBC Radio 4
The
philosopher John Gray reflects on the nature of immortality as expressed by
the writer Theodore Powys, 'The longest life may fade and perish but one
moment can live and become immortal.' "Powys captures a paradox at the heart
of our thinking about death and the afterlife: there's a kind of immortality
that only mortals can enjoy."
Listen here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01l1ggb
|
John Cowper Powys Lecture and Exhibit in
Hillsdale on Saturday, September 22, 2012 |
There will be
an exhibit at the Roe Jan Community Library beginning September
22 commemorating the life and work of John Cowper Powys
who lived in Hillsdale from 1930-34. Powys wrote extensively
about his life in Hillsdale and the beauty of the area, which he
considered his "Arcadia." A lecture on Powys will be given in
the library at 6:00 pm on September 22 by Professor Nicholas
Birns. Powys' writings have inspired many people, and there are
Powys Societies in the United States, France, England and
Sweden. More
here.
|
NEW Additions to
Webliography:
Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Research Centre
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Special
Collections Department.
|
WORDS AND MUSIC
WITH SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER
(Organised by The Sylvia Townsend Warner Society) |
|
Re-Visiting
Sylvia Townsend Warner
29 June 2012, 9am –
6pm,
Dorset County
Museum, Dorchester
A
One-Day International Symposium devoted to the work of Sylvia
Townsend Warner
Members of the Powys Society are offered discount
tickets for this conference.
Re-Visiting Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978)
A One-Day International Symposium hosted by the Centre for South
West Writing, University of Exeter and the Dorset County Museum
29 June 2012, Dorset County Museum, Dorchester
Professor Mary Joannou (Anglia Ruskin University)
Professor Jan Montefiore (University of Kent)
Sylvia
Townsend Warner’s writing demands renewed investigation. An expert
musicologist as well as a versatile novelist, short story writer and
poet, she was a controversial international figure. MI5 investigated
her ‘communist activities’ while contemporaries were unsettled by
her Spanish Civil War politics and the unreserved expression of her
homosexuality, with these aspects of her writing having attracted
some of the liveliest critical commentary by distinguished
biographers, critics and novelists. Her novels, short stories,
poems, letters, diaries and translations have been reprinted by
publishers including the Women’s Press, Virago, Penguin, Carcanet
and her own publisher Chatto. Yet despite attempts to recover
Warner’s work for a wider readership, she is rarely found on
university syllabi in the UK or abroad.
This one day international
symposium hosted jointly by the University of Exeter’s Centre
for South West Writing and the Dorset
County Museum aims to mark the importance of Warner’s writing
and highlight her place as an original, generically resourceful and
politically conscious 1930s woman writer at the heart of the
literary avant-garde. The conference also aims to draw attention to
the rich resources of the Sylvia
Townsend Warner Archive housed in the Museum.
The conference committee
would like to thank the Sylvia
Townsend Warner Society for assistance and financial support of
the conference.
Registration deadline: 1 June, 2012. As we are holding the event in
the Dorset County Museum and are strongly encouraging attendance
from the public we ask all delegates to buy a ‘ticket’ for the event
through the museum.
Tickets are Ł35 for waged and Ł20 for Powys Society Members/DNHAS
members/ STW society members/unwaged/students and are available in
person from the Museum Shop or by way of a stamped addressed
envelope sent to the Museum Shop. Cheques are to be made payable to
The Dorset County Museum and credit card payments can be taken
through the shop:
01305 262735
shop@dorsetcountymuseum.org
More information on the
conference, including a full programme, can be found here: http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/english/research/conferences/townsendwarner/.
Please email the
conference organisers Alex Murray and Vike Martina Plock (stwconference2012@exeter.ac.uk)
for further information.
|
|
The Sylvia Townsend Warner Society is also staging a concert at 3
pm on Saturday 30 June 2012 at the Dorset County Museum. The
programme consists of readings from her works, musical pieces edited
by her as part of the Tudor Church Music project, compositions by
her friends and some of her musical settings of poems by Thomas
Hardy. The UK premiere of an important new work, the setting to
music of her poem 'Azrael' by Jonathan David, will also take place
at this event.
Concert tickets are Ł8.00 |
|
Booking details and further information on both events are at the
Society's website:
www.townsendwarner.com |
|
TWO POWYS DAYS for 2012 |
|
ELY, Saturday 31 March
Our
President, Glen Cavaliero, will lead a discussion of JCP’s novel Owen
Glendower focusing on Chapter XII Mathrafal. The meeting will
be held at the Old Fire Engine House, 25 St Mary’s Street, a
restaurant and art gallery in the centre of Ely near the cathedral.
Welcome and coffee, in the upstairs sitting room, is at 10.30am.
We will commence our discussion at 11.00am. Lunch will be
served downstairs in the restaurant from 12.00pm to 13.00pm.
After a short comfort break we will reconvene to continue our discussion
in the afternoon.
Owen
Glendower,
written between 1937 and 1939, was first published in the USA in 1941
and in the UK in 1942 and is considered by many commentators to be one
of JCP’s most accomplished works especially in his evocation of its
physical setting, and the time period of the early fifteenth century.
Owen Glendower, however, does not seem to be as widely read
as JCP’s other ‘Wessex’ novels. Our discussion will attempt to draw out
the key features and achievements of the book including the novel’s
genesis, its role in JCP’s life at a key period, its relationship to his
attitude to Wales and Welsh culture, his imaginary depiction of the
character of the real Owen Glendower, his view of Welsh history and
mythology, as well as his handling of the conventions of the historical
‘romance’, narrative and the historical novel.
Owen Glendower
was most recently reprinted in a modern edition with an introduction by
Morine Krissdottir by Overlook Press in 2003. A useful introduction and
overview of the novel can be found in Professor Keith’s Aspects of
Owen Glendower, published by the Powys Society in 2008.
The event is free
although a charge will be made for lunch which is optional. For details
of menu choices for lunch and prices please visit the web site of the
venue at:
http://www.theoldfireenginehouse.co.uk/
| |
DORCHESTER, Saturday 9th
June |
|
 |
At the Dorset County
Museum, Dorchester, in the library, at 10.30am for 11.00am
start. Members are invited to bring their favourite Powys book or books,
read selected passages, and discuss the significance or personal
relevance of their choices with others at the meeting.
After lunch, at 2.00pm THE IMAGINATIVE
WORLDS OF LLEWELYN AND THEODORE POWYS a talk by Frank
Kibblewhite, the Society's webmaster who runs The
Sundial Press which has published titles by Theodore,
Llewelyn, Littleton and Philippa Powys. During the last
twenty-five years Frank has read nearly every Powys book
published and has travelled widely in Dorset. |
 |
|
The Powys Society
Collection, housed in the Dorset County Museum, will be open
during the meeting. At the close of the meeting we will visit a place of
local Powysian interest.
Coffee and refreshments
will be available during the day. Lunch will be from 13.00pm
to 14.00pm at No. 6 restaurant, North Square. The event is free
with the exception of optional lunch.
Anyone interested is very welcome to join both events. If you wish to
attend these meetings please notify Secretary by e-mail at
chris.d.thomas@hotmail.co.uk or by post
to Flat D, 87 Ledbury Road, London W11 2AG. |
|
15 paintings by Gertrude Mary Powys (1877–1952) now available
to view on BBC website
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15 paintings by
Gertrude Mary Powys (1877–1952) are now posted on the BBC "Your Paintings"
website.
You can view them
here (browser will open in new window).
“There is my sister Gertrude, round whom like the sun we
different members of the family like the planets revolve; of her no word of
praise is too high; and I rejoice that now at last she has more time to devote
to the art which for so many years has kept on calling to her.” From The Joy
of It (1937) by Littleton Powys
|
JOHN GRAY
will present a talk
on
JOHN COWPER POWYS
at this year’s
Oxford Literary Festival. |
|
Event: The Sunday
Times
OXFORD LITERARY FESTIVAL
Date: 4:00pm |
Saturday 24 March
Venue: Christ
Church: Blue Boar
Duration: one
hour
"Political
philosopher and author John Gray champions the work of 20th-century novelist,
philosopher, lecturer, and poet John Cowper Powys. The literary quarterly
Slightly Foxed aims to revive interest in forgotten books and authors and
Gray was commissioned to write about John Cowper Powys for the Spring issue (now
available).
John Gray is emeritus professor of European thought at the London School of
Economics. He now writes full time, is the author of Straw Dogs: Thoughts on
Humans and Other Animals, The Immortalization Commission: The Strange
Quest to Cheat Death and many other books, and is one of Britain’s most
talked-about thinkers and philosophers."
http://oxfordliteraryfestival.org/events/detail/slightly-foxed-presents-john-gray-on-john-cowper-powys |
February 2012
The following additions to Chris Thomas's
A Powys Webliography:
University of California at Los Angeles (Henry Miller papers – Finding Aid):
http://cdn.calisphere.org/data/13030/z6/tf9t1nb6z6/files/tf9t1nb6z6.pdf
Correspondence from JCP to Henry Miller(1950-1959)
University of California at Los Angeles Library:
http://www.library.ucla.edu/
Original correspondence between Llewelyn Powys and Louis Wilkinson.
plus
other updates.
November 2011
Descents of Memory
The Life of John Cowper Powys
by Morine Krissdottir
Hardback 480 pages Illustrated
1585679178
| 9781585679171
is
currently available at
Ł9.99 instead of
the published price of Ł25.00
from
Postscript Books:
http://bit.ly/u3vksl (this link will open in a new window).
T. F. Powys, an English Tolstoy?
by Michael Caines
(Times Literary Supplement: October
21 2011, No. 5664)
Read the full article
here.
New Treasurer
October 2011
Anna Pawelko has taken on the role of Hon. Treasurer and we extend a warm
and grateful welcome to her.
|
Florence Hardy |
 |
‘Well, I had a perfectly
lovely time with Thomas Hardy. Isn’t it amazing? He was 78 last 2
June. I rather like his little wife – about 33 she looks, like
a grave ascetic art student or a Chelsea socialist, follower of
William Morris, not a society person and not a naughty little girl –
grave, my dear, very grave! rather like a hospital nurse – her hair
parted Madonna-wise and a very responsible air.’ (John
Cowper Powys to Llewelyn Powys, Summer 1918)
Monday, November 7: the publication of FLORENCE Mistress of Max Gate
by Society member Peter Tait.
(Reviewed in the Powys Society
Newsletter No.75 March 2012) |
|
|
 |
The 2011
Powys Society Conference
Friday 19 August to Sunday 21 August
Hand Hotel in Llangollen |
|
|
Speakers include: Patrick Wright,
(author of The Village That Died For
England and, more recently,
Passport to Peking)
on Llewelyn Powys; Jeremy Hooker,
(author of
John Cowper Powys,
Writers in a Landscape and
Imagining Wales)
on Gerard and Mary Casey; Stephen Batty
on the work of T F Powys and Jonas
Aagaard, from Denmark, on John Cowper
Powys. Additionally, a programme of guided
walks and visits to places of historical
interest with Powysian associations and on
Saturday evening there will be
a reading of Mr. Weston's Good
Wine,
adapted for voices by Kate
Kavanagh.
Registration for the Conference has now
closed but if you require further
information please contact either Louise de
Bruin (01258 817825) or Anna Pawelko
(e-mail:
anna.pawelko@ntlworld.com).
Further details
about the venue can be found here:
http://www.hand-hotel-llangollen.com.
|
|
|
Saturday, August 13th: The
LLEWELYN POWYS
Birthday Walk and Dandelion Club annual gathering
meeting at The Sailor's Return around noon. All welcome
|
 |
Tom
Bates aka Neil Lee-Atkin writes: 'With Llewelyn's birthday
falling on a Saturday this year we anticipate a bumper gathering
at East Chaldon on August 13th. Five members of the Dandelion Club
are coming down with me, and we've booked into the George Hotel in
Weymouth for three nights from Thursday 11th; hoping to spend a
couple of days exploring the White Nose, Undercliff, Rat's Barn, and
old Llewelyn haunts along the coast.' His new address is 1 Church
Hill, Spridlington, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire LN8 2DX, 'phone 01673
860535. For further information, please email:
revneildatkin@sky.com |
A LETTER CONCERNING THE FUTURE OF
THE SWEDISH JOHN COWPER POWYS SOCIETY
I
have had the pleasure to function as Chairman for the Swedish John Cowper Powys
Society – John Cowper Powyssällskapet – during two periods; from the beginning
in 1999 to 2004, and then again from 2005 to 2011. Most of the Swedish members
live in the Stockholm area, but even if I myself am located in the South, in
Lund, I think I have a fair overview of the society and its members. The task as
Chairman has always been facilitated by the fellow members and the Board, and
for several years by our Honorary Chairman and Founder, the late Sven Erik
Täckmark. There are many happy memories that we can share with each other, and
there has indeed been a lot of good work done for the promotion of John Cowper
Powys and his books. The important outcomes are of course our bilingual
newsletter, the Swedish editions of The Meaning of Culture and The
Autobiography, and all the conversations we have had, when gathered in Sven
Erik’s little flat in Stockholm or at other places, or by telephone and by mail,
now mostly electronically delivered.
But
it is a fact that the activities have diminished lately. It has been hard to
arrange meetings and run the ordinary society errands and even to collect the
members fee. One of the reasons could be that Sven Erik no longer is the natural
epicentre and source of energy for us; in fact the last time the Swedish
Powysians were gathered in some numbers was at the funeral service for Sven
Erik. Be that as it may, but several of us have discussed how to start anew and
find new forms for our interest in John Cowper Powys. That is why the members at
the last annual meeting, June 11th in Stockholm, voted and finally confirmed a
change, proposed by the Board. What we want to do is to reorganise our society
into a more informal one; thus letting go of Board functions as e. g. Treasurer,
and also giving up the efforts to fund our activities with members fees. Instead
we are working towards what in Swedish is called ”vänförening”, i. e. ”a union
of friends”.
If
you wish to continue to support the promotion of Powys in Sweden you are hereby
invited to join the new Swedish John Cowper Powys Society; we will not change
the name of our society, nor the goals of it, but formally it will from now on
have the character of an informal network, hopefully with a nexus in our
website:
http://www.bjorner.com/powys.htm
For further information, please contact me at:
Lars_Gustaf.Andersson@litt.lu.se
or
by ordinary mail: Lars Gustaf Andersson, Plĺtslagarevägen 8, SE-227 30 Lund,
Sweden
Best wishes,
Lars Gustaf Andersson
July 27th 2011
|
Two Powys Days for 2011 |
|
|

BRIGHTON, Saturday 14 May
The Friends Meeting House, Ship Street,
Brighton. 2pm.
Terry Diffey, Emeritus
Reader in philosophy at the University of
Sussex, in Conversation with Timothy Hyman,
distinguished painter, art critic and Chairman of The Powys Society.
Their conversation will discuss current ideas
about the aesthetics of the human and natural
world, with particular reference to the novels
and other works of John Cowper Powys.
(Click on the photo to obtain directions.)
Followed at 7.30 pm, in association with the
Brighton Festival Fringe, 'Powys in Sussex', a
programme celebrating John Cowper Powys and his
time in Sussex, with readings and new musical
compositions by
Robert Carrington and the Pastores
Ensemble inspired by Powys's works. There
is no charge for the afternoon discussion but
a small cover charge for the
evening event.
Webpage
here.
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Everyone is welcome to both events. Please contact
the Secretary if you wish to
attend either or both events. E-mail to
chris.d.thomas@hotmail.co.uk
or write to:
Chris Thomas, Flat D, 87 Ledbury Road, London W11 2AG |
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DORCHESTER,
Saturday 11 June
Dorset County Museum.
10.30 am
THE LONG HOT EDWARDIAN SUMMER: LLEWELYN IN
1911 A talk by
Peter Foss, the
Society's Vice-Chairman and Llewelyn Powys's
bibliographer.
2.00 pm
A
POWYSIAN BOATING TRIP ON THE THAMES
A talk by Stephen Powys Marks.
There will be an opportunity for discussion,
refreshments and a visit to Wolfeton Housea (a place of local Powysian interest).
There is no charge for this event except lunch
which is optional.
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The aesthetics of the human and natural world with
special reference to the novels and other works of John
Cowper Powys'
Terry Diffey,
Emeritus Reader in philosophy at the University of
Sussex, in Conversation with Timothy Hyman,
distinguished painter, art critic and Chairman of The
Powys Society.
.jpg)
Chris Thomas with Terry Diffey & Timothy Hyman
at the Friends Meeting House, Brighton, on May 14th
2011.
Webpage
here.
2010
|
Nov. 22nd 2010 - First Lecture on John Cowper
Powys in Ireland
Read more ... |
Nov. 2010 -
THE BEST FIVE BOOKS ON EVERYTHING
Steven Amsterdam
author of Things We
Didn’t See Coming has recommended one of John
Cowper Powys’ books, WOLF SOLENT, as one of
the best five on his subject – Worry.
“Powys was one of 11,
several of whom also published, and was an extremely
sensitive soul. He was born in the 1870s, which
meant he suffered the shocks of a new noisy century
when he was old enough to worry properly. His medium
was more existential angst and self-doubt, offering
an antithesis to Whitman’s universe-embracing
enthusiasm.” To read the full article visit the FIVE
BOOKS website
here
~ * ~
In A Hotel Writing-Room
– John Cowper Powys’ finest poem? A nomination
here
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Hampstead meeting - Saturday 23rd October 2010
Autumn Meeting of the Powys
Society
Saturday 23 October 2010 at 2pm
Friends Meeting House. 120 Heath
Street, Hampstead, London NW3 1DR
A discussion of John Cowper
Powys’s novel DUCDAME |
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Ducdame, first published in 1925, is usually
discussed alongside Powys’s other early fiction. But Ducdame is also a novel that can confidently stand
on its own. It includes some of Powys’s best and
most exuberant descriptions of the natural world as
well as some of his most luminous prose.
Glen Cavaliero describes Ducdame as “...an
undeservedly neglected elegy for the romantic
spirit”. Wilson Knight thought Ducdame notable for
its remarkable evocations of transfigured and
“etherealised” landscapes. It is also notable for
Powys’s evocations of earth-nature as well as for
Powys’s use of striking images and symbols. There is
a much greater sense in Ducdame, perhaps, than in
any of Powys’s other novels, of the fecundity of
nature. “We have here”, said Wilson Knight, “an
unusually varied .... assortment of .... all that
Richard Jeffries meant by ‘wood magic’.” Powys
exhibits in Ducdame an intense Wordsworthian
sensitivity to location, and history, “rarest of
rarities of our race consciousness”. The inspiration
for the novel no doubt came from a deeply felt
longing to return to familiar places in England at
this time: “I hate San Francisco”, he wrote in a
letter shortly before starting the book, “there’s
nowhere to walk into the country. I long for real
Spring flowers.”
Although the plot of Ducdame is thin the human drama
and the characters are vividly realised and Powys
employs his unerring psychological acuity to great
effect especially in his delineation of the dilemma
of the leading character Rook Ashover. There are
fewer characters than in Powys’s other novels. It is
a work conceived on a small scale. Powys may have
been aided in this by Llewelyn to whom he read the
book “chapter by chapter” and who persuaded him to
make many changes including perhaps references to
Rook’s brother Lexie, “the life amorist, the
worshipper of the sun and the sweet air”. Other
members of the Powys family make an appearance:
Powys’s mother, Theodore, Marian, Margaret, Phyllis
and Powys’s son are all present. The extraordinary
meeting between Rook and the ghostly youth on
horseback, his unborn child, near the end of the
novel seems to hint at something Powys wanted to say
about his feelings for his own son: “He’s beautiful
like an angel...I think he is very like Alyosha”.
We will look especially at Chapter XIX of Ducdame
which Glen Cavaliero calls “one of the finest things
in all of Powys’s fiction” and examine the means
Powys uses to achieve a sustained meditation on the
unity of Man and Nature. The intense concentrated
focus in this chapter on the physical act of
walking, the detailed interrelationship between
character and landscape and the fluctuating
consciousness of Rook absorbed in “earth obsessed
intuitions”, suggests a possible “green” or
eco-critical reading of Powys’s descriptions of
“mystic ecstasies”.
We will try to elucidate the mysterious meaning of
Powys’s Shakespearean riddle - Is it nonsense,
word-play, a charm or a spell, or does it hide a
deeper meaning? We will explore Powys’s use of
mythological themes, his Pyrhonnic scepticism, the
existence of a mystic fourth dimension, “beyond the
difference between space and time”, and
philosophical ideas about the twin forces of
creation and destruction in the process of “cosmic
unravelling” announced by Rook’s nemesis , William
Hastings. We will discuss whether the ending of the
novel is a failure for Rook or “the ultimate
sensation he craved”, a “token” or “signpost in the
night”.
The dedication of the novel to, “Kwang-Tse or Khi-Yuan”,
reminds us of the dominant influence of Taoism on
Ducdame and many of Powys’s other works: “ I am sure
I would have made a receptive disciple to that fussy
ritualist....A Taoist is what I really am.”
Ducdame is in print and currently available from
Faber in their Faber Finds Series of books.
If you wish to attend this meeting please contact
Hon Secretary:
chris.d.thomas@hotmail.co.uk
Or write to Chris Thomas, Flat D, 87 Ledbury Road,
London W11 2AG
Download the
Ducdame flyer
PDF (will open in a new window or tab)
|
To view a little known oil & acrylic portrait of John
Cowper Powys (1984) please click
here
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T.H. LYON, architect and benefactor
Ilsington Old School Room, 1910-2010
St Michael’s Church, Ilsington, Devon is celebrating the
centenary of the west lychgate, commonly known as the
old school room which was designed and built by T.H.
Lyon of Middlecott, Ilsington. There have been three
buildings on the site of the west lychgate, and the
first achieved notoriety in 1639 when in it collapsed
whilst a school lesson was taking place. The second
lychgate dwelling fell into disrepair sometime after
1871 when church vestry meetings ceased to take place
there, and it was not until 1910 that it was restored
under the benefice of Thomas Henry Lyon, a local
architect.
Prior to the creation of the present Ilsington Church of
England School, various ‘Dame School’ had flourished in
the parish thanks to the generous funding from the Jane
Ford Charity. Alfred Lyon, Thomas’ father, was one of
the major contributors to the village school along with
the Duke of Somerset (Lord of Ilsington), Baroness de
Virte of Bagtor, Captain Charles J.H. Monro of Ingsdon,
George Wills of Narracombe, John Divett of Bovey Tracey,
James Woodley of Halshanger Manor, Rev. Robert Lovett,
vicar of Ilsington and Rev. Samuel Norsworthy. The
school opened in 1873 with 102 pupils on the roll.
The west lychgate is a remarkable building being a rare
example of a two-storey lychgate. Other such buildings
are known from the neighbouring parish of Bickington,
Long Compton in Warwickshire, Painswick in
Gloucestershire, Bray in Berkshire and and St Wendronas
in Cornwall. The St Michael’s Parish Council are keen to
find out if Thomas Lyons based his design on the
original dwellings. Following its restoration, the old
school room was used for vestry meetings, confirmation
classes and Sunday school. Today, the west lychgate also
houses the memorial to both world wars.
Thomas H. Lyon was a generous benefactor. In 1909 he
funded a crucifix which hangs above the 15th
century rood screen and he designed the elaborate
reredos which was erected in memory of his sister,
Caroline, by her husband Canon Percy Charlton Wise.
Thomas Lyon’s father, Alfred Lyon, wrote a number of
diaries which were subsequently discovered by Mrs Y.
Ware-Owen in the attic of Middlecott house. These, along
with other biographical details, will form a part of the
celebration of Thomas Lyon’s remarkable association with
IIsington which is taking place on Saturday November
13th, 2010 in the old school room and the
nearby village hall between 1-5pm.
This event has drawn our attention to a remarkable story
of literary and theological associations formed by
Thomas H. Lyon and we hope to learn more about his life
and begin a restoration of the old school room which
continues to be used for children’s church and
occasional meetings of the PCC. We would be delighted to
hear from readers with an interest in Thomas Henry
Lyons, and we are grateful to members of the John Cowper
Powys Society who have enriched our understanding of a
local hero.
CONTACT: Anne Parkinson, 9 Town Meadow, Ilsington TQ13
9RY (e-mail:
rjparkinson@tiscali.co.uk)
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EARLIER
THIS YEAR
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New Conference DVD now available |
THE POWYS SOCIETY CONFERENCE 2010
“Grail Visions”
Wessex Hotel, Street
Friday 20th August - Sunday 22nd August
This year's Conference was held in Street in Somerset,
two miles from Glastonbury and within view of Glastonbury Tor.
For more Conference
photos
Visit the CONFERENCE
Webpage
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Llewelyn
Birthday Walk 2010
A meeting scheduled for midday at
The Sailor's
Return in East Chaldon on Friday 13th August.
After lunch those
assembled walk from Chaldon up to the coastal path on
top of Chaldon Down – magnificent land and seascape
views guaranteed! Wild flowers are laid on Llewelyn
Powys’ Memorial Stone, a toast is drunk to his memory
and appropriate words spoken.
The event is free and
everyone is assured of a warm and friendly welcome.
Two New Powys Society
Publications
W.J. Keith ‘A
Glastonbury Romance’ Revisited &
H.W. Fawkner
John Cowper Powys and the Soul
November 2010
NOW AVAILABLE:
THE JOY OF IT
by Littleton Powys &
KING LOG AND LADY LEA
by Alyse Gregory
CHRISTMAS LORE AND LEGEND Yuletide Essays by
Llewelyn Powys
Download the Society’s current promotional flyer
(in PDF format which will open in a new window).
2010 EVENTS
TWO POWYS DAYS
CAMBRIDGE on Saturday 24 April 2010
DORCHESTER on Saturday 5 June 2010
Reports of both these events will feature in the
next newsletter.
Cambridge, Saturday 24th April
The day will be
held at Michaelhouse, Trinity Street, CB2 1SU -- the
former St. Michael’s church opposite Gonville and
Caius College (www.michaelhouse.org.uk).
Morning coffee, lunch and tea will be available in
Michaelhouse itself. Numbers are limited, so please
contact the secretary, Chris Thomas, as soon as
possible to tell him you wish to attend.
Besides two talks
by Theo Dunnet and Chris Gostick, we plan to visit
Sidney Sussex College (200 yards away), where the
chapel was redesigned by Thomas Henry Lyon, John
Cowper’s college friend and brother-in-law, and also
Corpus Christi College (also 200 yards away),
attended by many members of the Powys family, and
memorably described by John Cowper in
Autobiography. And only a short distance
further is the stone wall behind the Fitzwilliam
Museum where John Cowper experienced his “Vision on
the Road to Damascus”, “vision of ‘Living Bread’,
that mysterious meeting-point of animate with
inanimate […] a prophetic idea of the sort of
stories that I myself might come to write; stories
that should have as their background the
indescribable peace and gentleness of the substance
we name grass in contact with the substance we name
stone.” (Autobiography, 1967, pp. 199-200. We will read more, in situ.
Programme
1100 Arrival, coffee
1130 Talk by Theo Dunnet:
“Curiosity”
-- Discovering John Cowper Powys and his
contemporaries at Corpus Christi College in the
1890s
1300 Lunch
1400 Talk by Chris Gostick:
“John Cowper Powys and ‘Lord Jim’ - An Unlikely
Friendship?”
On Powys and James Hanley
1500 Visit to Sidney Sussex and Corpus Christi
Colleges and the “umbrageous purlieus” behind the
Fitzwilliam Museum.
1630 Return to Michaelhouse for tea.
The speakers:
Theo Dunnet is a
retired librarian
at the Bodleian Library Oxford and principal library
assistant at the Radcliffe Science Library, Oxford.
Theo’s research into the lives of John Cowper Powys,
Littleton Powys and their contemporaries at Corpus
Christi College Cambridge in the 1890s was
originally published in the Powys Review in 1985.
Chris Gostick
is a retired civil servant with a long-standing
interest in both John Cowper Powys and James
Hanley. He has edited the extensive correspondence
between them, and is now working on a full biography
of Hanley. He was secretary to the Powys Society
between 1997 and 2001, and his monograph T F
Powys's Favourite Bookseller was recently
published in the Cecil Woolf Powys Heritage series."
* * *
Dorchester, Saturday 5th June
Powys Day in
Dorchester is now a well-established spring
event. The meeting will be held at the Dorset County
Museum, High West Street, Dorchester DT1 1XA (www.dorsetcountymuseum.org)
Jacqueline Peltier will deliver an informal talk,
and there will be a discussion of T.F. Powys’s
“Soliloquies of a Hermit,” launched by Michael
Kowalewski. We hope to open the Powys Society
collection, housed in the Museum, and inspect some
of its memorabilia, and close the day with a walk on
Maiden Castle. The Iron Age hill fort outside
Dorchester made famous by Thomas Hardy in Far
From the Madding Crowd, and which provides the
title for John Cowper Powys’s Dorchester novel.
Please contact the secretary, Chris Thomas, to tell
him you wish to attend, as numbers for lunch need to
be supplied to the restaurant in advance.
Programme
1100 Arrivals, coffee
1130 Discussion of
T.F. Powys’s Soliloquies of a Hermit,
launched by Michael Kowalewski, curator of the Powys
Society Collection at the Dorset County Museum
1300 lunch at Number 6
Restaurant, 6 North Square (behind the museum)
1430 Talk by Jacqueline
Peltier, editor of
la lettre powysienne:
“Powys Women”
1600 transfer by car
(two miles) to Maiden Castle, for walk round its
ramparts
If you wish to attend either of the above events,
and we hope you will, please contact
Chris Thomas
as soon as possible.
* * *
Philippa Powys: THE PATH OF THE GALE
Read a chapter from
this previously unpublished novel in
PDF format here (opens in a new window)
Two former Powys homes available to rent
March
2010
CHYDYOK TO RENT

David
& Madeleine Simcox has recently taken over the lease of No 2.
Chydyok Farm
Cottage (former home of Llewelyn Powys & Alyse Gregory) and will be
offering it for rental as a holiday cottage. During the autumn the
property was re-roofed and the interior is currently being upgraded
to meet fire regulations and to make it more comfortable, whilst
maintaining its historic charm. The cottage
will be offered for rental as a holiday cottage from Easter onwards when it
will be available all year round.
For further details, please click
here for a
Chydyok info sheet in PDF format (which will open in a new window)
For Availability and
Price
info
sheet in PDF format (which will open in a new window)
please click
here
Contact:
David & Madeleine Simcox. No 1. Chydyok Farm Cottage, Chaldon Herring,
Dorchester, Dorset DT2 8DW
Tel 01929 400865 ~
Email: chydyokcottage@btinternet.com
Waterloo Cottage,
Blaenau Ffestiniog
.JPG)
Part of the
former home of John Cowper Powys, a cosy and well presented
semi-detached miners cottage on the edge of the Snowdonia
National Park dates from nearly 1850. It provides an excellent
holiday home for up to five people. Outside, some steps lead
from the patio area with a picnic bench overlooking waterfalls,
through an inartificial garden area to an intimate wooden
sundeck, surrounded by shrubs and trees.
Sleeps 4 - 5.
Ground floor: Living room. Dining room/kitchen. First floor: 2
bedrooms: 1 double with wooden floor, 1 double with additional
single bunk above. Bathroom with shower over bath and toilet.
The price for 7 nights starting on
17/04/2010 is Ł281.00 (price includes a booking fee).
Book by phone on
0845 268 1346
Quote cottage ref
W40609
2009 EVENTS
The Society Conference 2009
The Hand Hotel, Llangollen
Friday 21st August to Sunday 23rd August
“Ravishing Limbo”
The last
Conference double DVD,
Llangollen 2009, is available.

[Discussing the stage
adaptation of Dostoievsky’s “The Idiot” at
Llangollen]
2009 Conference webpage
CONFERENCE WALKS TO VALLE CRUCIS AND MYNYDD Y GAER
VALLE CRUCIS
“Twas in this Chapter-House I wrote the first sentences of my
own Owen Glendower and left it uncorrected because the spirits
of those Cistercian monks were inspiring it....”
On Saturday afternoon a group of Conference-goers followed the
towpath, a short distance, beside the still waters of the
Llangollen canal as far as Pontefrelin and then by field paths
with fine views of Bryn Hyfryd and glimpses of the buttresses
and arches of the Abbey seen through the trees, to reach the
well preserved remains of JCP‘s “scholastic sanctuary in the
mountains.”
Links with JCP are very strong here. He visited the Abbey in
1935 with Phyllis and wrote in his diary that he wished to be
buried here, beside Glendower’s bard, Iolo Goch. He came here
again in 1945 on a holiday with his son, Littleton, who had just
been ordained in the Roman Catholic faith. JCP loved the cool
interior of the chapter house, and must have found the tranquil
riverside location, and the historical connections of the place,
as well as its associations with the mother church of St Mael
and St Sulien in Corwen very appealing. It was thus here on 24
April 1937 that he began to write Owen Glendower.
The Vale of Llangollen, and the area around Valle Crucis, with
its local traditions, myths and stories about King Arthur, and a
Grail castle on top of Dinas Bran reminded JCP of Avalon and the
Glastonbury legends, just as the monk’s fishpond in the Abbey
grounds, the beautiful west front, circular window and rib
vaulting of the Chapter House also reminded him of Glastonbury
Abbey and the remains of a once prosperous Cistercian abbey in
Montacute,
On the way to Valle Crucis green fields and flower filled
meadows could be seen reaching down to the edges of the canal
leaving space for sheep and cattle to roam freely along its
muddy banks. On the other side, the towpath follows the route of
the steam railway and the river Dee, connecting, at a point
beyond the motor museum, with the Horseshoe Falls and the
Chainbridge Hotel, where the river plunges dramatically and
noisily over fallen trees and massive boulders. Gaily painted
leisure barges, some drawn by horses, now occupy part of the
route to Valle Crucis which was once crowded with vessels
carrying raw materials to the industrial centres of England.
The views of Dinas Bran, with its foundations “sunk in the
mysterious underworld of beyond reality” seen from the two path,
or, more prominently, from Coed Hyrddin, the hill on the other
side of the road opposite the entrance to the Abbey, leave the
visitor with no doubt why JCP thought that this was a very
special place. In an essay in Obstinate Cymric, Wales and
America, JCP recalled that: “...never...not even in Glastonbury
– have I felt the spirit of what Spengler would call the Spring
time of our Faustian culture as powerfully as in this holy
ground.”
MYNYDD Y GAER
A small fleet of cars transported other conference-goers further
afield to Corwen where our ‘ael’ and goal was the summit
of Caer Drewyn -- the impressive Iron Age fortress called by
Powys Mynyd Y Gaer – a name which you can also see on a local
sign post pointing the way to the hill.
Our route to Corwen took us through a landscape made familiar by
repeated readings of Owen Glendower and Porius.
Leaving Llangollen we went past the tiny community of Berwyn
where the gaunt peaks of the Llantysillio mountain range could
be seen in the distance, till we reached the picturesque
villages of Glyndyfrdwy and Carrog, passing the heather and
bracken filled hilltops of Coed Pen Y Garth, Craig Y Rhos and
Coed Bwlch Coch. Entering Corwen, which JCP in Porius
frequently refers to under its other names of “The White Choir”
or “The White Circle” we easily found good parking in the
middle of town in the rather grandly named Corwen Interchange (a
car park with facilities and a bus stop!). We crossed the Dee by
a modern bridge. At this point the river is broad and deep.
Willows bend low over the surface of the Dee creating shady
spots, like the “pools of Cybele”, where lamprey, Atlantic
salmon, brown trout and grayling can sometimes be seen. On the
clay banks we looked for green woodpeckers and kingfishers that
are frequent visitors here. Perhaps further down stream where
the river is shallower there might be found a possible location
for JCP’s “Ford of Mithras” which Porius uses to get to St
Julian’s fountain on the other side.
Ahead the great round mass of Caer Drewyn confronted us. Early
fruiting blackberries in the hedgerows suggested Autumn was on
its way. The ever-changing late summer light and muted
chiaroscuro effect of the variegated colours of yellow, green
and purple that covered the surface of the hill refreshed our
eyes. The colour schemes of JCP’s Welsh novels devised by Wilson
Knight came to mind -- red and gold for Owen Glendower,
and silver, grey and dark brown earth colours for Porius.
Beside Corwen Leisure Centre we followed the course of a disused
railway path where oak and elms grow thickly and the sound of
blackcaps and warblers fill the air with their song, then
skirted the edge of Caer Drewyn untill we began to climb
steadily up the north side of the hill to a spot near the summit
surrounded by the stone walls of the Gaer. Standing on a carpet
of bracken, fern and gorse, we surveyed the spreading valley
below trying to identify some of the locations in JCP’s novel
Porius, in the panoramic view spread out before us. The Dee
itself could easily be identified twisting round the town. We
spotted Cae Coed, which JCP explained means “the clearing in the
forest” and the meadow he refers to in his abandoned novel
Edeyrnion, known locally as “Dol-pur-gresyn” or “the field of
unbearable pity” situated beside the original Pont Corwen,
constructed in the eighteenth century, and perhaps another
possible location for the “Ford of Mithras”. Could the gap
between the trees in the “greenish black” ancient forest
opposite us be the Path of the Dead leading to Y Grug, or “The
Mound” - the burial place of Iscovan in Porius? Turning
north we could see the “Swamp of the Gwyddyl Ffichti”, the
village of Gwyddylwern, and looking down again at Corwen, on
the other side of the river, its buildings seemed more like
JCP’s “Brythonic dwellings” than modern houses, we could pick
out Coed Pen Y Pigyn, the hill behind Corwen church, and a
favourite destination for JCP on his daily “round” and walk
amidst the thick oak woodland above the town.
We debated the location of Snowdon but dark purple edged clouds
had suddenly descended and the tops of the mountains were no
longer visible, so we could only discern its general
direction.
As we spoke our voices were lost in the vast open space of the
Gaer. Approaching the very top of the hill the cry of a buzzard
startled me. A raven flapped its wings nearby. I thought of the
croaking raven of Llangar, of Sycarth, Mithrafael and the
descent of the Kings of Powys Fadog. I thought of Powys himself,
for whom Caer Drewyn never lost its fascination, the omphalos of
his imagination. I thought of Powys newly arrived in Corwen, “ a
wayfarer from Dorset”, ascending the “purgatorial mount”,
situated high above the Dee Valley, and making his way to the
ruins of an abandoned shooting lodge, called Liberty Hall, built
in the early twentieth century by a local landowner, Lord
Northborough. Here JCP erected stone “stele” – memorials for
family and friends - “a regular burying ground of my Dead
Heroes and Glory Ground of my Living Ones!” he told Katie.
From here JCP looked back across the river at the
Gaer. In his mind he had already filled “the absolute blank” of
Dark Age history with his own self-created stories and invented
characters.
The Gaer, empty now, felt however preternaturally alive. The
buzzard and the raven had fallen silent. The sound of the wind
in the thorn trees and bracken was all that accompanied our
descent to the car park. Somehow I felt that the past and the
present were not so far apart. The image of the Mithraic Sun
God, the lion headed figure encircled by a serpent, the deos
leontocephalus, the god of time and eternity worshipped in
the Hellenic mystery religions, whose statue Porius
glimpses in the Cave of Mithras, but which left his “religious
sensibility” quite cold, rose up, fleetingly, in my mind, then
disappeared, and I thought I understood what Powys had meant:
“As the old gods were departing then so the old gods are
departing now.”
Chris Thomas
POWYS DAY
Saturday 9 May, Dorset County Museum, 11.00am
“HARDY, POWYS AND WEYMOUTH”.
All
members of both The Powys Society and The Hardy Society were welcome
to join this event and participated in a day of literary discussion
combined with an easy ramble beside the Frome and the Cerne.
John Cowper Powys was intimately associated with many of the places
mentioned by Hardy in his novels, especially the landscape of the
Dorset and Somerset borders, and the hills and valleys and chalk
downs around Weymouth and Dorchester. Powys shared with Hardy
similar obsessions about Fate, Destiny and Chance as well as the
invisible powers of an unseen First Cause. He took from Hardy his
understanding of the interpenetration of character and landscape and
especially admired his pessimism, his “imaginitive grandeur”, and
ability to render in prose the physical quality of things.
We
began our day with a talk by Tony Fincham, Chairman of The Hardy
Society, who explored the links between Hardy and Weymouth, the
surrounding locations and their representation in Hardy’s work.
Before lunch there was an opportunity to visit the Writer’s Gallery
and also the Powys Society Collection in the Dorset County Museum.
In
the afternoon we focused on a single chapter of JCP’s novel
Weymouth Sands. We studied Chapter 13, Punch and Judy,
and examined Powys’s vision of the “Platonic essence” of Weymouth.
Written in 1932-1933 when Powys was living in up-state New York, the
novel evokes with great intensity the scenes of Powys’s childhood.
The selected chapter also evokes the darker side of Powys’s vision:
there is the looming fear of madness, incarceration, and of the
sinister scientific experiments that take place in “Hell’s Museum”
somewhere on the margins of the town and the chalk downs.
Our
day concludes with a walk in Powys’s footsteps through the water
meadows of Dorchester,
In
reading Weymouth Sands with its accumulation of animate and
inanimate detail we are reminded that, as George Wilson Knight once
observed, “to read Powys is to explore creation”.
Key texts:
Weymouth Sands (see elsewhere on this web site for the
republication of the novel by Duckworth on 30 April 2009), John
Cowper Powys on Thomas Hardy (Powys Society publications).
There are also essays by Powys on Hardy in Visions and Revisions
and The Pleasures of Literature. The April 2009 Powys
Society Newsletter includes a further essay by Powys on Hardy,
“Thomas Hardy and his Times” reprinted for the first time since its
original publication in Current History in 1928.
Powys Day, Saturday 9 May
A Walk to the Blue Bridge
John Cowper Powys dedicated his first novel, Wood and Stone, to
Thomas Hardy: “the greatest poet and novelist of our age”. In fact
the connections with Hardy seem to have been pivotal to JCP. He
later told Louis Wilkinson that he took from Hardy the ability to
see all human feelings and actions against the inanimate background
of nature. These interconnected themes provided the focus for a
lively discussion of Hardy, Weymouth and Powys at this year’s Powys
Day in Dorchester.
Tony Fincham, Chairman of the Hardy Society, introduced us to
Hardy’s association with Weymouth and the town that JCP called “the
centre of the circumference of my life” while Judith Stinton, author
of books about Dorset and its literary connections, led us on a
journey deep into the world of the commedia dell arte
tradition and the symbolism of Mr Punch in Powys’s Weymouth Sands .
For both men Weymouth was a place of glamour, and happy childhood
memories. For Powys, especially, Weymouth was an enchanted place,
associated with sensations of ecstasy, and which always seemed to
him to be rising magically out of the wide encircling bay -
Deadman’s Bay to Hardy.
In the warm afternoon sunlight we later followed in the footsteps of
JCP and his dog, The Old, on a gentle ramble beside the clear, swift
moving waters of the Frome, bordered on one side by sloping gardens
and on the other by a secluded woodland walk and cheery little
allotments.
The route passed between Hangman’s Cottage, possibly once the
habitation of the town’s public executioner, an abandoned mill
stream, a pair of dilapidated wooden sluice gates, a celandine
ditch, and “John’s Pond”, mentioned in Powys’s novel Maiden Castle,
and still overgrown with weeds and wild plants.
We paused at the Blue Bridge and gazed, as Powys did, at the willows
bent low over the muddy banks of the river Cerne, observed the
smooth surface of the pebbles and stones glisten amidst the wavering
underwater weeds, saw the thin silver strips of telegraph wires in
the next field sparkle in the sun, and stared intently at the spires
and towers of St Peters and All Saints silhouetted against the pale
blue sky.
From here the lush pastures and verduous green water meadows, filled
with yellow cowslips, spread out in all directions. Further on where
the path narrows to allow progress to be made only in single file
little clumps of hog weed and saxifrage mingled with harebell, and
bluebells.
This tranquil and pastoral scene, well known to JCP, evoked a deep
sense of timelessness and intense pleasure. This must be one of the
most beautiful spots in all of Dorchester. Only the bell like sound
of a solitary song bird and the sudden disturbance of the water’s
surface by an occasional fish rising up from the sandy bottom of the
river broke the perfect stillness of this sleepy little hollow.
The sun had not yet set when we began to retrace our steps and
returned to Dorchester via Hennings Gate, amidst the lengthening
shadows cast by the chestnut trees, to enjoy a pint of real Dorset
ale and reflect on more Powysian subjects.
Chris Thomas
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