Ivor Gurney

[MichaelBully]

Just found out that there is in fact an Ivor Gurney Society with some excellent material on their website.

http://www.ivorgurney.org.uk/index.htm

There is also a USA based Ivor Gurney Society

http://www.geneva.ed...rney/index.html

Edit

Also on the theme of Ivor Gurney - Philip Lancaster's blog on Gurney is superb:

http://ivorgurney.blogspot.co.uk/

[David_Underdown]

There's also shortly to be a drama by pianist Iain Burnside based on episodes from Gurney's life at the Barbican, London. http://www.barbican.org.uk/theatre/event-detail.asp?ID=13096

[MichaelBully]

Thank you David , I am going to be in London on 28th April 2012, so very tempted to go.

Last Saturday ,31st March 2012, attended a joint Wilfred Owen Association/Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship joint event , and Philip Lancaster sung a few of Ivor Gurney's songs.Very Impressed.

Regards, Michael Bully

There's also shortly to be a drama by pianist Iain Burnside based on episodes from Gurney's life at the Barbican, London. http://www.barbican....il.asp?ID=13096

[MichaelBully]

Am listening to Radio 3 at present 'In Tune' BBC Radio 3 16.30 Thursday 5th April 2012, feature on Ivor Gurney 's music will be in this progamme

[Terry_Reeves]

Liz Ward's PhD thesis on his poetry may also be of interest:

https://hydra.hull.a...urces/hull:3481

TR

[MichaelBully]

Thank you Terry , will follow this up. There seems to be some interest in Ivor Gurney at present. A Penguin Classics edition 'Three Poets of the First World War, Ivor Gurney, Isaac Rosenberg, Wilfred Owen' edited by Jon Stallworthy and Jane Potter was published last year. I was previously one of the people who had only really associated Ivor Gurney with his more harrowing work and his long spell of illness following the Great War, but the more I read about him, and hear about his work, a much broader view of his talents emerge.

Regards,

Michael Bully

Liz Ward's PhD thesis on his poetry may also be of interest:

https://hydra.hull.a...urces/hull:3481

TR

[Terry_Reeves]

You may also wish to get hold of a copy of Ivor Gurney - Collected Letters, RKR Thompson, Editor. The Mid Northumberland Arts Group & Carcanet Press 1991.

The letters,to various friends, cover the war years and discuss poetr., music, his time at Park House Camp in Wiltshire and on the Western Front.

TR

[MichaelBully]

Thanks for the information TR. Regards.

You may also wish to get hold of a copy of Ivor Gurney - Collected Letters, RKR Thompson, Editor. The Mid Northumberland Arts Group & Carcanet Press 1991.

The letters,to various friends, cover the war years and discuss poetr., music, his time at Park House Camp in Wiltshire and on the Western Front.

TR

[ceebee]

A local radio station recently played a reading by David Goodland of Ivor Gurney's poem The Lock-Keeper. I've provided the poem for interest.

The Lock-Keeper

A tall lean man he was, proud of his gun,

Of his garden, and small fruit trees every one

Knowing all weather signs, the flight of birds,

Farther than I could hear the falling thirds

Of the first cuckoo. Able at digging, he

Smoked his pipe ever, furiously, contentedly,

Full of old country tales his memory was;

Yarns of both sea and land, full of wise saws

In rough fine speech; sayings his father had,

That worked a twelve-hour day when but a lad.

Handy with timber, nothing came amiss

To his quick skill; and all the mysteries

Of sail-making, net-making, boat-building were his.

That dark face lit with bright bird-eyes, his stride

Manner most friendly courteous, stubborn pride,

I shall not forget, not yet his patience

With me, unapt, though many a far league hence

I'll travel for many a year, nor ever find

A winter-night companion more to my mind,

Nor one more wise in ways of Severn river,

Though her villages I search for ever and ever.

The poem was written in July 1918 and dedicated to the memory of Edward Thomas,another poet, which takes us down another road......

[MichaelBully]

That's great ceebee, thank you. It is a lovely poem. One of those selected in last year's anthology ' Three Poets of the First World War- Ivor Gurney, Issac Rosenberg, Wilfred Owen' (Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Jon Stallworthy and Jane Potter- Penguin Classics)

Curious to know what 'wise saws ' means as in

"Yarns of both sea and land, full of wise saws "

Regards

Michael Bully

A local radio station recently played a reading by David Goodland of Ivor Gurney's poem The Lock-Keeper. I've provided the poem for interest.

............

The poem was written in July 1918 and dedicated to the memory of Edward Thomas,another poet, which takes us down another road......

[ceebee]

Michael

I gather it means wise reflections based on experience. A "saw" being a proverb.

The term is used in Act II Scene VII of Shakespeare's play "As you like it". Jaques, in his "All the world's a stage", says -

And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

Thanks for the book reference. I'll have to dig it out of my local library.

Chris

[MichaelBully]

That's amazing Chris ! Thanks so much ! From looking at the footnote of the aforementioned anthology,Jon Stallworthy and Jane Potter did not notice the Shakespeare reference with regard to the 'wise saws' .

I am always interested in how local dialect survives, so had wondered if 'wise saws' was somehow significant to Gloucestershire. Perhaps it is more universal.

It's quite a tribute to Ivor Gurney that we are discussing expressions he used in poems decades later.

Regards,

Michael Bully

[Skipman]

May have been posted before but Ivor Gurney's service record is online Click

 

Mike

[seaJane]

'All my life's buried here,' a film about Ivor Gurney, is available for purchase on DVD: https://www.georgebutterworth.co.uk/purchase-the-film/

I was given it for Christmas a year or two ago and like it.

sJ

Edited 10 May , 2023 by seaJane