Sir Andrew Motion; Thomas Hardy; Max Gate; "Writing Places"; Brilliant Poetry Reading

Writing Places: the launch of a new project to open up National Trust properties: 

diversification and contemporary relevance.

A brilliant and moving reading by Sir Andrew Motion,
who also talked about his love of Hardy's poetry, and how he first discovered it.

His first visit to Max Gate, where he felt the shade of Hardy's presence:

Update, Dorset Echo

We briefly discussed his visit to Prague in  April 1989

He was visiting Czechoslovakia for a Festival of British Poetry at Strahov Library,
 with Craig Raine, Fleur Adcock, Eva Figes and Jean Bourne (21.4. 1989)

 In 1899

"Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, 

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?"

T.S.Eliot

Stands the Church clock at ten to three? 

And is there honey still for tea?

Rupert Brooke

From Dorset Echo

"Max Gate, the home that Thomas Hardy had built for himself in Dorchester, will host the launch of the National Trust Writing Places project on June 2, with a talk and a reading from award-winning poet Sir Andrew Motion, who will include a Hardy poem amongst his own work".

Gustav Holst, Egdon Heath, Homage to Hardy

Gustav Holst visited Hardy at Max Gate, and walked the Dorset heath-land

Details of Holst's visits here (pdf, pages 9-12))

For more information nationaltrust.org.uk/writingplaces

Literary Wisdom in the South West

More information

And more

Literature Works

Launch of Literature Works Project

Poetry Archive website

Andrew Motion, Poetry Archive

A Tour of the Archive

Moving to Baltimore, USA (BBC)

"Poet Sir Andrew Motion is to leave Britain for a new job in the US, saying being known as a former poet laureate in the UK can be "suffocating". He will become professor of the arts at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore".

"Suffocating in UK" (Mail Online)

Writing Places Project: