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McGregor Poetry Festival 2015 – A Letter to a Friend
Dear Friend,
Lend -
Me your ear
So you can hear
Moments
So deep
So steep
Crackling
Cackling
Broadening
Disordering
Warming
Charming
Bonding
Disarming
Alarming
Shooting arrows
Calling shadows
Loaded barrows
To move
Forward, door-ward
Into the next Space …
My weekend’s journey:
The NG Kerk
Huge
Loaded to capacity
With children
From all the local schools
Sprinkled with adults with childlike hearts
Antjie Krog
Feeding them from out of her hand
Soft and loud
Lips reverberating
Eyes and ears
Reaching out
As boundaries stretched
Feelings matched
With Monsters, Fairies
And a little boy
Peeing in a plant pot…
Then Suenel
And neighbour Hester
Weaving the warp and weft
Of their two lives
With words
That soul touched
And were
Recognised…
And then it was us -
The Breede Centre
ON STAGE
‘In the Beginning…’
Our Youth Leaders’
First Public Presentation
With knots in their tummies,
Hands shaking, sweaty palms
They chorused
The Biblical Creation Story
Root to Christian, Jew and Muslim
‘In die Begin het God die hemel
en die aarde geskape’
Carefully coached by Katleen
Then
I told
The San Bushman Creation story
Ending with
‘… they had broken the understanding between humans and animals for ever…’
Dawid and I
Followed
With Credo Mutwa’s
The Sacred Tree of Life
‘…A mighty battle soon ensued, between Hot and Cold, and Dark and Light – still raging on today – and will proceed till Time shall cease to flow...’
Magic flowed from Dawid’s mouth
Lovingly coached by Taya…
Back to the Bible
And all of us closed
Together
St John’s Gospel
‘…The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’
And it was over…
They had DONE IT!
Blessings to our most appreciative audiences
Your joy and congratulations
Have taken our Youth
To new heights…
Our celebratory lunch
Smiles and relief
Heads held high
‘So’, says I
‘Next year, your own poems?’
‘YES!’ they chorused …
My personal journey continued -
Ansa Smit - ‘Unspoken’
Hearts stretched
Eyes aching
Soul opened
Breathing suspended
Released
As we resonated
‘How can we soften this hardness?’
Sunday morning
Reading The Four Quartets
In preparation for
Bob Commin’s
Explorations and Reflections
On T. S Elliot’s life-searching poem
A meditation
On selected pieces
With a chorus:
‘Except for the point,
The still point,
There would be no dance,
And there is only the dance’
Echoing for me:
‘The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility…’
And of course what we all know so well:
‘We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.’
Does this hint at personal growth, evolvement
A Spiral upwards
Rather than an ever-repeating circle?
Over lunch at the Donkey Sanctuary
Pondering, and pondering
So many riches,
So many questions…
And me
Where am I now?
I missed being able to attend
The Poetry walk
In Vrolikheid
Our beckoning Nature Reserve
And a feedback session on
My own
Poetry attempts…
These are a must next year!
But most of all
I feel the hunger of my pen
For a blank sheet of paper
To write, write, WRITE
And so this hunger must be sated
Time and Space created
To pour out all the
Bubbling
Gurgling
Word rushing
Life hushing
Idea gushing
Tumbling
That is happening
Inside of me…
With deep gratitude
I bend my knee
To Billy
To Jenny
The rest of the Poetry Festival Committee
The Poets and Participants
And to All in McGregor
Who rose to the occasion!
And perhaps,
Dear Friend,
Next year
You will join us…?
Well done Jenny for an amazing poetry festival, it was incredible, congratulations!
Jennifer and the mighty Poetryville team
Wow what a weekend… so rich so rich
Thank you for so much – the spiff organisation , the gift bags, the fine food the friendliness, the support emotional and logistical… the final eve at your home …and… and… and
and I shall cook and sprout poetry in my festival apron…. A reminder of happy days
Dorian
Dear Billy, Jennifer & Team
Thank you for organising the third McGregor Poetry Festival.
From our side, everything went smoothly and we enjoyed ourselves very much.
The venues for my two presentations and the three launches were excellent.
Thank you too for the generous allowance, meal tickets and gifts.
I’ll write separate emails regarding the business side of things
This is my thank you as a poet and on behalf of my family who came with again and who had a marvellous time.
Much love and I look forward to the fourth Festival!!
Patricia
Dear Jenny
I am so grateful for being part of this very special Poetry weekend. Thank you for all your dedicated work in making of this such a success. I feel it was a great blessing to all present and really gave Poetry the ringside seat – this does not necessarily always happens at such events.
Just a note to say thank you for such a wonderful experience, the weekend was magical from beginning to end. Thank you also for the goodie bag of gifts and compensation, it wasn't expected, but is much appreciated!
Please will you also convey my thanks to Patricia, David and Christine, who helped me at the venues.
Thank you for a wonderful festival.
Kind regards
Mavis
Hi Billy, Marinda, Jennifer,
Thank you for a wonderful time at the Poetry Festival. What a treat and an echanting weekend! Hope you are all well and not too sad that it is over for now J Congrats to all of you on a wonderful festival, and job well done for the care that goes into every little detail.
My highlight was Antjie Krog in the NG Kerk. She is incredible.
Dear Jennifer
Thanks so much for an absolutely wonderful weekend of poetry.
It was fabulous. Please tell your sponsors thank you from me too. Everything was so carefully and meticulously organised and I loved the feel of intimacy and welcome at the festival. You and the committee have done an amazing thing putting together a programme that is so varied and fascinating and thank you for treating us poets so well too.
Thank you so much for having us at the festival. It was great to have a stand and our sales were good. There was a really interesting and interested crowd of people coming through and looking at the books. I think our location was good, especially as we could have a table outside where everybody could see us.
But especially thank you for your hospitality and welcome. Everyone involved with the festival is so warm and inviting, it’s such a wonderful event to take part in.
Dear MPF,
I am a big fan of your poetry festival. I attended your previous two festivals and have had such an enriching experience.
I live partly in France and have attended some poetry festivals in Europe. I always feel something lacking there - the poets are of a high standing, but I find that most of their work gets lost in over-intertextualisation. It has been suffering from this intellectualisation for many years. In short: their poetry falls short of a "realness".
And MPF has that "realness"! I think that your festival has captured something special in the array of poets you draw. The quality and soul of the work I have heard in McGregor is something you all should be very proud of.
I see that the dates for this year's festival will be over the last weekend of August. I am sure to be coming! I am waiting in great anticipation for the program to be finalised.
An added note: I am hoping that Lara Kirsten will be part of the Festival this year. I attended both her piano and poetry recitals and was so moved by her performances. She made a lasting impact and I am very keen to see how she evolves as an artist. I got a strong feeling that she absolutely loved being part of the festival. She has such an open spirit and her engagement with and support of the other poets were very heart-warming. She added a beaming light to the festival.
I am wishing you another great year of poetry. Best to the preparations of MPF 2015.
Yours sincerely,
