The Aardvark Blog

Geoffrey Hilll, Peter Florence,Marking Time, Food and Farming Day
2/07/2016

Sad news yesterday of the death of the wonderful Lyric poet Geoffrey Hill. When I was at Emma in the dawn of the world, Geoffrey Hill was a magnificent brooding presence around the college. He also had a connection with Keble where he was an undergraduate, which he celebrated after being made the Oxford Poetry Professor. Thus he was a poet always popular amongst the Aardvarkians, where university loyalties are ever bifurcated.

One of the poems from his mid-career remains a favourite of mine. 'Ovid in the Third Reich' -

   I love my work and my children. God   

   Is distant, difficult. Things happen.   

   Too near the ancient troughs of blood   

   Innocence is no earthly weapon.

 

   I have learned one thing: not to look down  

   So much upon the damned. They, in their sphere,   

   Harmonize strangely with the divine

   Love. I, in mine, celebrate the love-choir.

 

It seems particularly appropriate for my current mood, a mood not helped by the story printed in today's paper that Peter Florence, the director and founder of the Hay Festival was asked politely by a well dressed middle class couple when he intended to return to Pakistan.

 

All the pictures are now hung for our exhibition MARKING TIME that opens today at 11am. It is an extraordinarily powerful exhibition, with Kate Morgan-Clare's haunting paper sculptures and mix media works, interacting with tina Clare's 'Lost Lanterns of Syria' series, and Peter Clare's paintings and prints. It is hard to pick a favourite piece, but I must admit I am very tempted by the Lost Lanterns. I visited Syria as a child, and it made an immense impression on me. How sad it is to know that if one were to return so much would have been lost.

 

Final preparations are being made for next Saturday's new Mortimer Country event - 'The Food and Farming Day'. This event is determinedly not a food fair, but rather a boutique celebration of our farming heritage and the food that we eat. There will be superb live music from a new Creole Jazz Band, and a rare opportunity to examine historic farming equipment used on the Brampton Bryan Estate, and to talk to our neighbouring farmers about the animals who surround the bookshop. Do come if you can as now seems like a perfect time to celebrate our heritage and what makes this area so special.