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Event - Poetry and Music on The Gypsy Caravan

05.22.2018 by Pages of Hackney //

The Gypsy Caravan

This Spring Sutton House are working with The Gypsy Caravan Theatre Project, who are bringing a traditional gypsy caravan into the grounds of Sutton House and using it as a stage from which to tell stories. The theme this year is Women and Power and they've asked Pages to host a night of women telling stories, so we're delighted to welcome Meryl Pugh to read from her debut poetry collection, Natural Phenomena, followed by a performance from the Norfolk Broads, a low pitched four-piece female folk ensemble.

A book of witnessing and overhearing, Natural Phenomena is the long-awaited debut poetry collection by Meryl Pugh. A city lies in ruins. Spires topple, planes fall. Rubble is broken by wildflower. The radio chatter of birdsong. Follow the poet as futurist and flaneuse as she searches for unexpected beauty in a landscape of plastic, wire and glass. With a probing, precise lyric, these poems monitor the urban landscape on the edge of change, revealing the flora and fauna of its hidden spaces, and transforming its wild edgelands into a many-voiced song.
Meryl has a PhD in Critical and Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and writes about interiority, environment and poetics. The author of two pamphlets — The Bridle (Salt Publishing, 2011) and Relinquish (Arrowhead, 2007) — she lives in East London and teaches creative writing and poetry for Morley College.

The Norfolk Broads sing traditional songs from the British Isles and America, usually unaccompanied. They are drawn to songs that tell a story, and the people and emotions at the centre of those stories. From dark tales of murder and seduction to ballads of love and hope, the Broads take these stories and reimagine them, their four-part harmonies bringing life back to long quiet words. The stories of women and their lives are a constant source of inspiration, and the Broads enjoy exploring this female side to the folk world.

Please note, this is an outdoor event, so please wear suitable warm clothing. There will be hot drinks on sale.

Tags // Folk Music, Poetry

Event - Shirley Collins in conversation with Frances Morgan

05.10.2018 by Pages of Hackney //

All in the Downs by Shirley Collins

We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Shirley Collins to Sutton House, where she'll be reading from her new memoir, All in the Downs, and chatting with Frances Morgan.

A legendary singer, folklorist, and music historian, Shirley Collins has been an integral figure in the English folk music scene for more than sixty years. In her new memoir, All in the Downs, Collins tells the story of that lifelong relationship with English folksong—a dedication to artistic integrity that has guided her through the triumphs and tragedies of her life.

All in the Downs combines elements of memoir—from her working-class origins in wartime Hastings to the bright lights of the 1960s folk revival in London—alongside reflections on the role traditional music and the English landscape have played in shaping her vision. From formative field recordings made with Alan Lomax in the United States to the “crowning glories” recorded with her sister Dolly on the Sussex Downs, she writes of the obstacles that led to her withdrawal from the spotlight and the redemption of a new artistic flourishing that continues today with her unexpected return to recording in 2016.

Through it all, Shirley Collins has been guided and supported by three vital and inseparable loves: traditional English song, the people and landscape of her native Sussex, and an unwavering sense of artistic integrity. All in the Downs pays tribute to these passions, and in doing so, illustrates a way of life as old as England, that has all but vanished from this land.

Shirley Collins MBE is a renowned folk singer who has recorded over 20 albums, and the author of America Over the Water (2004). She is the president of the English Folk Dance and Song Society in London. Her critically lauded album Lodestar, released in 2016, marked a triumphant return to performance after thirty-eight years. Shirley was recently the subject of a feature documentary film, The Ballad of Shirley Collins.

Frances Morgan is a writer based in London. She writes about music, film and sound for The Wire, Sight & Sound and others, and is currently researching histories of electronic music at the Royal College of Art and the Science Museum.


Tags // Folk Music, Memoir, Strange Attractor Press

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Fri 19

Live - Who’s Loving You in Conversation with Black Girls Book Club

March 19 @ 19:00 - 20:00 GMT
Tue 09

Live - The Manningtree Witches: A.K. Blakemore Live Tarot Interview with Jen Cownie

March 9 @ 19:30 - 21:00 GMT

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