Keith Jones

                                         Keith Jones, Iran, 1978                   Photo: Gillian Jones

Keith Jones, whose collection, Merrimans, was published by Agenda Editions in 2001, was born in Gwaenysgor, North Wales, and studied at Aberystwyth University. After teaching English for two years in Birmingham, he escaped overseas to Turkey and Ethiopia. He joined the British Council in 1966 and was posted to Alexandria some months before the 6-day war. He worked for the British Council in Nigeria, London, Germany and the Middle East, taking retirement in 1993. Reflected in his poetry are his interests in the Tarot system and Welsh mythology, and his bizarre experiences in the course of his battle to live with Parkinsonism which he fought so bravely.

Agenda Editions hopes to publish more of his work posthumously, and he will be featured in the Welsh issue of Agenda (winter 2008)

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…perhaps Queen Gaia’s begun some people

culling policy,

perhaps a possible world is passing through

hacking as she goes;

perhaps some swirling saucer took the slice

and now is busy with the DNA,

a small army of your clones even now

entering somewhere parallel universe

where Yeats, constantly summoning lexicographers,

is king of a misspelled world,

and you are his company of knights, come to applaud

the latest verses on Byzantium;

or perhaps just a road, a tree, a fire and reading the flames

a brother of the holy spirit

discourses on how god moved and left behind the swirl,

whrlpool, wheel, whirlwind, womb,

and from it falcon after falcon after jackal

after whatever Thoth deals from the deck.

                                   (from ‘The Ace of Deaths’)

…come forward my dear,

put this blindfold on

in each hand a sword,

now cross them overhead

the moon’s on her back,

the wind’s inside the sea,

the hair rising on our necks.

                         (from ‘The Two of Deaths)

…it’s time to listen my love, my rival,

to listen rigid to the wailing mothers

they know grief like the swimmer water,

their voices scratch the diamond eye of god,

they are professionals

taking in pain and washing it clean –

whatever the death their breath

can sing afterworlds inside us,

or maps of them and the will to journey,

head down in the Egyptian wind.

                          (from ‘The Three of Deaths)

…and you recite a self-critique

to each of your judges, all 42 of them, drenched in gossip,

and perhaps

the boatman beckoning

the underground night journey of the sun,

the lake of fire, the faithful serpent in whose coils

the hero hides,

seclusion sweet seclusion like a sleepy sphinx

let me lie here safe from the demands of love,

the plots of rivals,

let’s play the diplomacy of death, rouge the dead lips,

lift the coffin lid, rephrase despatches,

recode the papyrus.

                                 (from ‘The Four of Deaths’)

The above extracts are from Merrimans, Agenda Editions.

Conor Fallon, sculptor and painter, 30 January 1939 – 3 October 2007

Conor Fallon’s ‘Pegasus’ was on the front cover of the above issue, 1996. His ‘Nun with Singing Bird’ was on the back cover of the same issue:

Conor Fallon, son of the poet Padraic Fallon (whose Collected Poems were published by Carcanet) offered a steel sculpture of his Pegasus for the front cover of the Irish issue of Agenda, Vol. 33 Nos. 3-4 in 1996, guest-edited by Patricia McCarthy, and his ‘Nun with the Singing Bird’ for the back cover.

     He was one of the most important Irish sculptors of the last century, renowned for his steel birds, horses, hares and fish (all part of the Celtic tradition) which have a spare, sleek beauty and presence with their clean lines. He was influenced not only by Cubism which he considered ‘the development in the art of the 20th cenury’, by Brancusi and Picasso’s three-dimensional work, but also by the early Greek sculptures and the carved figures of Ancient Egypt. From Modernism, he looked to Naum Gabo (a resident of St. Ives, Cornwall where Conor and his artist wife Nancy lived for a while, before moving to Kinsale, Cork for some years and then to Ballinaclash, County Wicklow) who demonstrated the avoidance of mass in sculptural space.

      Although he was initially known for fairly small sculptures when he remarked ‘I was unable to see how I could do public sculptures of birds without them being distortions’, he eventually became noted for his monumental steel sculptures, mainly commissioned for important public places such as Enniscorthy Bridge, County Wexford, University College, Cork, and in Dublin, St. Patrick’s hospital, the Bank of Ireland Centre, University College, and a landmark piece for Independent Newspapers. He was awarded the Oireachtas gold medal for sculpture in 1980, and devoted much time to his role as secretary of the Royal Hibernian Academy and board member of the National Gallery of Ireland.

             On the occasion of the German Speaking Group

                HE The Ambassador of Switzerland, Mr Alexis P.  Lautenberg

            requests the pleasure of your company

 at a reception at the Residence

with Prof Rüdiger Görner, Chair of the German Department, Queen Mary College,

University of London

in association with the Special Issue of Agenda 'A Reconsideration of Rainer Maria Rilke'

who will speak on “Rilke with a Swiss flavour”

on  Wednesday 14 November 2007 from 6.00pm until 8.00pm

The above event was kindly hosted by His Excellency, the Ambassador of Switzerland. Patricia McCarthy introduced Agenda and the special Rilke issue. Sam Milne spoke briefly about Michael Hamburger's reputation as an expert on Rilke, including his long association with Agenda. Professor Rudiger Gorner delivered his paper very eloquently in German, and Charlie Louth (grandson of C.H. Sisson) read his translation from the Rilke issue.

The special double issue of Agenda, ‘A Reconsideration of Rainer Maria Rilke’ has been referred to by several well-known critics as ‘the best yet’. Dennis O’Driscoll, well-known Irish poet and critic calls it ‘an outstanding issue – the fruit of hard and loving labour.  It will serve as a permanent resource – a one-volume treasury – for Rilke readers, new and old’. Poet Brendan Kennelly calls it a ‘splendid, epic tribute to, and celebration of Rilke and his work.’ He continues: ‘It’s like a choir at its most magnificent…There’s something truly beautiful about the choir of poets paying tribute to Rilke’s unique spirit… Readers will love this issue of Agenda more as the years slip by.’

   Its arresting cover is a fitting and charming woodcut by Caroline Trant  http://carolyntrantparvenu.blogspot.com (email: parvenu.c@ukonline.co.uk ). The varied and carefully chosen 288 pages contain an organised mixture of new translations/versions by mainly well-known translators and version-makers, with some new voices;  highly interesting essays on Rilke, all of which take an original angle; a section of general poems to, on or for Rilke also by new and well-established poets; and translations of essays in French on Rilke.

   Young poets continue to be encouraged and two very gifted chosen young Broadsheet poets, Adam O’Riordan and Zoe Brigley are highlighted here for prominence. Other fine young poets and artists feature in the accompanying online Broadsheet (No. 8 in the series) on this site.

In November, 2006 the Editor of Agenda, Patricia McCarthy and Marcus Frederick, Administration Manager went to Florence, Italy where there was a German, American and Italian conference on Dante, with talks in Dante’s old house. There the Editor met Robert Pinski, a famous authority on Dante, and a past contributor to Agenda, who promises to contribute more work in the future.

The Irish poet, Greg Delanty, whose collected poems came out from Carcanet recently, has visited the Editor several times, and a section of an issue in 2008 to mark his fiftieth birthday will focus on his poetry.

Peter Robinson, well-known contributor to Agenda with poetry and essays, has now moved from Japan where he lived for eighteen years to Reading. He has taken up a challenging post at the university there.

Deaths:

The Agenda team suffered two major bereavements recently: the Administration Manager’s father  and the Editor’s mother. These are acknowledged by two poems written by the Editor on each of them at the front of the Rilke issue of Agenda.

It was with great sadness that we heard of the death of Michael Hamburger, well-known poet, translator and essayist. He has been associated with Agenda for many years, almost from its inception, and he has contributed to its pages many fine poems, translations and essays.

Edward Lowbury, who was also a contributor to Agenda, also sadly died recently.

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