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Liverpool cathedral
Last saturday, I was in Liverpool to give a paper on Margaret Atwood at a conference on the urban gothic. It was the first ‘real’ conference I was going to and I really enjoyed it. It was a great day with very friendly people. I heard great papers and I also discovered two artists.
Gerry Gapinski, an artist born in New York and currently living in Edinburgh, gave a talk on what he is working on at the moment: a graphic novel entitled Three Colours: Black. It is actually a trilogy, each part representing a city: Edinburgh, Glasgow and New York. During his address, he showed us films and pictures of his work. Although his earlier work is not really my cup of tea, I must say that I find his later work admirable. His representations of the city are quite amazing and full of details. Someone to keep an eye on…
The other artist I discovered is Nicholas Royle, a writer from Manchester, who read us one of his short stories. To date, he has published five novels and a collection of short stories, Mortality. There is something nice about being read a story and I really enjoyed the one he read to us. ‘Weird’ is what I would say about it. It also had that typical effect of a good short story: the minute it is over, you want to read it again. I’ll definitely check out his collection.
I also had some time to visit a bit the city of Liverpool and I was agreably surprised. I thought it would be a grey city but I found a vibrant city with a good atmosphere and many beautiful or intriguing buildings.
Here are some photos:
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This year, I was a tutor for first-year student in English. I did indeed think I should write down all the anecdotes that make one smile (or cringe), but, of course, I never wrote down a thing. Anyway, I can remember a few and here are the two best ones.
For their drama essay, students had a choice of questions on classical/early modern drama or on modern drama. In the section on modern drama, was the following question: “How does ONE of the plays on the course present a commentary on the status of men in today’s society?”. A student decided to use Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus (as opposed to a modern play by Beckett or Kane) to answer the question. As if that was not enough, she managed to write that Shakespeare had written this play in the 18th century. Say no more…
On their poetry course, students considered how some modern poets have revised the sonnet form. Amongst these poets was Patience Agbabi whose collection Bloodshot Monochrome contains a section called “Problem Pages”. In it, the speaker adopts the personae of an agony aunt trying to resolve famous poets’, such as Shakespeare, Keats and McKay, problems. Can you imagine my stupefaction when I realised during the tutorials that certain students actually believed that these were real letters written to Agbabi.
Don’t you just love it?
I haven’t been really good with my resolution. It’s not that the envy to write is not here or that I don’t have any ideas, but I haven’t had (taken) the time. So, while waiting, I let you discover this jazz trio.
The Phill Collins Trio is based in Waterford and Cork, so keep an eye out for their gigs if you are around. Their first cd, Bucolic, came out just before Christmas and most, if not all, the tracks are original compositions by Phill Collins. You can get a taste of the cd on their myspace page and follow them on facebook.
Enjoy!
