A Guernsey Double
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Learning by listening
Recently my conceptual copywriter alter ego has been roughly shaken awake and made to get on with some work for a change. After a year of freelancer’s famine, I have been scrambling to manage a weird glut of work over the last couple of months. Not having to commute allows me the odd stolen hour…
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Guernsey is my Touchstone
Hideously busy lately but there’s always time for a quick toot on the self promotion trumpet. Another one of my endless love letters to Guernsey cropped up in the ever-interesting The Frogmore Papers last week. I am very grateful to its editor Jeremy Page. Other love letters to the island were collected in A Guernsey Double a…
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Richard Fleming’s magnificent poem for the BBC: La Gran’mère du Chimquière
I feel very proud of my friend Richard Fleming this week. As the best poet on Guernsey, Richard was recently approached by the BBC to write a poem for the National Poetry Day. The poem, La Gran’mère du Chimquière read by Richard, should be – must be – listened to here. Drop in at the 41 minute mark or a smidge before.…
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The Remembering Cliffs in The Island Review
Always nice to see a poem I wrote years ago, crop up again. Of all poems I have written this is a firm favourite, and comes straight from the heart. I wrote it in my late 20s and it has been collected in A Guernsey Double. The photo is me a couple of years ago on…
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Home is where the hurt is
For someone who hates flying as much as I do, I seem to travel a lot. Countries as far apart as Mexico, Chad, and Japan have seen me emerge from the plane blinking in gratitude to the sky gods for my safe arrival, and ready to explore. But when I return to Guernsey I feel I am coming home. I…
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Genius Friend
Edward Chaney’s long-awaited book on G.B. Edwards, Genius Friend is being published and launched at the Guernsey Literary Festival today. And I’m very sad that I’m not there to see it. G.B. Edwards wrote The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, which is by a country mile the best book written about Guernsey. It is essentially…
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How not to annoy a poet
In the granite cliffs of the south coast of Guernsey is a particularly beautiful spot called Icârt Point. I proposed to Lorraine my wife there two years ago, and I have known and loved the place all my life. I have written poems about it, with two even having been set to music. When it comes my time to join…
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Hear ‘A Return to Sarnia’ by Chiara Beebe
Very happy to hear from Chiara Beebe who sent me a live recording made in Guernsey last August of the Guernsey Sinfonietta’s premiere of her piece ‘Return to Sarnia’. The words of which were based on a poem I wrote about the island in my early twenties – more or less the same age Chiara was when…
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‘A Return to Sarnia’ has its premiere
Chiara Beebe’s piece A Return To Sarnia, was given its premiere by the Guernsey Sinfonietta on Wednesday 6th August in St Peter Port’s Town Church. It was conducted by Sebastian Grand, and featured an authoritative young baritone Casey-Joe Rumens. It was spellbinding. It made my hair stand on end. It was an amazing thing to…
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Chiara Beebe, and ‘A Return to Sarnia’
August 6th sees the premiere of a new piece by Chiara Beebe. She is a 22 year old composer, cellist and singer born on Guernsey, whose piece A Return to Sarnia, based on a poem by Peter Kenny, will be performed as part of Terra Nova, an evening of modern and new music, by The Guernsey…
Peter Kenny: a writer's notebook 