Guernsey
Posts relating to Guernsey
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Denys Corbet
Richard Fleming and myself went to visit Joan Ozanne who is a mine of local information about local culture. She showed us an old book called Les Feuilles de la Foret/Les Fieilles d’la Fouarêt/ The Leaves of the Forest) by Denys Corbet, published in 1891. Richard and I had a quick thumb through, and there…
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Island Madness
Have just started to re-read Tim Binding’s Island Madness, and I will upload a section to the Anthology of Guernsey site shortly. Again, and at the risk of sounding like a one trick donkey, a vastly more rewarding book about Guernsey than the Potato Peel Pie effort. Its first chapter has stayed with me very…
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Goats and ghosts
Last night added a story to the Anthology of Guernsey website about La Biche, by Freda Wolley which was broadcast in the eighties on BBC Radio Guernsey, about the legend of the giant ghostly goat. La Biche happened to live very close to where I stayed as a child in La rue des Grons, St…
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George Métivier and the Crapauds
Into the Guille-Allès Library at St Peter Port a couple of days ago, to photocopy a few poems by George Métivier. The Guernseyman George Métivier (1790-1881) was apparently known as the “Guernsey Burns”, and was the ‘national poet’ of the island. He also prepared the first Dictionnaire Franco-Normand, the first dictionary of Guernsey French. He…
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Creating an anthology for Guernsey
So to catch up on recent activity. I returned from a short trip to my former home of Guernsey recently where I presented to the Arts Commission, who were interested in the project. So I am shortly about to kick the project off, and have bought AnthologyofGuernsey.com for a song. While I was over, I…
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Literature in Guernsey – an untold story
I have been working towards creating an Anthology of literature about Guernsey, as I believe the island’s best kept secret is its literary tradition. I think there are three sources of this literature. The first that written by Guernsey people about their own island (such as G.B. Edwards The Book of Ebenezer Le Page). The…
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Poems on the Buses, Guernsey
I lived in Guernsey as a child. It is my spiritual home which I still visit at least once a year. Recently there has been a mini artistic revolution. Last year local writers have been encouraged to come out into the light, and have their work published in an initiative called Pens & Lens. This…
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Pens & Lens, Guernsey
Pens & Lens is great. I flew over to read at the opening, and it was the first event in Guernsey that I have been to with such a literary buzz. The newly formed Guernsey Arts Commission are behind it, and with any luck it can only spark something of a literary burgeoning in the…
Peter Kenny: a writer's notebook 