It has taken me a while to get on with this post, mainly due to sorting out my three sons with sport days, exams and a lot of new adjustments for my middle son who is now living with us again. Both myself and my husband have celebrated big birthdays and amongst all this came the Jack Clemo conference. I did mange to get my pieces finished and the end result was a little flustered but I grew to like them more once they were up in Wheal Martyn's foyer and more still once I'd reflected over the many talks and celebratory moments of the weekend.
My art work was displayed along side numerous old photos; Clemo and Ruth's diary; letters from fellow writers and poets and other artists who had either found inspiration in the poets characteristics or from the actual poems. It was pretty overwhelming really especially the images of Jack as a younger man. I had never seen photo's of him in that period of his life; so now I could connect the earlier poetry to a face - it became right for me at last. On Saturday night we sat in Trethosa Chapel for local stories and the memorial for Jack - and the chapel too, as it will be no more in a few weeks. A mixed bag of sorrow, loss and the hardship of change (am I now gaining a Cornish temperament with this reaction?) was felt within me as I stood outside Trethosa and watched the sunset over the fields of the clays.
I took a few pictures whilst milling amongst the old and new folks that came to catch up and remember and regardless of how little comment was left regarding the display on the feedback sheets at Wheal Martyn, personally I feel that I have gained some ground with this constant struggle with Cornwall.
TRETHOSA CHAPEL
Maybe its my stubbornness and perseverance to want to make use of what this place has to offer and bypass the grumbles, doubt and ever widening divides between rich and poor. I even find that I have stumbled across new understandings on the margins of academic shifts that involve change; (Alan Kent mentioned 'Ecocriticism' and Clemo's impact with words: a witness to man's intervention on our natural surroundings. Further renewed discussion on the clay's landscape/environment is necessary to determine where future decisions will lead, something which I brought to the fore whilst delivering a talk on Thomas Hardy) whether we like it or not it has been happening for a long time. All this nostalgia mingling with the emergence of the new reminds me of Gabriel's speech from Joyce's 'The Dead' in Dubliners,
"Ladies and Gentlemen,
"A new generation is growing in our midst, a generation actuated by new ideas and new principles. It is serious and enthusiastic for these new ideas and its enthusiasm, even when it is misdirected, is, I believe, in the main sincere. But we are living in a sceptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hypereducated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which belong to an older day.
(Joyce, James 1993. Dubliners, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited )
I can safely say that the organisers of the conference, Gemma Goodman and Luke Thompson showed tremendous humanity and humour to their guests and never more so than at the chapel where a large proportion of them were elderly and obviously feeling the sad regret of seeing such a loved local institution filled for the last time, so the three h's from above can be passed on to the next generations.
My last words on this event is for the minority of residents who although not born in Cornwall take part and contribute to the people and places that are regarded as an embodiment of Cornish culture and heritage - keep seeking insight, there are those who want to include everybody it's just a matter of time before they are the majority.
I'm getting back on with my two short collections of poetry this week 'Endless Lesson' and 'Marriage' only stopping my own creativity to watch the wonderful Miracle Theatre's production of Beckett's Waiting For Godot in its 60th year of performing.
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