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31 TUESDAY
MARCH 2009
Grevel Lindop
342
Jane Draycott and
Fiona Sampson
338
Travels on the Dance Floor
Two Poets
10am / Festival Room 1, Christ Church / £7.50
When poet and biographer Grevel Lindop took up
salsa dancing in rainy Manchester, he thought he was
just keeping a New Year’s resolution to get some
exercise. However before long this adrenaline-pumping,
Afro-Latin-American dance style turned from mere
exercise into a passion that took him through the
streets, clubs, bars and dance halls of Cuba,
Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Puerto Rico the
Dominican Republic and Miami. The story of his
adventures and misadventures on this amazing
journey make a spellbinding read.
Sponsored by Cox & Kings
Robert Gildea
Children of the Revolution:
The French, 1799-1914
10am / Blue Boar Marquee, Christ Church / £7.50
A compelling look at the longs shadows cast by the
Bastille, the guillotine and Napoleon over the 19th and
early 20th centuries. In his masterly reassessment
of France’s stormy post-revolutionary history, Robert
Gildea, Professor of Modern History at Oxford
University, introduces us to a country that many
of us may have difficulty recognising, one wherein
many regions French was often the minority language,
and where until well into the 19th century some of
the larger cities were effectively independent states.
“Sober, concise and masterly” – Sunday Times.
Sponsored by Blackwell
307
10am / Festival Room 2, Christ Church / £7.50
When she first left school at 16, Fiona Sampson
initially studied the violin, working as a soloist and
chamber musician until her mid-twenties. Poetry
came later, but she went on to win the Newdigate
prize and gain a PhD in the philosophy of language.
In 2005 she became the first female editor of Poetry
Review for 60 years. She admits to having enjoyed
being a professional performer, but she was not a
composer - poetry enables her to ‘say more’.
Jane Draycott is a UK-based poet with a particular
interest in sound art and collaborative work. Her
audio work has won her several awards, including
BBC Radio 3’s Poem-for-Radio, and a London Sound
Art Award. She is currently working on a contemporary
version of the medieval dream-vision Pearl.
Fiona Sampson and Jane Draycott come together to
read their poems.
David Whyte
The Three Marriages
Reimagining Work, Self &
Relationship
304
10am-12pm / McKenna Room, Christ Church / £20.00
Each of us must sustain three marriages in our lives:
the marriage with our work and society, the marriage
- official or not - with our partner, and the deeper
marriage with our emerging selves. To choose between
these relationships is to impoverish them all. Work-life
balance means creating a real conversation, a live
frontier between all three commitments that enriches
each area of our lives, allowing it to be simultaneously
troubled and emboldened by the others. Join David
Whyte for a poetic and compelling investigation of
these important commitments of a human life.
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