One Book,Three Launches! (Cambridge, Houston and Hatley St. George!)

Well, my new collection of poetry, The Singing Bowl, is out at last. And this is to let you know that it is having not one, but three launches. Not because it is so stodgy and heavy that it will take three mighty hurls to get it off the ground (I hope -though you must be the judges) but because there are so many and various places with which I, (and my poetry), are somehow woven and connected.

So this Wednesday at 7:30pm there is the Cambridge Launch at St. Edward King and Martyr, the church I serve in the city centre, in and through whose ministry so much of the poetry has been written and to which my last volume, Sounding The Seasons, was dedicated. Come if you can for wine, cheese, poetry, and book signing.

Then on Friday (the 8th) we have the Houston Launch. Tempting to do this remotely, simply so that I could say’Houston we have a problem’, but I will be there for the CS Lewis Foundation’s Regional conference and they are kindly hosting a launch for the American edition of my book. It will take place at the opening reception of the conference. If you are not attending the whole conference you can still get a ticket to come to this evening event. contact Steve Elmore Here.

Finally on the 29th of Novemebr I will be doing a special launch/reading in the beautiful little church of Hatley St. George, in the village of the same name. One of the poems in the ‘Local Habitations’ section of the book is dedicated to that church and is about its unique silence and peace. they have the poem inscribed and hung on the church wall and have asked to have this special event to celebrate the publication of the book.

I hope you can get to one of these three, meantime I leave you with the Hatley St. George Poem. as always you can hear it by clicking on the title or the ‘play’ button.

Hatley St. George

Stand here a while and drink the silence in.
Where clear glass lets in living light to touch
And bless your eyes. A beech tree’s tender green
Shimmers beyond the window’s lucid arch.
You look across an absent sanctuary;
No walls or roof, just holy, open space,
Leading your gaze out to the fresh-leaved beech
God planted here before you first drew breath.

Stand here awhile and drink the silence in.
You cannot stand as long and still as these;
This ancient beech and still more ancient church.
So let them stand, as they have stood, for you.
Let them disclose their gifts of time and place,
A secret kept for you through all these years.
Open your eyes. This empty church is full,
Thronging with life and light your eyes have missed.

Stand here awhile and drink the silence in.
Shields of forgotten chivalry, and rolls
Of honour for the young men gunned at Ypres,
And other monuments of our brief lives
Stand for the presence here of saints and souls
Who stood where you stand, to be blessed like you;
Clouds of witness to unclouded light
Shining this moment, in this place for you.

Stand here awhile and drink their silence in.
Annealed in glass, the twelve Apostles stand
And each of them is keeping faith for you.
This roof is held aloft, to give you space,
By graceful angels praying night and day
That you might hear some rumour of their flight
That you might feel the flicker of a wing
And let your heart fly free at last in prayer.