South Downs poets mark 80th anniversary of end of WWII in Europe

A special programme of readings and music entitled 1939-1945: War and Peace will take place on VE Day, Thursday, May 8 at 7.30pm, with free entrance.

Lord Egremont of Petworth House will deliver an address to mark to mark the occasion. Lord Egremont is the author of several books related to the war, as well as being the biographer of Siegfried Sassoon and the editor of an anthology of war poetry entitled Some Desperate Glory. He will be commenting on how the poets reflected the events of the war and the historical significance of the fight against fascism.

Director of the South Downs Poetry Festival Barry Smith said: “Most people know that the First World War produced a remarkable body of some of the finest poetry written in the English language. It wasn’t just the household names, like Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon, but many ordinary soldiers who were prompted to write by their experiences and the sights and sounds of the battlefields. The same holds true for the Second World War in the poetry of brilliant writers like Keith Douglas and Alun Lewis.”

A panel of distinguished published poets from across the South Downs will be reading a selection of the finest war poems chosen by the poets as having a special meaning for them. Poets lined up include Patricia McCarthy, winner of the National Poetry Prize, Steven O’Brien, the editor of the London Magazine, Jeremy Page, editor of The Frogmore Papers, Stephanie Norgate, Bloodaxe poet and leader of the MA in creative writing course at Chichester University, Chris Hardy, winner of the McLellan Award, Mandy Pannett, nominated for the Robert Graves Award, Naomi Foyle and Hugh Dunkerley, both highly respected poets from the University, James Simpson, a Jerwood/Arvon award winner and other fine poets. As well as the classic war poems, the poets will read new poems of their own, many specially written, to mark the occasion. Additionally, the writers will explain how WWII impacted their own families.

Music will be provided by Chris Hardy, the guitarist from the poetry/music ensemble Little Machine, which has worked with Carol Ann Duffy and Roger McGough. He will sing settings from A E Housman’s A Shropshire Lad and Edward Thomas’s evocation of rural England, Adlestrop. Settings of the atmospheric poems of local soldier poet Edward Thomas from Steep near Petersfield will be performed by Chris and Barry.

The organisers of the South Downs Poetry Festival hope as many people as possible will join them at this free event in the beautiful, listed setting of the Old Library to mark this significant anniversary of the close of one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history which touched almost every family in the land.

“There will also be a dramatic visual centrepiece sculpture by Vincent Gray who designed the much-loved Keats statue in Chichester. Entitled Resistance it celebrates the bravery of the French resistance to Nazi occupation in WW2.”

Commemorating VE Day, The Old Library Midhurst, Kockhundred Row, GU29 9DQ, 7.30pm, Thursday, May 8. Free entrance. Parking at the Grange Centre.