Chichester’s Poetry & Jazz Café back at the Festival

South Downs Poetry Festival director Barry Smith said: “Heading the bill are acclaimed poet and novelist Penelope Shuttle together with two of the brightest stars of the jazz scene, Jo Fooks on saxophone and Tim Huskisson on piano. The event is organised by the South Downs Poetry Festival, which has a long track record of mixing words and music for performances in places like Petworth House and Chichester Cathedral. The café part of the evening features specially baked home-made cakes.

“It’s a delight to welcome Penelope Shuttle to our city. Penelope has published eight poetry collections and five novels, gaining the Eric Gregory and Cholmondeley Awards. Writing with her husband, the late Peter Redgrove, she pioneered ground-breaking feminist studies such as The Wise Wound and Alchemy for Women. At Chichester, she’ll be reading from her latest collection, Lyonesse (Bloodaxe Books), which focuses on the legendary lost kingdom. She lives in Falmouth, Cornwall, so is well placed to explore the myths of one of Britain’s most historic and inspirational regions.”

Barry added: “The submerged land of Lyonesse was once part of Cornwall, according to myth and the oral tradition, standing for a lost paradise in Arthurian legend, but is now an emblem of human frailty in the face of climate change. There was a Bronze Age inundation which swept the entire west of Cornwall under the sea, with only the Scilly Isles and St Michael's Mount left above sea-level.”

Looking ahead to her reading, Penelope Shuttle said: “'The universality of loss, both of physical cities and of the human experience erased from the record, enhanced the idea of Lyonesse in my writing. Lyonesse is a place of paradox. It is real, had historical existence. It is also an imaginary region for exploring depths. The poems seek re-wilding of a city where human loss interconnects with mythic loss.”

The Poetry & Jazz Café, 7.30pm, June 22, Assembly Room, North Street, Chichester. Tickets £15 from The Novium, Tower Street, Chichester, tel. 01243 816525 or https://festivalofchichester.co.uk/

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