https://tinyurl.com/super-saturday To all who contributed to Phase#3 "Explore Bedford Park with WB Yeats" A day to remember "When you are old and grey", to borrow from the Yeats poem with which Anne-Marie Fyfe opened on Saturday morning, introduced by Torin Douglas and followed by #PollyDevlin's reading of "The Lake Isle of Innisfree", penned a few hundred yards from this spot, and by The Jeremy Vine's dramatic delivery of Yeats's "The Second Coming", though his opening line, "Turning and turning in the widening gyre" might have referred to the drama of Conrad Shawcross's spiralling "golden and silver" gyre, #EnwroughtLight, which captures the artistic genius of the young Yeats and the progressive, egalitarian, multicultural and spiritually-questing ethos of 19c Bedford Park... ..and which is the focal point of the eight/ten-stop first-ever📱web-based poetry-places walk which tech-savvy Jeremy celebrated and demonstrated, with, at each stop on the trail, images, history and info on the people and places that inspired and encouraged the young poet, and at each, a site-specific Yeats poem, in text and with audio from celebrated Irish actor Ciarán Hinds! So Bedford Park's no longer merely a social experiment, as the first garden suburb, copied around the world, but is properly recognised as the progressive artists'-colony that fostered Yeats's poetic genius, channelled his love of Irish landscape, legends and lore into Nobel Prize gold (the only poet raised in England to win that honour!), sparked first forays into drama, enlightened a lifelong interest in Eastern religions, nurtured his siblings' love of the visual arts, hosted his meeting with the woman he'd love and lose, facilitated the founding of the Irish Literary Revival, and much more – eight locations all, incredibly, within a few hundred yards of each other (plus two slightly farther afield). The walk itself isn't just an invigorating and enlightening experience whether you've known the neighbourhood all your life or are simply interested in poetry, drama, the arts and architectural beauty, but effectively offers a 24/7, free, always-open, outdoor writers'-museum for those who'd never dream of attending an architectural lecture or a poetry reading but are at ease with iPhones and earbuds! And teachers/professors, when bringing your students to London, no need to check when the next in-person guided tour is scheduled, for Bedford Park Festival, #CoffeeHousePoetry or Chiswick Book Festival: it's all there any day of the week at the click of a QR-code! Thanks to all who've helped make it happen, and all those who joined our celebrations at Conrad's #EnwroughtLight unveiling in September and again on Saturday (Yeats's anniversary) at the smartphone walk's first official outing. You've helped open up a new arts/education/heritage experience, a new understanding of the centuries-long intertwining of Irish and British literature and culture, and a recognition of the importance of the supportive community in nurturing creativity and communal happiness! (More to watch out for in 2023, Yeats's Nobel-Prize centenary year, so check-out/bookmark our website, and you can donate to support ongoing project costs and our 2023 celebrations, subscribe-to/unsubscribe from newsletter etc all at www.wbyeatsbedfordpark.com, and, of course, follow us on Twitter @YeatsBedfordPk.) Many thanks again!
