Discover Bedford Park with poet WB Yeats

The idea

Bohemian Bedford Park's fostering of London-Irish-migrant schoolboy WB Yeats’s Nobel-Prize genius will be celebrated on Yeats’s next birthday (Mon 13 Jun ’22) with unveiling of Conrad Shawcross’s #EnwroughtLight!
Help us create a permanent-legacy arts/educational/heritage experience for local community + international visitors radiating out from this dazzling artwork with:
-interpretive signage + QR-code link to
-smartphone/tablet/iPad guided literary/heritage walk round ten Yeats/BedfordPk poetry-places with Google routes, images, short info-talks + poems (audio+onscreen)
+Yeats online+print poetry workbooks for visiting school-groups (to learn, study, inspire)
+promo video (+ social-media news trailers) to engage local residents, encourage social cohesion by celebrating shared heritage, bring British, Irish & international visitors to BedfordPk culture quarter
+‘unveiling’ reception for community groups, schools, media
+ free public event celebrating unique heritage of poet+place!

What we'll deliver

web-based guided walk to locations that influenced/inspired Yeats, with directions, images, info, relevant poem-readings

promo videos (via social media channels) to engage local community with arts heritage + bring international visitors

Yeats/BedfordPk poetry workbooks for visiting school-groups to learn poems, discover local heritage + write!

interpretive signage next the sculpture explaining significance + Yeats/BedfordPk story with QR code linked to walks

reception for artwork's unveiling/launch engaging local community groups, organisations, schools, media

free lecture bringing community together + celebrating unique Yeats-in-Bedford-Park combination of poet+place!

Why it's a great idea

The project will:
CELEBRATE Yeats’s poetry & drama
HONOUR a local schoolkid who became a major international literary figure
HIGHLIGHT Bedford Park’s role in fostering his genius
INSPIRE local young people to participate in poetry, drama & visual arts
ENCOURAGE shared community pride in the area’s unique cultural/arts heritage
PROMOTE contemporary art
IMPROVE public space
ENHANCE the environment
ATTRACT visitors
SUPPORT the local economy
RECOGNISE the mutually valuable Irish-British cultural interaction exemplified by Yeats’s life/work
ACKNOWLEDGE migrant communities’ vital role in creating/enriching Britian’s arts/culture while benefiting from London as a cultural hub in which to develop their own art, ideas & identity REMEMBER Yeats’s own cross-cultural interest in Hinduism, Buddhism, & Eastern teaching & spirituality
UNDERLINE Bedford Park’s historic significance as a progressive artistic community, the world’s first garden suburb, & a model for holistic housing developme

Steps to get it done

Contract Lab99 Design's web development for smartphone, iPad & tablet of guided Yeats walk/trail

Create basic content, information for interpretive sign, short info-talks on guided walk/trail, promo + news videos

Handover to - & liaise with - Museums Specialist to edit for signage

Contract sign manufacturer to create sign based on edited/designed info

Handover to - & liaise with - educational specialist to produce school workbooks

Trial workbooks with local schools

Contract Chiswick Buzz to produce news updates in Jan'22, Apr'22 & permanenet promo-video

Arrange voice recordings for smartphone guided walk/Yeats-trail

Arrange spring Yeats lecture to update & further engage with local community

Arrange launch event, reception with community groups, schools, media etc

Continual press coverage throughout project development time

Measure no. of visitors, users of smartphone walk through summer 2022, autumn etc

Publicising the unique Yeats/BedfordPk story –not just that the only Nobel-Prize poet raised in England had no monument anywhere in Britain, but that a uniquely progressive/aesthetic world’s-first-garden-suburb was the crucible, its diverse community the catalyst, that transmuted his Irish-exile longing into Nobel gold—in order to raise £25K for planning approval + £135K for the artwork+installation, has meant being inundated with requests, from our 380 donors + others locally + internationally, for more arts/heritage information + promises from all over the world to come + visit Yeats’s BedfordPk.
To make those visits informative + artistically enjoyable we need both to promote the local heritage story by short videos through social media etc, engage local community + schools in the high-profile launch celebrations, offer a public lecture on the area’s arts history + heritage + take those who do visit on a fascinating guided tour (via smartphone) of key poetry places in the story.

Location

By The WB Yeats Bedford Park Project

A community-based organisation in Bedford Park in ... Learn More

About

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!

Reminder to join BBC/C5 presenter Jeremy Vine tomorrow at 11 by Turnham Green Tube as he launches London's latest poetry invention/adventure, Discover Bedford Park with WB Yeats, with MC Torin Douglas, me (Cahal Dallat) and Yeats poems from local (Irish) poet Anne-Marie Fyfe, (Irish) novelist Polly Devlin, and Jeremy himself (yes! reading a Yeats poem!) and introducing the first ever poetry-places web-based smartphone/tablet literary-walk available 24/7 at the click of a QR code on the info-signage by Conrad Shawcross's spiralling Yeatsian gyre , near Turnham Green Tube Station at the gateway to Yeats's boyhood London neighbourhood. That's Bedford Park, the progressive artist's-colony that fostered Yeats's poetic genius, channelled his love of Irish landscape, legends and lore into Nobel-Prize gold, 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)... ...with, for each stop on the trail, images, history and info on the people and places that inspired and encouraged the young poet and a site-specific Yeats poem, in text and with audio from celebrated Irish actor Ciarán Hinds! A fitting celebration of the young London-Irish poet on the occasion of his anniversary (d. 28th Jan 1939). And thanks to all who've already responded to say you'll be there, should be great fun, a momentous moment for our project, a rare first and a super added attraction to literary London! Hope lots more of you can make it. _________________________________ Sat 28 Jan, 11am, Discover Bedford Park with WB Yeats, smartphone poetry-places launch with Jeremy Vine Free public event: everyone welcome! Hosted by: Chiswick Book Festival director, Torin Douglas, with @YeatsBedfordPk project organiser Cahal Dallat and guests Anne-Marie Fyfe and Polly Devlin At: the green triangle outside St. Michael & All Angels (opp. Turnham Grn Tube), Bath Rd, Chiswick, London W4 1TX Come along and join us as we launch an exciting and unique visitor experience focused on Conrad Shawcross’s @YeatsBedfordPk artwork #EnwroughtLight and taking phone/personal-device users around eight great Yeats poetry places in the immediate locale, each with directions, images, a short talk on the Yeats/Bedford-Park context/inspiration, and, at each, a Yeats poem on audio by 2022-Oscar-and-BAFTA-nominated actor Ciarán Hinds. With tech-savvy Jeremy Vine showing us how it all works and starting off the trail: bring your smartphone/tablet and no, you don’t have to do the walk on the day, just enjoy the launch! Jeremy’s been an enthusiastic supporter of our project from day one, as well as of so many Chiswick ventures including Bedford Park Festival and Bedford Park Bicycle Club ...