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Hewitt: The Opera
A one-off performance by Northern Irish opera star Angela Feeney is just one of the planned events to commemorate the centenary of John Hewitt this summer.
Feeney, the first Irish soloist with the Munich State Opera, will be singing in a new song cycle based on the poems of Hewitt - ‘A Touch of Things’.
The cycle was written by Dr Peter Downey and commissioned by The John Hewitt Society. The performance takes place on 24th July in the Market Place Theatre, Armagh.
This year’s John Hewitt International Summer School will be the 20th such event and commemorates the hundredth anniversary of the poet’s birth in 1907.
Hewitt was the most significant Ulster poet to emerge before the 1960s generation which includes Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Michael Longley.
As well as becoming the first writer-in-residence at Queen’s University in 1976, Hewitt was very politically involved - he described himself as a “man of the left” and was active in the British Labour Party, the Fabian Society and the Belfast Peace League.
The poet placed himself within the long tradition of Ulster dissenters and believed strongly in the idea of regional identity within the island of Ireland - famously describing his identity as “Ulster, Irish, British and European”.
The theme for this year’s school is therefore in the most inclusive Ulster tradition – “The Wide Hearth: Ready to Talk?” and is taken from Hewitt’s poem ‘In the Rosses’ where he says “The fine talk is ready/And the wide hearth is warm”.
A number of bursaries for the summer school (July 23-27) have been awarded, with a programme incorporating readings by celebrated poetry and prose authors, talks, panel discussions and workshops. The bursaries were sponsored by 17 local businesses, councils and organisations - including The Belfast Unemployed Resource Centre which Hewitt founded in 1985. Other events include a poetry reading by Anne-Marie Fyfe; a bus run on July 1 tracing the “foot-prints” of Hewitt’s poetry along the Antrim Coast and Glens; the erection of a “Blue Plaque” marking Hewitt’s Belfast home; the publication of his autobiography and the creation of a statue in Hewitt’s honour in Belfast.
For more information contact The John Hewitt Society on 028 90321462 (ext 202) or visit the website at www.johnhewitt.org
