Letters Conference: Call for Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS

Yours Sincerely: The Rise and Fall of the Letter 

28-29 June 2013

Manchester, United Kingdom     

The tradition of communication through correspondence can be traced far back in the annals of ancient history, but the rise of technology is daily changing the face and format of the letter. This conference will explore forms of correspondence as they have evolved from simple letters between friends and literary personalities and their shared experiences to revelations, through correspondence, of scientists, statesmen and celebrities. It will also look at the language used in the traditional letter, the email, the text message and the tweet as well as the constant change and development in this form of dialogue from the past and into the future, examining related fields and the letter in its historical and literary contexts.

Papers are sought from all disciplines, including but not limited to literature, history, anthropology, psychology, philosophy and other social sciences and arts.

Proposals are sought for 20 minute papers. Possible themes may include (but are not limited to):

· The changing language of digital correspondence

· Victorian women writers

· Challenges of editing letters

· Evidential value for biographers, historians

· 19^th century letter writers

· 20^th century letter writers

· 21st century letter writers

· Use of letters in fiction as a device

· The epistolary novel

· The lasting value of digital correspondence as an archival or primary source

· The future of letter writing

Abstracts of 250-300 words (for a 20 min paper) should be sent via email to librarian@theportico.org.uk or assistant.librarian@theportico.org.uk by 1st April 2013.

Selected papers may be invited for inclusion in an academic collection of essays following the conference.

An exhibition surrounding the theme of the conference will run from 11th June to the 26th of July at The Portico Library and will tie in with Quarry Bank Mill’s ‘Best Wishes’ exhibition which begins in April and extends to the rest of 2013.

Portico Poetry prizes.

The deadline is nearing for the new prizes and we are delighted with the response so far. The Young Prize in particular has had a fantastic response. The Poetry Prize still needs more entries but they are slowly growing in number. 

Those interested in entering the Portico Poetry Prize must do so soon. Don't forget there are great prizes to be won, including £200; £150; £100 and publication.

Forms can be found under the `Portico Poetry Prizes' heading or you can pop in to the library itself and pick one up!

Portico Prize: Alan Forsyth - `Waypoints' review.

by Richy Campbell

Nature, in all its faces, is the primary concern of Waypoints. We read about Nature’s operations, in the elegiac `Suddenly at Burneside’ in the `Dew-laden grass | Laced with sparkling webs of spiders’ necklaces’ in `Lambrigg Spring’ and about her people, from `The reclusive guardian of the warehouse | On Brunswick Dock North’ to the soldier `Travelling untrammelled | By wealth or obligations` in `Travelling Light’.

Forsyth’s eye is panoramic, spreading wide, from across the world he sees and to the inside of the mind. His work brings to mind the Larkin quote `the impulse to preserve lies at the bottom of all art’ with the world in the poems preserved in detail that is intricate, physical and photographic. Indeed the reader sees and smells the `Coal gas and over-heated bodies | encased in oil-soaked overalls’ in `The Black Years: undoubtedly some of the conjurations in these poems would make for an interesting collection of photographs.

Often, there is high commitment to music, which we see in `Brown Gold’; `A luckless un-spent penny, offered boldly by a careless boy'; and `Hunted’:

For something or someone is creeping there,

Too close for ease, in tom-tiddler’s ground

In that zone of unreality

Between light and shade, silence and sound.

With the last example showcasing the poet’s awareness of breath and subtlety, with close reading revealing intricacy in the way the para-rhyme of `ease’ and `unreality’ falls in the lines.

More often than not, the poems maintain their tone, consistent within themselves; an impressive example of this is in the ode to lost love `Ghost Hunting' which deals perfectly with the subject without straying into cliché:

            What sort of future can survive.

            Other than the ritual dance of love

            Performed by proxy lovers

            To the half remembered sounds

            Of our old music?

Converse to this, I feel that similar treatment could have been employed in `Lullaby’ which deals with parenthood. I felt it used tired rhymes `Oh little love | My gentle dove’ and second-hand sentiment `My hand and | Command | A lifetime Of devotion’. There are also other instances where I feel that sometimes certain lines weaken the impact of their precedents such as in `Suddenly at Burneside' where the speech `They always look like that, | The blood sinks to the lower side | When ever they die facing down.' feels unnatural, as if it slips out of tone.

With consideration of all its poems, Waypoints is an intricate and sensitive collection. There is mostly a sense of control within the lines and a personalised dealing with the subjects. It is a collection for human beings and deals with our confusing relationship with Nature and the finality of its control over us. In this instance, how fitting it is that the collection is bookended by the natural polars of life and death, with `Lambrigg Spring’ detailing `The power of the growing Birch tree’ and `When I Have Gone’ addressing a presumed loved to `Have no concern’ after the narrators death.