ORLAM – A narrative poem by PJ Harvey – published April 2022

[TheNightingale]

Happy New Year ! Not sure if this link has been posted elsewhere, if so i apologies: http://stephenstapestry.com/gallery/polly-jean-harvey/

Thank you! The only reason I can think of why Polly might be having her drawings turned into tapestry - quite big tapestries to judge by the rest of the studio's output - is that they're going to be backdrops for a performance *of some kind*. Any other thoughts?

Yes, it seems something is getting staged! If they won't be used in a live setting, then perhaps a video or a photoshoot?

By the way, the "Wolf in Drisk" drawing (or actually a variation of it - charcoal, not ink) first appeared in the Zoetrope magazine, which featured the pieces she made while writing Let England Shake back in 2008:



(scan by DrDark)

I'm slightly torn between preordering the book now and waiting for the deluxe edition with Polly's artwork coming in October.

[AineteEkaterini]

"Wolf in Drisk" first appeared in the Zoetrope magazine

I hadn't spotted that! 'Drisk' is 'a fine small wind-driven mist' according to William Barnes. But you could have guessed that!

[TheNightingale]

'Drisk' is 'a fine small wind-driven mist' according to William Barnes. But you could have guessed that!

Ooh, thanks! It was credited in Zoetrope as "Wolf in the Rain" actually, so it seems she changed the title. I'm grateful the book is coming with a facing-page English translation, otherwise it would be mostly gibberish to me!

[TheNightingale]

New illustration (well, part of the cover) from Polly's Instagram:

Spoiler! :

[TheNightingale]

One more drawing, "Realm of Orlam":

Spoiler! :

[czuczu]

Got my dispatch email, ezciting times

[TheNightingale]

"Wolf in Drisk" first appeared in the Zoetrope magazine

I hadn't spotted that! 'Drisk' is 'a fine small wind-driven mist' according to William Barnes. But you could have guessed that!

AineteEkaterini, always ahead of the curve! <3

On the subject of the Dorset dialect, she shows me a copy of William Barnes’s 1886 glossary – her source for the poems – and talks about him as if he were an old friend. She is sweetly proud of his achievement in collecting a dialect that was, even then, dying out. “Dialect is a great tool for poetry because words take on different connotations,” she adds. And we home in on some old words such as “drisk” which means “mist” and has the strangest edge. “Isn’t it beautiful?”, she says.

(x)

[AineteEkaterini]

AineteEkaterini, always ahead of the curve! <3

Ha! : ) To be honest, there is only one book she *could* have used, and Barnes is it!

[Romario11]

Dorset-born musician donates poetic work to local museum
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-61263131

also she will be on 6music tomorrow https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016frs

[AineteEkaterini]

A piece on the Museum website: https://www.dorsetmuseum.org/p-j-harvey ... ollection/

[Orange Monkey]

Review in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/ ... -childhood

Has anyone here read the book yet?
I asked my local library to buy a copy and i'm still waiting for it to come in ...

[Orange Monkey]

Polly on the radio (6Music) on iPlayer / BBC Sounds
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0016frs
fast forward to 1:11:00

She talks about Orlam: "... ecstasy and sunlit clearings, jokes and filth and magic!"
She reads "Reaping" from the Observer interview.

[TheNightingale]

Here's Polly's appearance on BBC 6 Music edited out of the show, just in case someone wants to download it - the link will expire in 1 week.

[AineteEkaterini]

Has anyone here read the book yet? ...

I'm telling myself I'll wait for the illustrated edition - for the time being!

Another review here: https://bookmunch.wordpress.com/2022/04 ... ne-harvey/. Makes it clear the text is challenging in several ways ...

[TheNightingale]

Some more pictures of Polly and her mom from the Dorset Museum Twitter account:

Spoiler! :

ETA: And one more with Grace Peters-Clarke, the Bridport Prize's Black Writer in Residency:

Spoiler! :