On Margate sands....
on Margate Sands.
The poem was published the following year, and proved to be a pivotal and influential modernist work, reflecting on the fractured world in the aftermath of the First World War as well as Eliot’s own personal crisis.
I have come to Margate to see this exhibition, and to explore the town, as, despite many personal crises and several wars, I have never been......
The little I knew of Margate was that J M W Turner (Timothy Spall) spent some time here, with Mrs Sophia Booth, a particularly accommodating landlady; the ashes of Jack Dodds (Michael Caine) are scattered off the end of the breakwater here at the end of Graham Swift's Last Orders; Tracey Emin was brung up here (sic); and Thanet (the area) is one of the most deprived in the UK (though there is no connection between this fact and the previous one: Mad Tracey from Margate. Everyone's been there - an appliqué blanket, fabric from clothing provided by friends, 267 x 216 cms, executed in 1997 - fetched £722,500 at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 16 October 2014).....
I don't know whether T S Eliot liked seafood, but I enjoy cockles with the camera-shy potential next Mayor of Margate, who tells me that the Japanese tourists (Margate is in the Japanese guide books) like their oysters.....
Inside Turner Contemporary I get to know some of the locals - in this case John Davies's My Ghosts.... (a collage of images significant to me - people loved and lost, those wronged, those missed....)
Before becoming involved in the artworks and objects chosen by The Waste Land Research Group. It is a fascinating and rewarding collection, especially (for me) where illustrations link clearly with either the period of The Waste Land or they pick up on one of the themes, a good example being Edward Hopper's Night Windows, 1928....
Or Paul Nash's The Shore, 1923,
Your man himself is present, too, in this case painted by Edgar Holloway in 1934, when the artist himself was only 20.....
But there's more to Margate than the shed by the shore.... The people, for instance.....
Scott, for example, is as friendly as can be at The Fez, and he rings down to The Lantern Cafe to make sure that Liz will be able to feed us.....
And indeed she is. Her Bubble and Squeak, with egg and bacon, is a rare treat, especially as, with Carol's permission, she brings it in to us next door at The Harbour Arms......
And, despite it's patina of age, the 4.6 million shells in the Shell Grotto have a pink tinge. No one knows how old this extraordinary place is (it was 'found' in 1835) but my guess is that it was the burial chamber of an Etruscan Pearly King.....
The Theatre Royal is the second oldest theatre in the country, which may be why Gerry and the Pacemakers performed here last year....
But all is not old, nor,
There is Yasmin.....
Who smiles, and chatters; who grew up here and loves the place and is just the best antidote to a Waste Land......
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Journeys with The Waste Land is the title of an exhibition at Turner Contemporary in Margate, though by the time you read this it will probably have closed.
On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
Journeys with 'The Waste Land' is a major exhibition exploring the significance of T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land through the visual arts.
In 1921, T.S. Eliot spent a few weeks in Margate at a crucial moment in his career. He arrived in a fragile state, physically and mentally, and worked on The Waste Land sitting in the Nayland Rock shelter....
on Margate Sands.
The poem was published the following year, and proved to be a pivotal and influential modernist work, reflecting on the fractured world in the aftermath of the First World War as well as Eliot’s own personal crisis.
I have come to Margate to see this exhibition, and to explore the town, as, despite many personal crises and several wars, I have never been......
The little I knew of Margate was that J M W Turner (Timothy Spall) spent some time here, with Mrs Sophia Booth, a particularly accommodating landlady; the ashes of Jack Dodds (Michael Caine) are scattered off the end of the breakwater here at the end of Graham Swift's Last Orders; Tracey Emin was brung up here (sic); and Thanet (the area) is one of the most deprived in the UK (though there is no connection between this fact and the previous one: Mad Tracey from Margate. Everyone's been there - an appliqué blanket, fabric from clothing provided by friends, 267 x 216 cms, executed in 1997 - fetched £722,500 at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 16 October 2014).....
I don't know whether T S Eliot liked seafood, but I enjoy cockles with the camera-shy potential next Mayor of Margate, who tells me that the Japanese tourists (Margate is in the Japanese guide books) like their oysters.....
Inside Turner Contemporary I get to know some of the locals - in this case John Davies's My Ghosts.... (a collage of images significant to me - people loved and lost, those wronged, those missed....)
Before becoming involved in the artworks and objects chosen by The Waste Land Research Group. It is a fascinating and rewarding collection, especially (for me) where illustrations link clearly with either the period of The Waste Land or they pick up on one of the themes, a good example being Edward Hopper's Night Windows, 1928....
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.....
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles and stays.
Or William Lionel Wyllie's The Goodwin Sands, 1874....
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Or Paul Nash's The Shore, 1923,
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street,
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishermen lounge at noon.....
Your man himself is present, too, in this case painted by Edgar Holloway in 1934, when the artist himself was only 20.....
Though without the maestro's mandoline.....
It's a shame you may not see this exhibition, though I believe it will be re-staged somewhere else later this year....
But there's more to Margate than the shed by the shore.... The people, for instance.....
Scott, for example, is as friendly as can be at The Fez, and he rings down to The Lantern Cafe to make sure that Liz will be able to feed us.....
And indeed she is. Her Bubble and Squeak, with egg and bacon, is a rare treat, especially as, with Carol's permission, she brings it in to us next door at The Harbour Arms......
Outside, in the rain, there's just time for a look round. Pink seems to be the predominant colour:
Even the trees by the remarkable Tudor House are pink.....
And, despite it's patina of age, the 4.6 million shells in the Shell Grotto have a pink tinge. No one knows how old this extraordinary place is (it was 'found' in 1835) but my guess is that it was the burial chamber of an Etruscan Pearly King.....
The Theatre Royal is the second oldest theatre in the country, which may be why Gerry and the Pacemakers performed here last year....
But all is not old, nor,
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying.....
There is Yasmin.....
Who smiles, and chatters; who grew up here and loves the place and is just the best antidote to a Waste Land......
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings....
Thank you Margate!
Waste Land? What Waste Land?
And was your dinner in the oven?
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