Windstone Farm
Linlathen
Linlathen 2022
The Long Conversation:
Poetic Participation & Invitation
July 29-31, 2022
The Christian literary tradition is one of intentional engagement with voices that have gone before – and of inviting others in not just to hear those voices but to join the conversation: to listen, consider, respond…to bring others along to hear and partake in the responses. Rather than an isolationist tradition, it is one of an ever-growing community. Come participate in that community with this dynamic ‘professors-&-poets’ duo, as they speak of their own experiences, share their work, and reflect on how many decades in this practice has shaped their current contributions.
Speakers
Micheal O’Siadhail* was born in 1947. He was educated at Clongowes Wood College, Trinity College Dublin, and the University of Oslo. A full-time writer, he has published sixteen collections of poetry.
O'Siadhail is known internationally for his many poetry collections, which include The Five Quintets, One Crimson Thread, Tongues, Globe, Hail! Madam Jazz: New and Selected Poems, and A Fragile City. His work is compared by some commentators to Dante, John Milton, and Patrick Kavanagh, but most often to John Donne. A number of his works have been set to music by various composers.
Micheal O'Siadhail
O'Siadhail has been a lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, a professor at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and Visiting Professor at University of Iceland. Most recently he received an honorary doctorate in literature from Trinity College Dublin. He has published a collection of essays and several texts on linguistics.
He has received numerous awards - including the Marten Toonder Prize and the Irish-American Cultural Prize for Poetry - and was conferred honorary doctorates both from the University of Aberdeen and the University of Manitoba. His book, The Five Quintets has received the Conference of Christianity and Literature’s 2019 book of the year award as well as the Eric Hoffe Award.
*pronounced mee-hawl o’sheel
David Lyle Jeffrey
David Lyle Jeffrey was born June 1941 and lived much of his life in the rural Ottawa Valley. During this time, his energy was divided between farming and his academic vocation.
Jeffrey graduated from Wheaton College before receiving his PhD from Princeton. He has been professor at the University of Rochester, the University of Hull (UK), the University of Victoria, and the University of Ottawa.
Most recently, Jeffrey has carried the title of Distinguished Professor of Literature and Humanities at Baylor University from 2000 until 2019. He was also Guest Professor at Peking University (Beijing) and Honorary Professor at the University of International Business and Economics (Beijing).
Jeffrey has taught courses on the Bible as literature, medieval exegesis, biblical hermeneutics and literary theory, biblical tradition in the arts, and philosophy of art (aesthetics). Author of such texts as People of the Book: Christian Identity & Literary Culture, A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature, Scripture & the English Poetic Imagination, and In the Beauty of Holiness: Art & the Bible in Western Culture, he has also recently published a collection of poetry: Translations. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Conference of Christianity and Literature.
2021 Recorded Conversation
Poetry, Imagination, and Faith:
a discussion with
Michael O'Siadhail & David L. Jeffrey
with Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson
August, 2021
2022 Linlathen Lectures
Free Public Event
Thursday Evening, July 28th, 2022
7:30 pm
Hillside Reformed Presbyterian Church | Almonte, Ontario
Poetry recital by
Micheal O'Siadhail
introduced by David L. Jeffrey
Come for an evening of O'Siadhail reading from his epic work,
The Five Quintets.
Jazz musicians Mark Ferguson & Mike Tremblay will set the stage, and the recital will be
followed by a time for natter & nibbles in the hall.
“Not just a collection but a new cornice stone of civilization, Michael O'Siadhail's new collection The Five Quintets is dazzling in its achievement.”
– The Irish Times
“It’s a giant symphony, with vast sweeping tunes and small lyrical moments, building to a sustained climax. It’s an intellectual, cultural and political history of the modern western world. It’s a portrait gallery with over a hundred sharply etched miniatures … It is, above all, a party, with dancing and delight, with the rhythms of the poetry setting our feet tapping and our hearts soaring.”
– N.T. Wright
“O’Siadhail …opens new gates to poetic potential for considering ‘who we are’ through what we say.
– The Church Times
“Rarely does one come across a new literary work so momentous, so breathtakingly brilliant both in content and in form that one knows after the proverbial fifty pages that one is confronting a work of epochal genius.”
– David Lyle Jeffrey
“Whatever you have planned for next weekend, change it and make space to read this book. Your heart and mind and soul will thank you. This swirling work of love for humanity from Ireland's most exceptional romantic love poet will take you from the paralysis of our visionless future to a place where 'every bole and limb begins to dance the universe's light fantastic prayer.’ ”
– Mary McAleese, former President of Ireland
Directions to the location can be found here:
-- the parking lot is small, but there is another larger one a few metres down the road, across from the park.
