Arts & Culture
THE CHISWICK MAGAZINE | chiswickmagazine.co.uk
Arts & Culture
THE CHISWICK MAGAZINE | chiswickmagazine.co.uk
No Far Shores: Charting Unknown Waters By Áine McGinty
Local poet Anne-Marie Fyfe, originally from Cushendall in the Glens of Antrim has released a reflective literary travel memoir exploring her connection to the sea which has been evident since her very first poetry collection, Late Crossing.
‘‘But I also saw it as a quest to explore an unresolved time in my own family story: that was the ‘Charting Unknown Waters’ element. The third journey was the unexpected one, in discovering so much about some of my favourite writers’ lives, coastal writers, writers passionate about the sea and farther shores, about horizon gazing. Writers like Elizabeth
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Bishop & Virginia Woolf. Tracing their writing journeys was the hidden treasure. The grail!’’ she adds. The process of writing this piece involved not only driving along coasts and visiting ports but engaging with locals who live and work with the sea and hearing and sharing stories. Arts Council England awarded the project a travel grant, and in each location she visited Anne-Marie gave poetry workshops and words & music performances which she says brought together so much coastal lore and experience. ‘‘Of course there was a great deal of research, into those writers lives, into the history, say, of lighthouses, or certain maritime tragedies, but the real inspiration was continually being back at the ocean’s edge, on the edge of the depths!’’ she says.
408.indd December 2019 | DecemberMag 40
THE CHISWICK MAGAZINE
10/12/2019 19:23:59
DecemberMag 40 408.indd December 2019 |
THE CHISWICK MAGAZINE
10/12/2019 19:23:59
9:23:59
‘‘No Far Shore is the story of two or maybe three journeys: one of which was exploring coastlines –I’d grown up on the North Antrim coast and, living in London, had always loved going back to that shoreline, and to anywhere else where I could see the horizon. So I set out to travel Britain’s & Ireland’s shores, and US & Canadian Atlantic coasts and islands,’’ Anne-Marie says when asked to talk us through her latest work.
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