2022 - 2023
Collected Poems
Sing Her Body Gold
Featuring Hattie Atkins Tabby Carless-Frost Karen Cheung Jennifer Howitt Genevieve Stevens Agnieszka StudzińskaII
Collected Poems
Sing Her Body Gold
—as part of the 2023 Picture Gallery
Composer-in-Residence Partnership
Royal Holloway
University of London
First published in 2023 by Royal Holloway University of London
Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX
All rights reserved by the creative writers featured in this collection
This collection has been compiled by Nathan James Dearden 2023
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Introduction Contents Light on a snow scene Hattie Atkins A Longing to Be Touched Tabby Carless-Frost seasonal affect Karen Cheung Sing Her Body Gold Jennifer Howitt Applicants for Admission Genevieve Stevens Oil on Canvas THC0052 Agnieszka Studzińska VII 1 4 5 7 9 11 V About our writers 14 About Royal Holloway's Art Collection 16
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The Picture Gallery Composer-inResidence Scheme at Royal Holloway is a ground-breaking residency in which successful student composers from the Department of Music have their musical responses to the Picture Gallery and some of its wonderful paintings performed by an invited ensemble each year.
This residency is a professional development programme for music creators of the Department of Music to receive specialist, industry-standard workshop sessions and tutorials, working collaboratively with invited artists, ensembles and tutors to create new works that are premiered as part of the International Concert Series
These new compositions are the result of a special collaboration between the College’s Arts Collection Team and Nathan James Dearden, Director of Music Composition at the Department of Music.
For its sixth cohort, six music creators from the Department of Music and six creative writers from the Department of English received the opportunity to work with the Choir of Royal Holloway and their conductor Rupert Gough through a collaborative and immersive workshop process exploring new music for voice.
The resulting poems written as part of this special partnership have been set to music, and have been compiled here for your reading and reflection.
Introduction VII
Light on a snow scene
Hattie AtkinsUnderfoot and overhead, stillness stops the midnight sun, its carcass bleeding across the horizon.
Hold
your gaze and crane into the light
In this small word, fishermen freeze Don’t trust that yellow thread that refuses to reach through time Years get caught in a fisherman’s net Painted breath holding back the ice-grey sky; their faces going foggy with it. In time, there is a blending: bodies reach flat into the long, old landscape Now, the sun ’ s hungry mouth enters through the gallery’s high windows Reflections freeze the snow scene again and again, for light in this world develops like a thing in a dark room.
Put out your eyes and make torches of them
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Inspired by Ludwig Munthe's Snow Scene
Ludwig Munthe's Snow Scene (1873)
Frank Holl's Newgate, Committed for Trial (1878)
A Longing to Be Touched
Tabby Carless-Frost
Within Mother’s folded shadow, Brush strokes small fingers into Being
Pink fist furled in darkness; An artless clasp ‘gainst fleeing
The gap in art ¾ the jump ¾ the ledge ¾ An agreement of belief, a pledge
Despite the space between the bars, Even great artists find hands hard
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Inspired by Frank Holl's Newgate, Committed for Trial
seasonal affect
Karen Cheungit’s still dark when the shard of crescent moon exiles you from your dreams baring its teeth beneath the punctured night
you set out for the lake the sky a blue-black bruise of hurt overstayed every winter spells shudders & you tell yourself this time
the season would lose its hold except you had left home for love and that love has left you (no matter)
too much sun and you wither you prefer shadows that tolerate you forging fog into a white gown
since discarded the prey moves slow: they think they are safe under the snow. ghost girl gone //
nurse your art between the glass of ice hold still in the sedated air (at least you have your art) then suddenly
the sky cleaves open at the horizon through the slit day spills the light you left behind catching
your breath warm as fresh bread winter choking to be tender again
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Inspired by Ludwig Munthe's Snow Scene
Edwin L Long's The Babylonian Marriage Market (1875)
sing her body gold
Jennifer Howittyou cannot see beyond the clouds or dawn that creases through her shrouds she places hands onto her face and turns into a different place
her body boundless as air endures the chains of caged despair encumbered by the sea of eyes she cannot breathe beneath this guise
her body is to soon be sold a string of pearls you tightly hold but though you pull her limb from limb you cannot own her light within a light within you cannot see a light within you cannot seize a light within quietly rings beyond what you so loudly sing
Inspired by Edwin L Long's The Babylonian Marriage Market7
Luke Fildes' Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward (1874)
Applicants for Admission
—Genevieve StevensWho is to blame?
Who left us so?
Our hunger hangs
Inside our bones
We wait our turn
In frozen streets
We wait to sleep
We wait for peace
Listen –Can you hear?
Silence
No one coming
Silence
No one hoping
Cold cold stone
Is all we own
We are still here
Still waiting
We stare inside
The houses bright
They cant’ see out
Can’t see us
Still waiting…
Condemned or damned
Whate’r we say
we ’ re people banned from warmth, from home
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We're shadows
Shadows
We must resist The call to darkness
We must endure The cruel injustice
We must hold on And fight
Just one long night ..
Listen –Can you hear?
Silence
No one coming
Silence
No one hoping Cold cold stone –It’s all we own
Inspired by Luke Fildes' Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward 10
Oil on Canvas
THC0052
Agnieszka Studzińska in the aftermath of snow
grey ochre fills our lungs
a coldness like damage
whistles among pinched light
iced water stilt branches plainsong rises
the workings of a body falls
necessity & diligence
thaw
skin changes
the softening chants of flurry settle
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a riven score of broken fence like the snowstorm of this withdrawal aisles of footsteps like sunken eyes in sockets of snow look to another direction –notes of black rooks in winter flock press a little deeper for this fish –You are trying to rope the nowhere of silence this cursory mass & graceful summary as it moves in admittance to all corners fields fjords forgettings
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our silhouettes turn into birds inaudible in the mouth of ground
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Inspired by Ludwig Munthe's Snow Scene
About our writers
Hattie Atkins
Hattie Atkins is a Mancunian writer, currently studying for a master’s degree in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway. Her prose and poetrywhich often meditates on the intersection between bodies, place, and identity – has appeared in various journals, such as Gutter Magazine, en bloc, and Lemon Peel Press, and has been anthologised by the Common Breath and Forest Publications. Her poem, ‘Semiotics,’ was the first runner-up in the 2022 Lewis Edwards Memorial Prize
On being selected for this opportunity, Hattie says: "I'm thankful for the opportunity to work on such a collaborative project, and I'm excited to see how the conversation between artist, writer, and musician will emerge and unfold."
Tabby Carless-Frost
Originally from East Anglia, Tabby Carless-Frost graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a 1st class honours degree in History of Art and English Literature. They are currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London, and is supervised by William Boast and Professor Lavinia Greenlaw Their writing has been stocked at Treadwell’s Books in Bloomsbury and has appeared in t’ART magaznie, Crumble, Horizon Magazine, The Fence, and Mxogyny online. They also recently co-curated the ‘Haunted Feminine’ exhibiton for the Museum of Sex Objects.
Karen Cheung
Karen Cheung (b 1993) is a writer from Hong Kong. She is the author of The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir (Random House, 2022), which has been longlisted for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Her work, which explores politics, music, and heartbreak, has appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Policy, New Statesman, The Rumpus, Evergreen Review, The Offing, and elsewhere She has been a featured author at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival and Ozfest Asia's In Other Words, and given readings at City, University of London, The New School, and PS122 Gallery, amongst others She was formerly an editor at a contemporary art archive, and a news reporter
On being selected for this opportunity, Karen comments: "I'm interested in the fluidity between artistic mediums—how words translate into a choral piece, and then into sound and performance It's an honour to be able to collaborate with Royal Holloway's world-class choir and musicians!"
Jennifer Howitt
Jennie Howitt is a poet studying the Creative Writing MA at Royal Holloway. She was a Foyles Young Poet in 2016, longlisted for the National Poetry Competition in 2019, highly commended in the Young Poets Network Namedropping challenge with People Need Nature and Jen
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Hadfield, and the how-to poetry competition, all hosted by the Poetry Society. Jennie’s work has also featured in Young Writers anthologies, Writer’s Block magazine, and Ariel Publishing magazine She has spoken on BBC radio about her approaches to writing poetry and on young people in poetry.
On being selected for this opportunity: "Jennie loves the musical quality and textures of words and images, and regularly uses music to inspire her work. She also feels that her synaesthesia heavily influences her poetry and so the opportunity to combine various sensory mediums is very exciting. She is looking forward to the Picture Gallery residency as it will challenge her try something completely different. "
Genevieve Stevens
Genevieve Stevens (b.1981) is a writer and teacher She studied at Trinity College, Dublin, Ecole Normale Supérieure and Royal Holloway, University of London where she is currently in the final year of her practice-based poetry Ph.D, studying under the supervision of Lavinia Greenlaw and Eley Williams. Stevens’ poetry, reviews and essays have appeared in various publications including PN Review (2021). TLS (2021) The Moth (2019, 2021) New Statesman (2022) The London Magazine (2021) Poetry London (2022) and Blunt Instrument (Mary Ramsden, 2021). Stevens was recently highlycommended for the International Moth Poetry Prize (2021) judged by Nick Laird.
Stevens is a Visiting Lecturer (Creative Writing) at Royal Holloway University. She also delivers poetry workshops and courses across the country. Recent/forthcoming posts include Charleston (2023), Poetry School (2022), Curious House (2022)
Stevens lives in East Sussex with her husband and two children
On accepting this opportunity, Genevieve says: "I was thrilled to be accepted onto this scheme because it both speaks to my existing preoccupation with the visual arts whilst also pushing me into unknown territory - namely, to collaborate with a composer I'm excited to see how ideas are shared, re-visioned, transposed and consolidated across these varied disciplines."
Agnieszka Studzińska
Agnieszka Studzińska has an MA in Creative Writing from the UEA. Her first debut collection, Snow Calling was shortlisted for the London New Poetry Award 2010. Her second collection, What Things Are is published by Eyewear Publishing (2014). Her most recent collection is called Branches of a House (Shearsman Books 2021). She is currently in the final stages of her PhD at Royal Holloway University of London exploring how the image of the house is appropriated in contemporary American poetry Her poetry engages in liminal spaces, houses, ancestry, and departs from notions of hauntology She teaches creative writing for The Poetry School, among other educational institutions
On being selected for this opportunity, she comments: "The project presents a brilliant cross-disciplinary adventure This is an opportunity to explore that dynamic relationship between reading, hearing, seeing, and question the language of these disciplines and my translation of them I am really looking forward to developing a poetics that embraces such spaces, and offer alternative ways of reading narratives and sensing the world!"
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About Royal Holloway's Art Collection
Royal Holloway's stunning Grade 1 listed Picture Gallery houses the Thomas Holloway collection of Victorian paintings, and we hold temporary exhibitions in a dedicated space in the Davison Building. The College’s art collection includes world-class paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and watercolours including works by William Powell Frith, John Everett Millais and Edward Burne-Jones Recent additions to the collection include works by Augustus John and Graham Sutherland.
The College’s art collection includes world-class paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and watercolours including works by William Powell Frith, John Everett Millais and Edward Burne-Jones. Recent additions to the collection include works by Augustus John and Graham Sutherland
At the core of the collection are the legacies of two Victorian collectors: the entrepreneur Thomas Holloway and the artist Christiana Herringham Their collections have been enhanced through additional gifts, acquisitions and commissions which span from the 17th century to the present day The Thomas Holloway collection of Victorian paintings are housed in our stunning Grade 1 listed Picture Gallery
Royal Holloway welcomes visitors throughout the year to the view, experience and engage with the Picture Gallery and Art Collections. Find out how you can visit by visiting royalholloway.ac.uk/about-us/artcollections
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