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Our January 26 "Hooley"

a Craic-ling Success

 

Yeats Society members and friends happily ate and drank for three hours while listening eagerly s-inspired, Irish-fired poetry and song in what can only be described as the best belated year-end literary society bash in town.

 

Held at Flanagan's Pub on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, it featured the exceptional talents of our great friend of many years, internationally known Irish singer and instrumentalist, Gabriel Donohue, and of two of his gifted professional colleagues, fiddler Heather Bixler, and Irish-born singer, songwriter, and model, Cathy Maguire. The trio channeled Ireland's warmth and beauty and, most importantly, the memory and legacy of our namesake, WB Yeats.

 

FYI, 2013 is the centennial celebration of WB's Nobel Prize in Literature, received December 10, 1923, in Stockholm, Sweden. It was the first for an Irish writer. Others to date include George Bernard Shaw (1925), Samuel Beckett (1969), and Seamus Heaney (1995). 

Why James Joyce is not among them is a mystery and an egregious error that can never be undone. But he's in good company. Other great writers snubbed by the Swedish Academy include Borges, Twain, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Ibsen, Auden, Frost, Zola, and Proust. 

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Virtual Programs

 

Here is a selection of virtual “programs” we invited members

to access in lieu of in-person programs during the 2021-2022 pandemic.

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W.B Yeats: A Fanatic Heart (2016) 1:38:44

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJcsKsYB6Go

Musician and advocate Bob Geldof examines the life and work of Yeats and argues that as a poet and statesman, at the vanguard of a cultural revolution, he brought about immense change in Ireland's struggle for independence, without firing a bullet. Written by Geldof and Roy Foster, this incisive and moving documentary features readings by Bill Nighy, Van Morrison, Richard E Grant, Colin Farrell, Bono, Edna O'Brien, Ardal O'Hanlon, Noel Gallagher, Liam Neeson, and many others.

 

Joyce, Yeats, and Wilde (1992) 39:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG2vTbERE4g

A conversation between Richard Ellmann and Seamus Heaney

 

A Celebration of Yeats by Mike Scott and the Waterboys (2013) 56:28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f4kzmYfWUI&t=572s

The heart of this concert filmed in Lexington KY for the “Woodsongs” radio and television show is the Scottish rock’n’roller songs from the Waterboys’ album “An Appointment with Mr. Yeats.” Former director of the Yeats International Summer School Jonathan Allison reads a Yeats poem.

 

“The Cat and the Moon” (1999) 33:02

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfC7ibM94Kg

This black-and-white film produced by the Actor Patrick Bergin and directed by his wife, Paula Fraser-Bergin, enacts the Yeats play in an outdoor setting.

 

Joseph M. Hassett on “Yeats and His Muses” (2015) 19:46

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9fSDQN8LhA

in 2013 Hassett donated a collection of Yeats's books and manuscripts, including some first editions, to University College Dublin's Library Special Collections. Many of these items were displayed as part of an exhibition entitled "Yeats and His Muses," curated by Mr. Hassett. He tours the exhibit and speaks on the subject.

 

Joseph M. Hassett on “Themes in Yeats’s Poetry” (2015) 4:07

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei-qcGWqgzA

Produced at University College Dublin during the above exhibit.

 

An Analysis of “No Second Troy” (2014) 36:33

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZxJ8v9k4GY

Prof. Andrew Barker lectures in the Mycroft online series.

 

  • Yeats part 1 of 2 15:01

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUg1o1Nh6Zk

 

  • Yeats part 2 of 2 11:52

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbFD1lcryEA

A brief biography with many good photos and commentary by such people as Jonathan Allison, Meg Harper, Declan Kiely, and Ron Schuchard.

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Yeats in Bedford Park, a bohemian neighborhood in West London. The W B Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project has been bringing the connections between Bedford Park and WBY to international attention, and now are working to install an artwork, Enwrought Light, there. Click to learn more about the project, and possibly contribute:  http://www.wbyeatsbedfordpark.com/

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Yeats’s Purgatory 23:15

A filmed 2005 production by the Belvoir Players, Belfast. This grim, Noh-influenced play has a man and his 16-year-old son outside the family home that the man’s drunken father had burned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4rcsWfDwqQ

 

Purgatory, Politics, Cycles 10:56

An unusual analysis of Yeats’s Purgatory by Thomas Alvarez, a student of Prof. Mary Burke at the University of Connecticut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do0J8AZ5C6g

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Purgatory, Politics, Cycles 10:56

An unusual analysis of Yeats’s Purgatory by Thomas Alvarez, a student of Prof. Mary Burke at the University of Connecticut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do0J8AZ5C6g

 

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Interviews with Kim Bendheim about her book, The Fascination of What’s Difficult: a Life of Maud Gonne.

 

  • Dr. Miriam Nyhan Grey of NYU’s Ireland House interviews her on radio station WNYE’s “This Irish-American Life” (91.5 FM) Saturday, April 24, 9-10 a.m. Also, at www.nyuirish.net/radiohour

 

  • Joy Levitt interviews Ms. Bendheim for the JCC Manhattan Tuesday, April 27, 7-8 p.m.

https://mmjccm.org/programs/fascination-whats-difficult-joy-levitt-conversation-author-kimbendheim?utm_source=LambertCenter&utm_medium=Email_040621&utm_campaign=MAUDGONNE

 

Irish Repertory Theatre, 21 short pieces by the Irish filmmaker Matthew Thompson, included some Yeats work and took its title from him: “Poetic Reflections: Words Upon the Window Pane.” The project was produced by New York’s Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. Here are links to four WBY poems. The readers are immigrants to Ireland, some as refugees, some arrived as children with their families. All are poets themselves. The videos show the changing face of Ireland, and a new generation of Irish poets in conversation with the past.

 

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Other videos in the series, readings of poems written by people inspired by Yeats:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ten new films produced by the foundation at Lady Gregory’s Coole Park, one per week on Wednesday afternoons starting May 19. They'll be viewable at these links, and you can see the full lineup on the first link below:

 

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Musician and advocate Bob Geldof examines the life and work of Yeats and argues that as a poet and statesman, at the vanguard of a cultural revolution, he brought about immense change in Ireland's struggle for independence, without firing a bullet. Written by Geldof and Roy Foster, this incisive and moving documentary features readings by Bill Nighy, Van Morrison, Richard E Grant, Colin Farrell, Bono, Edna O'Brien, Ardal O'Hanlon, Noel Gallagher, Liam Neeson, and many others.

 

Joyce, Yeats, and Wilde (1992) 39:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG2vTbERE4g

A conversation between Richard Ellmann and Seamus Heaney

 

A Celebration of Yeats by Mike Scott and the Waterboys (2013) 56:28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f4kzmYfWUI&t=572s

The heart of this concert filmed in Lexington KY for the “Woodsongs” radio and television show is the Scottish rock’n’roller songs from the Waterboys’ album “An Appointment with Mr. Yeats.” Former director of the Yeats International Summer School Jonathan Allison reads a Yeats poem.

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