From Bloomsbury to Halifax Harbour: Poetry Reading on Saturday, May 31st
On the afternoon of May 31, our poetry reading featured extracts from two works: first, from a yet unpublished narrative poem, The Retort of War: Halifax Explosions by Jonathan Eayrs; and second, from the recently published Stone Hours by Jeremy Clarke.
Fr. Jonathan Eayrs was an honorary assistant priest at St. Thomas’s about 14 years ago before he became the incumbent of St. Barnabas Church on the Danforth until the end of 2015. Born in Winnipeg but reared in Toronto, Jonathan moved to Halifax in 1974 to study History and Politics at Dalhousie and later to teach in the King’s College Foundation Year Programme. Amongst various odd jobs, he worked at the Nova Scotia Archives where he became familiar with artifacts and images connected with the Halifax Explosion of 1917. He went on to serve as a pastor in Lunenburg County, Halifax, and in Toronto. As an honorary assistant at St. Thomas’s, Toronto, he took an active interest in its literary life. While at St. Barnabas, he collaborated with John Abberger to launch the inaugural season of the Bach Festival.
Jonathan Eayrs reading from The Retort of War: Halifax Explosions
His poetic debut took place circa 1990 at his sister’s wedding when he presented a Miltonic epithalamion that moved his father to exclaim that he had been born into the wrong century. Other more accessible creative endeavours have included writing a history of his late beloved Toronto parish, Church of the Advent, called “Life at the Edge”, and curating historical display panels for St. Paul’s, Halifax, when he was Associate Rector. In retirement, he lives in Halifax happily engaged in a second vocation (or perhaps it is second childhood) as a chorister.
Jeremy Clarke was born in Bedfordshire, England, and has worked in Europe and North America. He was Poet in Residence at Eton College from 2010 to 2020, and his archive is held in the Eton College Collections. He lives in London.
David Kent reading from Stone Hours
Clarke’s debut collection, Devon Hymns (2010), featured artwork by John Berger and Yves Berger. A limited-edition chapbook, Incidents of Travel, and Common Prayer (a pamphlet co-published by The St. Thomas Poetry Series) were published in 2012. His second full collection, Spatiamentum, was published in 2014 (illustrations by Italian artist Paola Volpato). These books were published through Rufus Books, Toronto, by publisher Ágnes Cserháti, now a parishioner of St. Thomas’s. They were followed by several other publications by other publishers until smaller collections were brought together in the more than 340 pages of Stone Hours last year. This volume adopts the format of a Medieval Book of Hours and alternates between meditations, prayers, and psalms.
HERE is the Link to the Live-stream on the church’s YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Y9e3zKmr4&list=PL3liY4CvxHSGZdhlthWL4ekmv8wLIB3