News
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Interview in Bido Lito
Eleanor has contributed to this fascinating article by writer Cath Holland. Eleanor discusses her creative process and the importance of green spaces and city parks.
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Review of The Well at Winter Solstice in Poetry Wales
A review of The Well at Winter Solstice has been published in Poetry Wales 55.2. Anna Lewis offers an insightful and distinctive reading of the collection.
‘The passage is atmospheric enough to make the reader shiver, its slow syllables pre-empting the clock which, as it chimes the hours, seems in Rees’s phrasing to count the children’s sad, short lives down into the ground. Here the poetry is tender and affecting, while elsewhere the faceless apparitions Rees conjures can be truly chilling.’
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Short review of The Well at Winter Solstice
Helen Boden writes about The Well at Winter Solstice on her blog.
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Recent Readings 2020
Recent Readings 2020
Eleanor reading at Salt Poets/Live Canon@Boulevard Theatre Soho Photo @Emma L Flitness During February and early March 2020, Eleanor was pleased to be able to read her poetry at several UK poetry events and festivals.
Alongside Helen Tookey, Eleanor read at the University of Bangor on 19th Feb and with Zoe Skoulding at the Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool on 20th Feb.
On 1st March, Eleanor was invited to read her poems as part of the Salt Poets/Live Canon reading at the Boulevard Theatre, Soho, London.
On 7th March travelled north to St Andrews for a reading with Oli Hazzard at Stanza International Poetry Festival.
The undercroft venue at Stanza International Poetry Festival, St Andrews 2020. -
Poem-Songs from The Well at Winter Solstice
In winter 2019, Eleanor collaborated with leading folk musicians Emily Portman and Mikey Kenney to create a programme of readings, traditional tunes and new musical settings of Eleanor’s poems by Emily and Mikey. The poems ‘Imbolc’, ‘Hearth-fire’, ‘Samhain’ and ‘Dialogue with Penmon Cross’ are now poem-songs. The poems continue to transform!
Photo: Mikey Kenney and Eleanor ReesThis special event was held on winter solstice 2019 in the intimate and unusual space of Ullet Road Unitarian Church, Liverpool. As well as a beautiful acoustic, the room has a vaulted painted ceiling and is lined with books. There was also an open fire.
Photo: Eleanor sound checks under the painted ceiling
The programme was a development of work begun for the book launch on summer solstice and Emily and Mikey are hatching plans to take this programme to other evocative venues. As one audience member said, ‘the event really helped me to understand Eleanor’s poems further and their connections to folklore and story-telling traditions’.
More to follow!
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Wirral Borough of Culture Commissioned Poem
In November 2019, Eleanor was commissioned to write a new poem for the handover event from Wirral Borough of Culture to Sefton Borough of Culture.
On an atmospheric and chilly evening at Crosby Coastal Park the duologue, ‘Come to us through the Night’, was read by young people from Wirral and Sefton, prior to the turning on of the light installation, ‘Constellations’.
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Poetics Prose Piece in Lune Journal
Eleanor has a poetics prose non-fiction piece in the new issue of Lune, The Journal of Literary Misrule.
To read it see here: https://lunejour
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Interview with Eleanor in Versopolis Review
Eleanor is interviewed for the online Versopolis Review.
Read it here: https://www.versopolis-poetry.com/news/396/collaboration-makes-writing-more-democratic
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Eleanor Rees on how she writes a poem in Poetry Wales
Eleanor has written a short article for Poetry Wales on ‘How I write a Poem’.
Read it here
https://poetrywales.co.uk/eleanor-rees-on-how-she-writes-a-poem/
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‘Bridie’s Tomb’: a short film
Watch a short film of Eleanor Rees reading ‘Bridie’s Tomb’ from The Well at Winter Solstice.
Filmed on location at St James Gardens by Jane Farley.
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‘The Well at Winter Solstice’ Launch
Eleanor launched her fourth collection The Well at Winter Solstice in St Bride’s Church on summer solstice, 21st June 2019.
The event was attended by over fifty people and received enthusiastic reviews with audience members commenting on the atmospheric venue and the evocative qualities of Eleanor’s poetry.
Folk musicians Emily Portman and Mikey Kenney set two of Eleanor’s poems to music, ‘The Bone’s Lament’ and ‘Imbolc’. A taster of these beautiful interpretations can be seen https://www.facebook.com/emilygportman/videos/2277640089231967/
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Paris in the Spring!
Eleanor was fortunate to be invited to Paris in May 2019 to read her poetry as part of the Versopolis programme alongside leading European poets, Andreas Unterweger (Austria), Ivan Hristov (Bulgaria) and Luljeta Lleshanaku (Albania).
Readings took place at the National Centre for Books and in a medieval cellar near the Sorbonne!
Eleanor’s poems were translated French by Linda Maria Baros and published in a beautiful pamphlet.
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Versopolis Reading at ‘Literatur and Wein Festival’, Krems, Austria
A selection of Eleanor’s poems are translated into German as part of the EU funded Versopolis programme.
Eleanor travelled to Austria in April, 2019 to read at the International Literary Festival Literatur and Wein alongside Marija Andrijaseevic (Croatia), Jacobe Mansztajn (Poland) and Vladimir Durisic (Macedonia).
Photo Copyright: S. Waldecker/Literaturhaus NÖ.
