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  • Poetry and Spirituality

    25th Mar 2010Poetry and Spirituality

    The final event of the Open Spaces. Open Minds. series featuring fabulous contemporary poets and reflecting on the subjects of Poetry and Stand-up, Poetry and Rock, and Poetry and Spirituality.

  • Hosted by Professor Tina Beattie of Roehampton University, this event featured great poetry reflecting on the spiritual capacities in human beings, including the spiritual literature of Elizabethan England, the poetry of the great Sufi mystics, and the work of an acclaimed contemporary poet.

    Participating were

    Dr Ewan Fernie, a specialist on the Renaissance period and currently a project leaderon a high-profile project celebrating The Faeri Queene by Edmund Spenser, the acknowledged spiritual masterpiece of the Elizabethan age;

    Abbas Faiz, an Iranian-born academic exiled for his politica beliefs. Abbas now works for Amnesty International championing human rights around the globe. He is also an expert on the great masterpieces of Persian Sufi poetry, one of the greatest traditions of spiritual and mystical poetry in the world; and

    Lachlan Mackinnon, a distinguished poet whose latest collection SmallHours, published by Faber, is suffused with religious and spiritual themes.

    Melanie Roberts conducted interviews with the participants which can be found here.


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