My poem 'divining' became the libretto for @olliecomposer to compose breathtaking opera from. @JoeAshmore19 performed the 20 minute piece, accompanied by @MarvoloQuartet at @MusicStChrys in Manchester last night. It was stunning. #aneveningofchambermusic@McrWritingSchl @LitWales pic.twitter.com/IVQdB3ON4R

— glynfedwards (@glynfedwards) March 12, 2019

Notes from the event programme:

Divining was written in the summer of last year, when the prolonged dry weather exposed a forgotten history of the land. In news coverage each day, aerial photographs were divulging historical paths and archaeological sites; traces of the past were being revealed in tantalising increments.

My family moved house and began to explore the boundaries of a new village, creating a nomenclature based on our encounters with birds, with wildflowers and with a dense wood of ageless trees. My son was fascinated by his discoveries and his imagination burgeoned.

With Oliver and Joe’s project in mind, I took a notebook with my son one day and attempted to draft a wandering poem which pursued our various tracts, junctures and fractures; a poem that was ambiguously trailing my son’s innocence and loss of innocence simultaneously; a poem of rich musicality and of a growing quiet. Ultimately, the poem became the languishing summer that will define part of my son’s childhood; a summer in which he divined an obsession with the natural world.