The Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation returns to the Abbey Stage to celebrate the poetry of Pulitzer Prize winner, and one of the most influential poets of the 20th century, W.H. Auden.
Auden was a great admirer of Yeats and collaborated with the ‘Thirties Poets’ Christopher Isherwood, Cecil Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice and Stephen Spender.
Actors Angeline Ball (Redwater, The Commitments), Patrick Bergin (Red Rock, Patriot Games, Sleeping With the Enemy) and Ingrid Craigie (Special Tribute Award Irish Times, Striking Out, The Dead), along with writer Colm Toibin (House of Names, Nora Webster) will perform readings of some of Auden’s most famous poems, along with the greatly admired introductions written by Josephine Hart.
The programme includes Auden’s much acclaimed masterpiece ‘In Memory of W.B. Yeats,’ and some of the most beautiful love poetry ever written, including ‘Funeral Blues’ popularised as ‘Stop All the Clocks’ in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral.
About The Josephine Hart Poetry Hour: Josephine Hart (1942 – 2011) was born and raised in Mullingar before moving to London in her twenties.
She was a publisher, a well-known and much-loved West End theatre producer and a best-selling author of six novels, including Damage which was adapted into a film starring Juliette Binoche and Jeremy Irons.
When Josephine Hart died suddenly in 2011 of peritoneal cancer, the Dean of Westminster Abbey arranged a memorial reading in ‘Poets Corner,’ in recognition of her contribution to promoting poetry.
For over 25 years Josephine Hart’s hugely popular Poetry Hours were presented at such celebrated venues as The National Theatre, The Donmar Warehouse, The New York Public Library and Harvard University.
Now, Lord Saatchi, her husband of 27 years, through the Foundation continues the tradition at the British Library, London University and the Abbey Theatre in her memory. Luminaries from theatre, television, music and film, including Eileen Atkins, Bono, Sinéad Cusack, Ralph Fiennes, Jeremy Irons, Elizabeth McGovern, Edna O’Brien, Eddie Redmayne, Juliet Stevenson, Harriet Walter and Dominic West, perform at the Poetry Hours.
Tickets for the event cost €25 - €30 / €20 and are available from https://www.abbeytheatre.ie/whats-on/josephine-hart-poetry-hour-w-h-auden/ or (01) 87 87 222