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A Quire of Paper: A Poem for Jane Austen and Her House

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09/07/2017

BBC Radio 4 - A Quire of Paper: A Poem for Jane Austen and Her House

Maura Dooley weaves the sounds of Jane Austen's house with the new poetry it inspires.

For the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death, Maura Dooley, poet-in-residence at the house where she wrote her books, weaves the sounds of the place with new poetry it inspires.

Last year, Maura Dooley was poet-in-residence at the Jane Austen House Museum in Chawton, Hampshire.This is where Austen lived for the last eight years of her life and worked on her novels. While there Dooley listened a great deal, to conversations of visitors and workers, the sounds of garden and village and, most of all, the house itself. In response she wrote a series of poems, 'A Quire of Paper'. The inspiration for these is sometimes surprising; A 'Quire of Paper' is the name given, so thin are they, to cream pancakes the recipe for which is in the Austen family's household book.

'A Quire of Papers - A Poem for Jane Austen and her House ' gathers the sounds of a life Austen would recognise - the shutters being opened in the early morning (as they are each day, by the volunteers, and were by Jane and her family); footsteps on the stairs; the floorboards creaking; a C19th square piano; birdsong in the garden; horses on the road. Interwoven with these are the sounds of Jane Austen and her work reverberating now, as an industry, in contemporary life - the conversations of visitors from around the world; comments from curators and staff running the house. These are punctuated by Dooley's poems, recorded in the house and garden.

At Alton, where Jane and her sister walked all the time, there is still a market. The fruit and vegetable woman who calls out wares - exactly in the manner of street cries Jane Austen would have heard. At the edge of Chawton is a sound she could not imagine, heavy traffic roaring down on the A31. With new poetry set against the history of the place. 'A Quire of Papers - A Poem for Jane Austen and her House ' offers an unusual, contemporary and creative way to think about Jane Austen.

Presenter: Maura Dooley
Producer: Julian May.

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