Saturday, April 25th, 2009
NYU Glucksman Ireland House
1 Washington Mews, Fifth Avenue 1 block north of Washington Square, NYC
Each August aficionados of the poet William Butler Yeats come from all over the world to enjoy two weeks of lectures, readings, and theater in Sligo, Ireland, and to tour nearby "Yeats Country". Here is an opportunity to sample the Summer School for a day in New York. Along with a full day of programs, a luncheon and a social, we will have information on the 2009 School (July 25th - Aug. 9th). Also exhibits and sales: books and other items.
9:30 AM -- Registration and refreshments. (Irish tea and coffee (courtesty of Bewleys) and baked goods available all day)
10:00 AM -- Opening remarks by Andrew McGowan, president of the WB Yeats Society of NY, and Maureen Murphy, associate director of the 2009 Yeats International Summer in Ireland.
10:10 -- Yeats in Extremis -- Ronald Schuchard (Emory) explores Yeats’s last days and the final poems.
11 -- The Ghosts and the Wine -- Michael Wood (Princeton) presents a close reading of All Souls’ Night as a way of returning to a very old questions. What do we make of Yeats’s mixed tones when he speaks of the spirit world, the unmistakable seriousness combined with the sly and sometimes not so sly jokes? Defensiveness on the topics? Hardly. Deep intimacy with the other World? Maybe. Something else entirely? This talk is about seeing what we can find.
11:50 -- Break for refreshment.
12 -- Yeats, Auden and MacNeice -- Jonathan Allison (U of Kentucky and director of the 2009 Summer School) examines the responses of W.H.Auden and Louis MacNeice to Yeats and his literary legacy. In what ways did they admire the work, and in what ways did they resist and object to it?
1 pm -- Luncheon at Café Español, 172 Bleecker Street at Sullivan. Soup or salad; select one of two dozen entrees; flan and coffee; choice of Sangria, wine, beer or soda... all for $24 if reserved and paid by deadline..
3 -- Father and Son --John Kelly (St. John’s, Oxford) talks about John Butler Yeats’s relationship with his poet son, especially during the last 14 years of the father’s life, spent in New York City.
3:50 - The Great Yeats -- Sam McCready (U of Maryland, Baltimore) presents a reading from his new one-man play about John Butler Yeats, directed by Joan McCready, that will premiere at the 2009 Summer School. The performance is dedicated to William M. Murphy, author of the JBY biography Prodigal Father, who died last fall..
4-5 -- Book launch, social and a Summer School reunion. Wine and refreshments..
Fees Entire program, including refreshments, the afternoon social and the plays is $55 ($30 without lunch); morning only $19; afternoon with social $25; social only $10, . Special rates for paid-up Society members reserving by April 23rd. Send a check to WB Yeats Society of NY, National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, NYC 10003 with your name, address, phone number, e-mail. Put the date on your calendar; your name will be on a registration list at the door. Fees are $5 more at door. No phone calls, please. Check our website: www.YeatsSociety.org or write us for information about the Summer School, and about membership, our poetry competition and our other programs.
See past programs from The Wayback Machine