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Iona Poetry Reading with Kenneth Steven

Join us at the summer solstice for an hourlong poetry reading and exploration of the Celtic imagination

6:00-7:00 pm Ireland/UK time on Monday, June 21, 2021

10-11 am Pacific / 1-2 pm Eastern

This is a free event. We ask you to please support Kenneth’s work by purchasing a copy of Iona at the links provided here or through your local bookseller. 

The book is a gathering together of all of Kenneth Steven’s poems concerning the island of Iona through the years. These comprise poems that have been published in journals both at home and abroad, and broadcast on BBC Radio. A lengthy introduction tells the story of the forging of those first links with Iona, and those that have come through adult years. This is a book both for those who know and love the island, and for those who may yearn to visit but have not yet had the chance. It’s essentially a love song to a precious and an extraordinary place that has been the author’s spiritual home from earliest childhood days.
Place

And God said:
Let there be a place made of stone
out off the west of the world;
roughed nine months by gale,
rattled in Atlantic swell.

A place that rouses each Easter
with soft blessings of flowers
and shocks of white shell sand;
a place found only sometimes
by those who have lost their way.
Robert Vivian from Alma College in Michigan writes of the volume:

“A pulse of something rare, quiet, and holy beats in the heart of these poems – call it the seasons turning in his beloved Scotland, call it a lyrical voice addressing and blessing this poet’s beloved recognition of the gifts of this earth, which he gives back so generously to us. These poems touch and dwell in the sacredness of pure presence, which is a miraculous and even deeper gift that puts us in touch with eternity.”

We will record the event and make it available later on our website.

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About the Poet

Kenneth Steven is widely published, first and foremost as a poet. This volume of his selected work, ‘Iona’, represents the best-known of 16 collections of his work published over the years in Scotland and England. He has a strong name as a poet thanks to the many poetry-related programmes he’s written and presented for BBC Radio over the years. Kenneth’s spiritual home has been Iona from childhood days and he and his wife Kristina lead Celtic Christian retreats on the Scottish Hebridean island each October. For more on all his work as a poet, novelist and children’s author: kennethsteven.co.uk

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