Patsy Cornish (Head of English 1987 ‐ 2003)


Patsy Cornish is the editor of Agenda. Agenda is one of the best known and most highly respected poetry journals in the world, having been founded in 1959 by Ezra Pound and William Cookson. Seamus Heaney said of it, "Agenda, as the title insists, does several things that need to be done if literary


culture is to stay in good shape. First of all,


it stimulates and sponsors new poetry by poets whose writings and espousals have given the magazine its personality from the beginning. Agenda has a second important function which it discharges by doing work of critical advocacy for poets of marked or under-rated achievement, living and dead."


The latest double New Generation Poets’ issue features a couple of Old Cornelians. The cover is an oil on wood painting - Lilltangen (Little Seaweed Harbour) by Cathy McIntosh (née Sutton, Class of 1992). Cathy received her MAFA in painting from Edinburgh College of Art and currently lives, paints and works in Nelson, a small mountain town in British Columbia, Canada. Elizabeth Barton (née Kelly, class of 1991) read English at Christ’s College, Cambridge and has worked as an English teacher and written freelance articles published in The Times and The Catholic Herald. She is a member of Mole Valley Poets. Two of her poems feature in the edition, one is reproduced here.


Mrs Cornish urges Old Cornelians to subscribe to Agenda either online at www.agendapoetry.co.uk or email Patsy Cornish (McCarthy) editor@agendapoetry.co.uk


Elizabeth Barton Feather


I found it in a field – a kestrel’s feather, beaded


with dew and as I picked it up it stirred a wildness deep within me.


I was struck by its bold design – cream and chestnut barbs tigered


with brown, the way its shaft traced the curve of my palm like a life line


and I thought: what I’d give for a taste of the kestrel’s short, fierce life.


I looked up and longed for the sight of a falcon folding


the world in her fiery embrace, head still, wings flickering,


her fantail tipped with light and on my way home


the feather sang like a hollow reed


summoning me from this shadow life


to open sky, a pen to write with


28


Joanna is a busy GP in Dorset with an 18 year old son and two older step-daughters. I returned to full-time clinical medicine in January 2016 having given up clinical practice to focus on Pharmaceutical Medicine for several years. My daughter, like her mother, is a boarder at a Catholic all-girls school in England & loving it. She will be applying to University this Autumn. The Old Cornelian SUMMER 2016


Project Loholoka


Francesca Aaskov (Class of 2015) I am in my first year studying MSci Zoology at Exeter University. In the summer of 2017, I will join a small group of students from the University of Exeter who will be undertaking a 6-week research expedition to the forest of Loholoka in rural South-Eastern Madagascar, in association with Development and Biodiversity Conservation Action for Madagascar (DBCAM). We will be carrying out biodiversity surveys to identify threatened and endangered species in the region and investigating cases of illegal logging in the area.


The Loholoka region has barely been researched and currently has no conservation measures in place to protect it, therefore we hope to prove to the government of Madagascar that this forest is worth conserving and ensure that the appropriate regulations are set up for this to be possible. Over the coming year we will be applying for research grants and fundraising as much as we can to make sure that we reach Loholoka next summer and forge a brighter future for the animals, plants and communities that call it their home.


To support us, please visit our Facebook page which is called 'Project Loholoka' and our justgiving page https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/ProjectLoholoka


Sunny Chongtrakul (née Chinnapha, Class of 1977)


During the Summer, my family & I visited England and caught up with Carol Repton and Joanna Wilkinson (née Briffa) for dinner and lunch respectively. Both ladies looked well. Carol's older daughter Madeleine had just graudated from Edinburgh while her younger daughter, Alice, is waiting for A level results.


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