The year 2017 has been declared ‘The Year of Joseph Conrad’ by the Polish Government to celebrate Conrad’s 160th birthday. To mark this, a poetic celebration of Conrad will take place at the National Poetry Library, Royal Festival Hall, on the evening of Wednesday 1 November. The event is free but booking is required. The event’s line-up of contemporary London poets includes Robert Hampson, Agnieszka Studzinska, Karen McCarthy Woolf, SJ Fowler, Saradha Soobrayen, Amy Evans, Harry Gilonis and Edmund Hardy. Below is one of Robert Hampson’s responses to Conrad, originally published in his selected poems, Assembled Fugitives (2001).
How I found Dr Livingstone
1. her mother died the evening I arrived & her husband was out of town.
it was a situation I wasn’t prepared for.
2. she stepped out of the car & waited while I locked the door.
she had brought neither shawl nor jacket.
& her shoulders were cold
with the drop in temperature after dusk.
3. the night was clear
but the path disappeared into the wood.
I wanted to ask her about her younger brother
but it was a topic of some delicacy so we walked on in silence
& the darkness closed round us.
4. after 25 years my researches were nearly over.
we had almost reached the centre of the wood.
her hand rested in mine gleaming like ivory.