AE Housman’s poetry is brought to life in a major new production in Lichfield
“Give me a land of boughs in leaf,
A land of trees that stand;
Where trees are fallen, there is grief;
I love no leafless land.”
The monthly podcast produced by volunteers at Lichfield Cathedral has started broadcasting the most ambitious and largest project in its 30-year history – the entire work of celebrated poet AE Housman’s A Shropshire Lad.
The Lichfield Diocesan Digest began producing its sound magazine about cathedral and church life mainly for people who are blind and partially sighted before the word “podcast” was even invented.
It's now expanded to include information about the life of the church across the Lichfield Diocese as well interviews with celebrities and chats with people from a wide range of interests and backgrounds across Staffordshire, Shropshire and the West Midlands.
A team of dedicated volunteers research, produce, record and distribute the magazine on memory sticks and via the internet.
Housman’s cycle of poems captures perfectly the sights, sounds and feel of the English Midlands from the ‘Blue Remembered Hills’ of the Black Country to Wenlock Edge, Clee Hill and Ludlow.
To bring these poems to life the Digest has had help from former Staffordshire poet laureate, Emily Rose Galvin, actor Jonny McLean who is associate director of the Garrick Theatre in Lichfield and Chris Wilson who runs a live music and poetry venue in Stoke on Trent.
The first of the cycle of 63 poems is now live on the Digest webpage www.lichfield-cathedral.org/about-us/diocesan-digest and also on www.facebook.com/diocesandigest/ and will feature in editions of the sound magazine throughout 2021.
If you would like to help out at the Digest either by taking part in the monthly recording sessions, helping to edit and produce the sound magazine or assisting with its duplication and distribution, you can find out more on our webpages or by writing to Diocesan Digest, St Mary’s House, Lichfield WS13 7LD.
Additionally, if anyone would like to receive the Digest on a memory stick, get in touch with us on 01543 306030.
“Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it”
AE Housman