Alice Fowler

Nov 11, 2023 | yorkshiretimes.co.uk | Abeer Ameer |Matthew Stewart |Rachel Bower |Alice Fowler

artsBystanderAlso known as collateral damage. The usual story for his type:minding his own businesstending to his pomelos and pomegranatesand watering his carnations. His granddaughter watchesas he spreads his fig leaf sap to cure his psoriasis. Guided missilesdon’t show the usual signs of guidance. They don’t shout Hallelujah,they don’t clap in praise of the Lordand they don’t quietly come seeking a Bodhi tree under which to sit cross-leggedto reach Enlightenment.

Nov 10, 2023 | yorkshiretimes.co.uk | Matthew Stewart |Rachel Bower |Alice Fowler

artsMatthew Stewart says no more than he needs to. Taking a synoptic compositional approach almost as an axiom – poetry is supposed to be a distilled arrangement of words – his poems carry as much weight as he wants to divulge. And his instinctive resistance to length or complexity is a refreshing leitmotif, as though pressing the reset button might actuate a momentous clarification of thought.

Nov 6, 2023 | yorkshiretimes.co.uk | Rachel Bower |Alice Fowler |Matthew Stewart

artsAs Gregory Batsleer reminded us before a thrilling performance of the Vespers of 1610, this was the first occasion on which Monteverdi’s masterwork had ever been attempted by Huddersfield Choral Society. That the conductor’s comment was a statement of objective fact, rather than a precautionary exercise in damage limitation, says much about Batsleer’s assured hand and intuitive feel for the moment.

Nov 3, 2023 | yorkshiretimes.co.uk | Rachel Bower |Alice Fowler |Matthew Stewart

As trees are uprooted in the Channel Islands and the waves careen high over Devonian sea walls, we gawp in wonder at television images that bring the ferocity of storms into our front room. Except they don’t, nor ever can, replicate the ominous and recurringly frequent drama of being exposed, first-hand to the backlash of climate patterns gone seismic.