All four of the sonnets I wrote for the centenary of the end of World War 1 have now been filmed, and here they are in order. They also exist as a single video on YouTube.
You are welcome to show the videos in churches and at any event commemorating the armistice. If you would like the full text to read yourself, you can get it by joining my mailing list by clicking here.
I know it isn’t Monday, but there’s a bit of poetry on the blog today because, as you may have noticed from the change of name, I’m doing a new thing. Do watch the video, but don’t forget to read on below!
We filmed this in Thorpe Morieux church, and I’m grateful to Steve Day for his beautiful photograph of the East window there which we used for the final shot.
Yes, the observant reader may have noticed that my blog URL has changed. We’re now at amyscottrobinson.com, no longer a fiddly WordPress address involving ‘AmyStoryteller’.
My new, grown-up author name, Amy Scott Robinson, brings together the three very different books I’ve been writing this year, my storytelling and performance background and my poetry too. There will be more about all of that on this blog, but also in a brand new shiny newsletter that will go out to my mailing list and will include otherwise-unseen pieces of writing, special offers when books start appearing, and a summary of news and my scribblings from wherever they’ve appeared online. I’ll be sending these updates no more than once a week. Let’s face it, it will probably be less than once a week.
Anyway, if you sign up this month, you will receive a PDF of four sonnets which I was asked to write for the centenary of the end of the first world war, 11th November 1918. These will be performed in one of our churches here (Hitcham) on the 11th, but I’m also going to be releasing videos of each sonnet over the month of October for others to use, if they wish, as part of their own events. The above video is the first one.
Signing up to the newsletter is different to following this blog by e-mail, which only updates you when I post here. If you’d like to sign up, click this link and put your details in. You’ll get an e-mail with the PDF of this and the other three sonnets.
Since yesterday was Advent Sunday, today I’d like to share a sonnet I wrote during Advent last year. Every Advent, we use a Jesse tree to remember the characters and stories that make up the bigger story of God’s saving plan for his world. Rebekah is one of those people, called out of her home to join the family of God. I was struck by the beautiful moment in Genesis 24:62-65 when Isaac and Rebekah see each other for the first time across a distance, and the parallel between the way they approached each other and the way we, as a church, approach the coming King who is on his way to meet us.
Rebekah
She saw the bridegroom, so she veiled her face.
Between them hovered hope, and the unknown;
Love longing lay between, across the space.
Love was between them, and was not yet shown.
Her love stepped out, stepped into the between.
Her beauty now belonging to his praise
Now that she saw him look, while still unseen
She veiled her beauty, waiting for his gaze.
Her advent brought him, searching, from his place:
His advent made her faithfully prepare.
She journeyed on, but now, she veiled her face.
He searched until he found, and met her there.
Is that my Love, come out to meet His bride?
Give me my veil, and bring me to His side.
Amy's Place 