Listening to Pictures, Looking at Poetry...A conversation between the poet Matthew Barton and painter Elizabeth Haines at the National Library of Wales on Wednesday 24th September.

                         Listening to Pictures, Looking at Poetry...

                       A special Coast and Country online magazine arts feature.

                                           Feature promoted by Don Hale.

                                          donhaleblog.blogspot.com/2025

A conversation between the poet Matthew Barton and painter Elizabeth Haines at the National Library of Wales on Wednesday 24th September.

Matthew Barton is a translator, editor, poet and teacher of creative writing, and taught poetry for many years on Oxford University’s Creative Writing Diploma course. The author of four collections of poetry, as well as a translation of Rilke’s Duino Elegies, his poems have also appeared in a wide range of magazines and anthologies. 

He has won numerous prizes for his work, including BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year (twice winner), an Arts Council Writer’s Award and a Hawthornden Fellowship. He was co-founder and editor of the highly regarded poetry magazine Raceme until its eventual demise.

Matthew has a strong connection with Wales – his father grew up in Machynlleth, and he often stays in a primitive caravan close to the Preseli hills, where many of his poems have been written.

Elizabeth Haines is a painter, teacher and writer who has lived on her hill farm in the Preseli mountains of Pembrokeshire since 1971. She began her career as a book illustrator, but over the years has moved almost entirely towards painting. 

Her sketchbooks, one of which is in the collection of the National Library, are full of observations of life around her, as well as musings on philosophy and the other arts.  Her paintings are often inspired by poetry or music, the one in the Library’s Collection being based around One Foot in Eden by Edwin Muir.

Elizabeth has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Wales and has been Artist in Residence at the National Eisteddfod. She runs workshops, and particularly loves working with children, either at schools or in the restored farm buildings which are her studio.

Matthew met Elizabeth when he visited her studio and was very struck by her work, subsequently writing a poem about the effect on him of her paintings.

Subsequently they have talked at length about the relationship between the two very different arts, of painting and poetry and wanted to share some of these thoughts with a wider audience. What can each art form do that the other cannot? How different or similar is the creative process in each case?

*Some of Elizabeth Haines' unique paintings (*above left), Hynt Ar Gwynt, and (*below right), Porthclais.

 

The conversation idea came from Elizabeth’s summer open studio event.

Elizabeth Haines recently held her summer open studio event from 23rd August to 6th September, where she greeted old friends, and made many new ones. 

She explained: “This year saw a change of view with paintings of the coast, particularly around the St David’s Peninsula, a theme which I’ve not pursued since my show at the Tenby Museum in 2011. 

"It also included the usual collection of smaller mounted works alongside framed paintings on the walls of the studio, dacha and barn.”

"And the idea came to us when Matthew visited my open studio LAST year. We have been chatting intermittently over the last 12 months. 

"Listening to Pictures, Looking at Poetry: A conversation between the poet Matthew Barton and painter Elizabeth Haines on Wednesday 24th September.

She explained: “This is to let you know about a conversation I’ll be having at the National Library in Aberystwyth with the poet Matthew Barton. Matthew and his wife visited last year, and subsequently he wrote a wonderful poem."

See below…

 

Given Back

Elizabeth Haines’s studio, Preselis.

Coming out, gorse was scratched clean into the rough

brushwork of the hill, sky skimmed clear

of old plaster, the boulders of Caer Meini

breaking forth. We cycled

down the blue lane headlong

into purples and greys lifting free

from forest and rock into all the translucent

weathers of light.

 

I have never done anything else she said.

For sixty years to see and paint – surely

gives hope to the old hills, the farms and woods

returned through her gaze into

the molten atmospheres they long forgot

they once shimmered with: gives them back

changed to themselves, the way love does.

Matthew Barton.

An informal conversation about the connections.

An informal conversation led to this Listening to Pictures, Looking at Poetry event, as Elizabeth explained: “We started up an informal conversation about the connections between our separate arts, and so many interesting ideas came to light in the course of our exchanges that we wanted to share them with you. We are really looking forward to doing so on September 24th.Tickets are FREE, just book either for the event in Aberystwyth or online.” 

*These are the links to further details and to obtain tickets:

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/llgcnlw/evt-Y39eNVw8EKL1oZxP

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/llgcnlw/ar-lein-online-listening-to-pictures-looking-at-poetry/e-yjvoox

   

*Pictured above - some examples from Elizabeth's impressive recent open studio event - (*top) Sea Spray and Garden Storm, and (*lower) Winter Sun and Bushes

 

Forthcoming show at Oriel Q in Narberth from October 18th.

 

*Elizabeth has additionally provided a brief account of her ideas for her next event and said: “I’ve very recently been revisiting my interest in using calligraphy as an image, and some of these pictures will be shown at my forthcoming show at Oriel Q in Narberth, starting on 18th October - I’ve not explored this since the Eisteddfod in 1986. More details later…”