About
"Behind every great man…" they say, implying the supportive spouse who leaves the high-minded male poet to his creativity!
But as with Dorothy Wordsworth, Georgie Yeats, Una Jeffers and more, Roberta Hewitt (who'd lived in Canada before she met John and had her own independent role in education) not only supported her husband John's career as a writer but was the very reason for their making the Glens their "chosen place" (as Una Jeffers had brought her Californian poet-husband here).
And while John Hewitt knew local people regarded him as "some strange bird", it was both Roberta's creation of a weekend escape here at the Glenville gate-lodge (which became as much a hub, in the Glens, for the North's artists and writers as the couple's Botanic Avenue home was in Belfast) and her day-to-day relationships with Cushendall neighbours and friends, that produced a radical sea-change in their evolving attitudes to their fellow countrymen, and inspired John's political ideas and his most significant poetry.
Cahal Dallat, who has spent many years researching the lives of the Hewitts both here and in Coventry, explores Roberta's role in the evolution of their thought, and Anne-Marie Fyfe reads extracts from Roberta's letters and personal diaries.
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Anne-Marie Fyfe has published five collections & a literary/travel/personal memoir, No Far Shore, Charting Unknown Waters (Seren, 2019). Born in Cushendall, County Antrim, she lives in London where she has run Coffee-House Poetry since 1997. www.coffeehousepoetry.org www.annemariefyfe.com
Born in Ballycastle, County Antrim, poet, musician and critic, Cahal Dallat, lives in London where he is founder/organiser of the WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project. His latest poetry collection is Beautiful Lofty Things (Salmon Poetry, Ennistymon, 2022). www.cahaldallat.com
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