|
|
 |
| |
John Rety after tributes at the Barbican Library |
If it’s Sunday night, it’s Rety – difficult, yet we love him so
Torriano Nights– A Festschrift for John Rety. Edited by Phil Poole. Acumen
AMONG the behind-closed-doors world of poetry, the word Rety has become an adjective.
It is based on a man: John Rety, the legendary co-founder of the Torriano Meeting House in Kentish Town – home to a “creative community sans frontier” as poet Valeria Melchioretto described it. And as such it has served as a poetry meeting place every Sunday evening since 1982.
Last Wednesday, it was time to say thanks to the man who’s “difficult, but yet we love him so,” (poet Dinah Livingstone). The Barbican library was filled with fans of the Torriano Meeting House along with Rety himself, ebullient as ever, almost 80 and unable to stand still.
Torriano afficionados produced a book for the occasion: Torriano Nights, a Festschrift for John Rety, published by Acumen. The Festschrift emerged as an idea after Rety turned down his nomination for an EPIC (Exceptional People in Camden) award, a move consistent with his anarchistic nature and his pathological mistrust of Camden Council.
People were emailed and asked for their memories of him and the Meeting House.
And they came flooding in. Here was the chance for his admirers to shower the bearded, shambling bard of Kentish Town and his Meeting House with 10-line accolades.
Ray Blake called it a “haven of eccentricity, pacifism, non-political-correctness and a kind of geriatric humanity,” and “at the centre of this bizarre, old-fashioned decency was the admirable figure of John Rety.”
Some focused on Rety’s physical attributes. He’s short. He has a beard. He can be astoundingly rude. Others on his love of chess – he’s a grandmaster – and an ability to attract unwelcome attention from tattooed skinheads.
“He is less inhibited than most children” notes publisher William Oxley, after being harangued during an eventful morning trip with Rety to the post office .
But it was Paul Birtill who conveyed the genuinely open-to-all nature of the place and the reason for its success, when he ominously warned in a poem that “violence isn’t something you expect at poetry readings”.
He recalled how, on one of his first visits in 1991, a drunk in the audience made an unwelcome approach to a woman sitting near him.
“One of the poets had brought along his daughter who, during his reading, started being pestered by a drunk sitting next to her,” explained Birtill. “He then began fondling her at which point the poet on stage interrupted his beautiful nature poem with a load of violent threats about ‘kicking this man’s head in’.”
Almost an afterthought, he added: “The drunk in question burnt himself to death some years later.”
So that’s it: a community place, just a place to get a cup of tea, a place to hear some of the best poets around. It’s all of those, and Rety, with his “retysense” ways, defines it.
charlotte chambers
• |
YOUR COMMENTS:
While John Rety does have a broad mistrust of authority, I think it should be pointed out that his reason for turning down Camden Council's EPIC award was not primarily this but the fact it was offered shortly after the Council had taken the decision to withdraw their annual grant to Torriano Meeting House. It's not unreasonable to refuse a pat on the back for doing something from an organisation that has just chosen to make it nearly £10,000 a year harder for you to do it.
David Floyd, E17 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
