Blog

• Before the Wall - Trump and the Opium War

  Posted on Jul 17, 2019
  In the first of a series of blog posts, Before the Wall writer Chris Ruffle examines the similarities between the Opium War of 1860 and the current trade war with China. --- It is impossible to pick up a newspaper these days without reading of “trade war”. Typically this involves President Trump inveighing against the unfair practices of foreign countries, taking advantage of the U.S.A. The usual suspect is China, with some justification; of the $55.5bn U.S. deficit in May, China accounted for $30.1bn. Of course, the origins of this deficit are more nuanced than fit into a tweet. China’s nat…

• Before the Wall

  Posted on Mar 12, 2019
  The Rimbaud and Verlaine Foundation is excited to announced that we will begin working with the writer Chris Ruffle and his new play ‘Before the Wall’ working with a new business model for the arts to develop this show. We have secured a slot at Gilded Balloon at the Museum for the Edinburgh Fringe 17th-26th August 2019, and have brought on board Dodie Finamore, a young up-and-coming Theatre Producer to work with us. Tickets are now available from the Gilded Balloon website.  We will be collectively working on ‘Before the Wall’ for the next 6 months, with plans for further developments in th…

• A new investment opportunity

  Posted on Feb 9, 2018
  Over the last 12 months the Rimbaud and Verlaine Foundation has been working on an innovative business plan designed to attract new investment into the arts, something that puts it at the cutting edge of attempts to create a more resilient, dynamic and entrepreneurial arts and cultural sector. For more information click here.

• Focus on cross-arts work

  Posted on Feb 9, 2018
  Although inspired by two poets, the Rimbaud and Verlaine Foundation is proud to be an organisation working across many different art forms. Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine are perhaps ideal figureheads for an organisation championing this kind of cross arts approach, and their influence has been felt in all of the commissions which the organisation has done so far, and which have included poetry, fine art, jazz, and theatre. In 2018 the Foundation hopes to attract funding to, amongst other things, an original chamber opera, and an innovative puppet show. It believes that the time has come for…

• Kindred Spirits

  Posted on Feb 9, 2018
  This extraordinary network of European poetry houses was established by the Foundation in 2015 and became a vehicle for an application for an EU Large Cooperation Grant in the autumn of that year. The Foundation was all set to resubmit its application in 2016, with every chance of success, when the BREXIT vote intervened. As a result, the Board of the charity decided that it was no longer sensible to place EU funding at the centre of the organisation’s future strategy. The Foundation nevertheless is keen to build on the fantastic relationships it is established with its ‘poetry house’ partners…

• Rock for Rimbaud

  Posted on Feb 9, 2018
  This is perhaps one of the most exciting initiatives launched by the Foundation during its first 3 years. The idea of using the Rimbaud and Verlaine brand to provide platforms for up and coming Rock, Folk and World Music musicians, is perhaps one of the boldest and most exciting ideas to emerge from our community. And it was very much a community effort, as the Rock for Rimbaud manifesto shows. In a recent expansion of Foundations Business Plan a whole new strand was added designed to attract investment to what will effectively be a music promotion business sitting within the digital arts busi…

• Poetry House Live

  Posted on Feb 9, 2018
  This live theatre commission was originally the subject of a successful Arts Council England application for Grants for the Arts funding in 2016 and provides a fantastic example of how great original work can grow and develop in many different new directions. The funding we received from ACE was sufficient to commission 7 talented up-and-coming playwrights from all over Europe to write short 15-minute pieces telling the stories of different poets and their houses. These pieces combined into a full-length theatre show exploring the many aspects of the poet’s life and significance performed at a…

• Jan Patoçka and care for the soul

  Posted on Feb 9, 2018
  Although this does not have anything to do strictly with the work of the Foundation, Graham Henderson has been heavily influenced in his work in the arts over the last 15 years by the ideas of the Czech philosopher, Jan Patoçka. A leading phenomenologist, who took the ideas of his hero Socrates as a starting point, Patoçka was one of the most influential philosophical voices of the 20th century. Most famous for being a signatory to the Charter 77 document calling for respect for human rights in the former Czechoslovakia, Patoçka was subject to harsh interrogation and died soon after, a martyr …

• Support the Rimbaud and Verlaine Foundation

  Posted on Oct 3, 2016
  Now is the time to give the Foundation your support, and to help it to achieve its objective of promoting the arts and the important part they play in a tolerant and inclusive society. Please click on the button below to donate to the Foundation. If you believe that the arts and culture are important act now by supporting R&V, one of the UK’s most dynamic and innovative arts organisations.

• Celebrating No. 8 - Heritage Perspectives

  Posted on Dec 16, 2015
  8 Royal College Street George Szirtes – Hungary, France and Royal College Street Could the Hungarian born award-winning poet George Szirtes be the first Hungarian to take an interest in Royal College Street since King Sigismund six centuries earlier? Sigismund came with French interests too, chronicled in Shakespeare’s Henry V. George Szirtes’s readings and poems, reinforced in discussions with Radio 3’s Donald Macleod, offered European perspectives and some answers. The flag-bedecked platform of Europe House provided a powerful visual focus.   Sigismund the King of Hungary, of the Roman…

• Rimbaud and Verlaine embark on a journey

  Posted on Apr 8, 2014
  The poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine famously ran away together to London in 1872 where they lived for some time at No 8 Royal College Street in Camden (then Great College Street). Their famous journey is now, 143 years later, serving as the inspiration for another departure. The Rimbaud and Verlaine Foundation, created in 2011 to take advantage of the gift of No 8 in the current owner's Will, is embarking on its own journey to use the poets and their cultural legacy as the inspiration for a new arts organisation, promoting engagement with the arts and broadening horizons through cultura…

• House of Knives - Director's Statement

  Posted on Mar 8, 2014
  The purpose of making this short film was to tell the story of the French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine and in particular to explain the importance of their connection with the house at No 8 Royal College Street in Camden, where they lived for a few creative and turbulent months in 1873. For me it was therefore important that the house itself should be a character in the film. It appears in the opening shot, and is the scene of most of the action. One of the things that I am most pleased with is the way in which we convincingly blended the exterior shots of the house (filmed at the re…