It is 50 years since John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged their famous Bed-Ins For Peace.
John Lennon's Bed-In for Peace - Google Search
Bed-Ins For Peace - Wikipedia
Here's a poem about peace:
All Of These People
Michael Longley
Who was it who suggested that the opposite of war
Is not so much peace as civilisation? He knew
Our assassinated Catholic greengrocer who died
At Christmas in the arms of our Methodist minister,
And our ice-cream man whose continuing requiem
Is the twenty-one flavours children have by heart.
Our cobbler mends shoes for everybody; our butcher
Blends into his best sausages leeks, garlic, honey;
Our cornershop sells everything from bread to kindling.
Who can bring peace to people who are not civilised?
All of these people, alive or dead, are civilised.
"All Of These People" by Michael Longley by On Being Studios | Free Listening on SoundCloud
And another:
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats | Poetry Foundation
On Radio 3 this weekend:
It is 50 years since John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged their famous Bed-Ins For Peace. Actors Juliet Stevenson and Jamie Glover mark the anniversary with readings and music exploring themes of calm, tranquillity and activism.
John Lennon said of peace that it “is not something you wish for; it's something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away”. What Lennon did, with his new wife Yoko Ono, was to stage two “bed-ins”, one in Montreal and one in Amsterdam; welcoming the world's press to join at their bedsides. While in Montreal, Lennon recorded his 'Give Peace a Chance' anti-war song. We also hear Yo-Yo Ma’s Donna Nobis Pacem (Give us Peace) followed by Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps, written when he was a prisoner of war in German captivity and first performed by his fellow prisoners. And in Philip Glass’s opera Satyagraha, Mahatma Gandhi makes a plea for non-violent resistance to injustice. The selection of readings includes All of these People by Michael Longley, Jerusalem by Naomi Shihab Nye and Ann Pettitt’s Walking to Greenham.
The selection of readings includes Between Waves, Heather Glover’s winning poem in the Poems for Peace competition run by the Royal Society of Literature. We also explore the peace of nature in WB Yeats’s The Lake Isle of Innisfree, in which the poet longs for the tranquillity of the island where he went as a boy, away from his adult life in the city. He imagines a life similar to that of the American Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, who lived this idyllic existence on Walden Pond. We end with Denise Levertov’s Making Peace on the need for poets to write of peace, creating an energy field more intense than war.
Words and Music - Peace and Protest - BBC Sounds
Here's the playlist:
John Lennon and Yoko Ono (BBC World Service Archive)
John and Yoko at the Amsterdam Bed-In
00:00
Dona Nobis Pacem
Performer:
Yo‐Yo Ma.
- SONY CLASSICAL 88697344802.
- TR1.
Moniza Alvi
How the World Split in Two read by Juliet Stevenson
00:03
Quatuor pour la fin du temps - Intermede
Performer: Maryvonne Le Dizes, Pierre Strauch and Alain Damiens.
Michael Longley
All of These People read by Jamie Glover
00:05
Spiegel im Spiegel
Performer:
Nicola Benedetti.
- DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4763399.
- TR6.
Li-Young Lee
Immigrant Blues read by Jamie Glover
00:10
Protest from Sattagraha
Performer: Douglas Perry and New York City Opera Orchestra and Chorus.
Naomi Shihab Nye
Jerusalem read by Juliet Stevenson
00:16
Imagine
Performer: John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band.
Heather Glover
Between Waves read by Juliet Stevenson
00:22
Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad - Is my team ploughing?
Performer: Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside.
-
Ann Pettitt
from Walking to Greenham read by Juliet Stevenson
00:29
Give Peace a Chance
Performer:
Plastic Ono Band.
- PARLOPHONE 8219542.
- TR20.
Christopher Logue
from Prince Charming read by Jamie Glover
-
00:34
String Trio - Lento
Performer: Daniel Hope, Philip Dukes and Paul Watkins.
Homer translated by Martin Hammond
from The Iliad read by Jamie Glover
00:41
Beethoven
Symphony no 6 – Allegro ma non troppo
Performer: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim.
Wendell Berry
The Peace of Wild Things read by Juliet Stevenson
W.B. Yeats
The Lake Isle of Innisfree read by Jamie Glover
-
Virginia Woolf
from To the Lighthouse read by Juliet Stevenson
00:55
Toward the Sea - The Night
Performer: Aureole with Laura Gilbert.
Henry David Thoreau
from Walden or Life in The Woods read by Jamie Glover
00:59
Down a Country Lane
Performer: Leo Smit, piano.
- SONY CLASSICAL SM2K66345.
- CD2 TR11.
-
Denise Levertov
Making Peace read by Juliet Stevenson
01:05
Agnus Dei
Performer: Handel and Haydn Society Chorus.
BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, Peace and Protest
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