A Cosmic Treasury: Reviving a long-lost manuscript of astronomical poetry
Guest of Honour Speaker: Mark Tovey
Adjunct Assistant Professor of History, Western University
Member of RASC History Committee
RASC London Centre
This event will take place Friday, August 20th, 2021 @ 7:30-9:00 pm EDT
During World War II, ace librarian Beatrice W. Welling assembled an anthology of poems about the heavens. Included in her manuscript were verses by some of the best-loved poets in the English Language. The voices and the cadences feel familiar, but the poems, since they are rarely anthologized, feel fresh.
Female poets are well-represented, as are Canadian poets. Welling attempted to provide as much variety to the verses as possible, consciously including “hymns, lyrics, sonnets, quatrains, rhyming couplets, blank verse”, and a number of other forms.
Welling organized the collection so that there would be at least one poem for each week of the year. Where it made sense, poems would appear at an apt time in the calendar year — the Orion poems are grouped in December, for example.
Had the manuscript been published in 1944, it would have been one of the world’s first anthologies of astronomical poetry. The manuscript was never published, and was forgotten.
In 2019, it was re-discovered by Peter Jedicke, who entrusted it to historian Mark Tovey to prepare for publication.
Join Mark Tovey, who is in the process of editing Welling’s manuscript into a soon-to-be-released book of art and poetry of the night sky. Tovey will tell the story of Welling’s remarkable life, and give a tour of the people and places that may have inspired Welling to assemble this collection.
Special guests include Peter Jedicke, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and David H. Levy, Co-Discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.
All interested are welcome to attend!
Speaker:
Mark Tovey did his BA at Western University, where he was the recipient of the Gold Medal for English & Linguistics. His PhD in Cognitive Science was from Carleton University. He was a Fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in History at Western University. He has a particular interest in the ways in which public history can be combined with public astronomy. Tovey led the design of the three historical exhibit rooms in the Cronyn Observatory at Western University, and sits on the History Committee of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Mark Tovey edited the first book on the use of collective intelligence for solving global challenges.
Zoom Meeting ID: 719 353 982