Where Light Falls Audio Description for Sight Impaired Visitors: Site 1 (South side)
Transcript
Where Light Falls audio description for sight impaired visitors: site number 1
You are standing on the south side of St Paul’s Cathedral, next to the busy road of Ludgate Hill.
Keith Jarrett, the poet who wrote “From the Log Book” for this installation, stands on the left hand side of a large window. He is dressed as a member of the St Paul’s Watch, the group of volunteers who patrolled the cathedral to protect it from bombs. He wears a tin hat and a thick coat.
He is looking up at the night sky, scanning the pitch black horizon for bomber planes and falling incendiary devices that could destroy the cathedral.
The poem is called “From the Log Book” as it takes direct quotes from the watch members’ descriptions of events in their log book. The original book is now held in St Paul’s archives.
On the right hand side of the window the words of the poem are projected on to the wall.
A direct quote from the log book, emerges as if they are covered in smoke
Wednesday 16 April, 1941
‘5am: Report very bad night, everyone behaved splendidly’
Then the following words appear:
This building, dressed in a collar of smoke,
at whose feet only fog and ash flower,
whose bricked heart hides Wellington’s monument,
prepared for the inevitable blasts.
The words “Collar of smoke” are also shrouded in smoke and the words “ash flower” appear to turn to ash and fly away in the wind. The word “blast” shatters and falls, then re-forms back into the original word.
The next verse appears below.
Unsleeping structure, lit by the Thames’ glow,
building of contradiction, vulnerable,
and yet, still, imposing in its stature,
patrolled by volunteers who douse the fires.
The word “structure” appears to be made of small bricks and the word “fires” catches alight with flames.
This first section of the poem fades away to be replaced with another direct quote from the log book, once again emerging from smoke and mist
‘2.30am: Bomb through North Transept. Blast terrific.’
The next verse appears on the wall:
The North Transept only whispers of scars:
like the barely-visible giveaway
of a recapitated statue’s shine
by the shrine, once upturned, now candle-bathed.
The word “whispers” appears very faintly at first before becoming bold. The full stop from the direct log book quote, falls down to form the semi colon after the word “scars”.
The next stanza appears below the first:
Or the old High Altar, blown apart
by a quarter-tonne bomb dropped through the roof;
built up again to be a remembrance
of Commonwealth members who died in war.
The words “blown apart” seem to scatter as if they themselves have been exploded and then fall back into place. The words “built up” are travel upwards from the ground to take their place on the correct line of poetry.
This section of the poem fades away.
It is replaced by the third direct quote from the log book which appears to be shrouded in smoke:
‘1.52am: Cathedral roofs pelted with incendiary bombs’
The next verse appears below:
Members of the Watch unite in resolve
to protect you from the flames at all costs,
knowing how to navigate by dark each inch.
At the nave’s west end, a tile remembers them.
The word “watch” takes the form of a searchlight
The following stanza emerges beneath
You, who intone grand hymns of survival,
who holler out chords of determination,
under your breath, you whisper other tales:
the legacy of loss, of grief’s debris.
The letters that form the word “debris” tumble down to the ground and stay there.
This section of the poem fades away.
The first half of the poem is now complete. You can walk around to site three on the north side of the cathedral and listen to the audio description of the second half of the poem.
Or you can walk to the front of the cathedral to site two, to experience the whole poem being read by Keith Jarrett with accompanying soundtrack.
There is an audio description of site two as well as a sound file of the live reading and soundtrack.
Audio descriptions for other sites at St Paul's Cathedral
- Scene setting and instructions
- Site 1: South (current page)
- Site 2: Front façade
- Site 3: North
