Edinburgh Book Festival Tribute to Stephanie Wolfe Murray
I would like to share with you two updates from the Edinburgh Book Festival event about my Mother, Stephanie Wolfe Murray. For one beautiful hour in August authors, publishers and my brother Kim gave a series of short talks about a wonderful woman.
Alexander McCall Smith agreed to share the poem he wrote about my Mother and read out at the event. You can see it below.
I don’t know much about poetry but I find this one remarkable; every time I read it I come away with a new understanding. It seems very rich and I will treasure it.
I also got the approval of McCall Smith, Alasdair Gray, Tom Pow, Jamie Byng and the other speakers to share the audio recording of the Book Festival event. It’s worth listening to as their stories are witty and none have the dourness I associate with memorial events. Just click on the little play button above this text.
The only talk from that event that I am publishing on my blog is the one by my big brother Kim. It was a great talk and by putting it on my blog it will sit alongside the eulogy that my brother Gavin gave at the funeral, as well as all the testimonials that formed the basis for the wee book that we did about her.
Here is Alexander McCall Smith’s poem:
A maker of beautiful books Â
In memory of Stephanie Wolfe Murray, publisher.
A maker of beautiful books
Knows exactly what it is that makes
Paper, card, printer’s ink,
The raw words of the writer
Into that lovely object
We call a book; understands
The subtle work of fonts,
Of leading, of bindings,
That makes a book something
We wish to hold to ourselves,
To keep and cherish, to read
At times when the soul is in need
Of solace, of insight, and art
That can transform the quotidian Into the transcendent.
A maker of beautiful books
Understands that text
Should whisper to us its message
Like a confiding friend,
Not in the trumpet tones
Of the strident, the polemical,
But gently, tactfully,
In private places of exchange
Where the loud and the angry
Have no wish to linger.
A maker of beautiful books
Brings people together In civil and gracious converse,
Helps the puzzled and confused
To understand what it is
That puzzles or confuses them;
Puts an end to that ignorance
On which evil parasitically
Thrives; shows the weak
The way to strength, brings
Freedom to the most remote corners,
Reminds us of love
And its manifold works.
A maker of beautiful books
Lies in a Borders field
With all the hills as watchmen;
But the books she made
Live on, resolute upon their shelves
In a hundred far-flung places,
Their maker’s advocates, her legacy,
Her sure and beautiful touch
Upon our troubled world,
Less troubled for her presence,
Surer, for her example,
Of the possibilities of truth and beauty.