A special evening at The Hub as local poet Joss Musgrove Knibb’s latest work gifted to the people of Lichfield

The event was hosted by Laura Evans of Cathedral Hearing, who also commissioned the poem.

The official gifting last night of local poet Joss Musgrove Knibb’s new work, Lichfield From Above, to the people of Lichfield was a proper community event in the truest sense of the word.

All manner of people were brought together for this celebration of all things local, including Christ Church Primary School pupils, who kicked off the evening with a wonderful, smile-filled rendition of the song Together (complete with impressively tight choreographed moves), as well as local business leaders, city officials and lay folk, like us Echo lot.

All forms of art were also on display in the glorious setting of The Hub at St Mary’s, too – not just the written word, but also song and paint (the latter provided again by the younger generation).

The highlight of the evening was, of course, the first public recital of Lichfield From Above – that is, the first poem by a local poet to be officially gifted to Lichfield and its people.

Joss was visibly emotional after working through the piece (without fault, which is no mean feat). “This is a dream come true for any poet,” she explained to me later – not least in a city as “utterly extraordinary” as this one.

The poem (transcribed in full below) itself – “inspiring”, said local cutler Simon Price, and, for auctioneer Richard Winterton, “heartwarming”, both battling it out for the most appropriate (or perhaps just the longest) word – makes touching references to “the work of ages” that “rests here in our hands”, hailing the fact “there’s life in motion here”.

Introducing the night, The Garrick’s Chief Executive and Artistic Director, Daniel Buckroyd, said the poem will become “part of the fabric of the city… not just about Lichfield but a part of Lichfield”.

The journey to this moment started with a conversation between Laura Evans from Cathedral Hearing and We Love Lichfield’s Julian Fisher about the importance of the spoken word in Lichfield – the city that set the standard for English lexicography, thanks to the work of Dr Samuel Johnson. Laura then specially commissioned a work by Joss, who spent a little time “pulling teeth”, before pouring the whole poem onto the page in a matter of “hours”.

Lichfield From Above

By Joss Musgrove Knibb

Rise up with me, rise up,

You will not fall,

Let’s hover over church and hall and all

The busy happiness of place,

This place, this city built upon itself,

Its old foundations resting on the bones of Romans, Saxons, and of saints.

The city is a map of time laid out in beam and brick,

The centre thick with cobbles, lanes and spires.

The bells are choirs of ghosts long gone but clear enough

That if deep sleep forsakes you for the night,

They’ll keep you company till light creeps in,

And city-sounds awake.

I would not take away or change a thing about my place,

Who could deface a stone and think themselves

A guardian of our home, this perfect patchwork left by souls who laboured here,

It is as dear as a father, mother, family – at least to me.

And standing here we feel that love, that calling from another time

To keep it safe, to cherish it,

To live and perish gracefully within its boundary ditch,

This home, this Lichfield, city built by pilgrims and by trade,

This home we’ve made.

I write in praise of industry and intellect,

Of choristers who sing the Ave and Collect in ancient naves,

Of falcons nesting high up on the spires,

Of shop-bells, pubs and cafes, feasts and choirs.

You are a ship of time, and though your crews will change with every age,

And though the busy scholars try to pin you to the page

You travel on, through seas of love, and loss, and life,

And strife, and war, and peace, and progress.

You possess a spirit all of us can name,

Though ever changing, ever just the same.

I thank you, living city, for your providence,

For showing me the evidence that doing good is not a source of shame,

For all the souls who make life better, purely for the love of all of it,

Not fame or false acclaim,

For shining as a beacon to the heart,

For beauty and for poetry, spelt out in children, charity, and art,

In festivals and woods and light on water,

I am a daughter, and a pilgrim, long sent out to seek and roam,

And now, at last, I’m home.

Rise up with me, rise up,

We will not fall.

Rise up,

We are the lifeblood of it all.

The work of ages rests here in our hands,

A jewelled, strange machine creating

Love so fierce it binds us to this little plot of land,

This English city, reasonable and sane.

And when we’re gone and place the burden down

Another will rise up and lift it high again.

We are the preservation of this nation of Lichfeldians,

Custodians of something great, yet small.

Rise up, we will not fall.

Rise up, we will not fall.

In nightclub, factory and market square,

Guildhall, museum, library and Christmas fair,

There’s life in motion there.

Come close, and listen to the music of a hundred babbling voices,

Let’s eavesdrop on the tourists standing pondering there choices

Of which cafe, bistro, restaurant will get their trade.

Let’s stand and watch the Bower-floats parade.

This city is just love and pride made manifest,

It is the best of us.

Rise up, and see the wonder that we made.

Rise up, and journey onward, unafraid.

Rise up, and make our hope a city wall,

That welcomes all the dispossessed by war.

We will not fail, or turn within, or falter,

From school and shopping centre, and from altar,

Rise up, and bless it all.

Rise up,

Rise up,

Rise up,

We will not fall.

Audience members gladly showed their appreciation for her work while Lichfield From Above was officially gifted to the city before Laura (whose efforts with her Cathedral Hearing team to bring the evening together had been long in the making), The Hub CEO Louise Fleming and Mayor Rosie Harvey-Coggins.

The poem will now go on display ad aeternum at The Hub (when Louise can find the best/most free place to put it!) as well as at all local schools – “to be enjoyed”, as Daniel put it, “by young and old, now and by future generations”.

Dr Neville Brown, who co-founded Maple Hayes Dyslexia School, Burntwood, in 1982, and who has been involved in Lichfield since the 1960s, told the Echo that this is the most fitting progression for the work, since it is “proper poetry” that is “damn well worth listening to”.

Pritpal Singh Nagi, the current High Sheriff of Staffordshire, added that he was “so emotional” during the recital “I felt like standing up”, and expressed his intention to help give Lichfield From Above an even wider reach.

Current Lichfield District Council Chairman Thomas Marshall also praised the event (including the canapés, which he must have finished off before I arrived), saying how lucky he was to hold the post “in a year with so much to rejoice in”.

And Daniel did as good a job rounding off affairs as he did introducing them, by declaring that “we haven’t simply listened to a poem, we’ve celebrated a city and we’ve celebrated its people”.

Joss, who did so well donning the performer’s hat for the evening, despite admitting to being “terrified”, is no doubt now back to her “writer’s corner”, dressed in comfy clothes and drinking far too much coffee!