Memories of Sarah- Jess Cully

[joan]

Thank you, Ian!

Joana

[Iain Fisher]

Details of the articles, including dates, are on the magazines page of the site
www.iainfisher.com/kane/eng/sarah-kane-magazine.html

The Guardian search engine isn't so good, I think.  Even giving the date of publication (American format) and the keyword "Sarah Kane" didn't find the article.  But the date and the name of the article did find it.

I'll put some excerpts of the articles here soon.

Iain

[joan]

 I complimented her on the play, we talked about her work, Cleansed, Woyzeck, her two hilarious columns for the Guardian from that year's Edinburgh Festival and football.

Hello Jess! I'm going through these conversations only now and I would like to ask you if you could tell me where I could find these two columns by Sarah Kane you were telling us about. I went through tho whole archive of Guardian but I couldn't find it.

Thanks,
Joana

[archive]

Hi Jess I was deeply toutched by your excert about meating sarah. i too have been touched by her work and have fallen in love with the expresion and self reflection in her work. i would be gratful of any more on sarah herself as i am intrested in her deeply and would like to know more about her life. if you could send me any info or web sites that would assist me in my research into the life of this amazing woman then i would be truly greatful. thank you.

Archive 15-1-2004

[archive]

What sort of music do you play? I wrote a song that is sort of inspierd by Sarah's death (and other deaths at aroud the same time), though I unimagintivly called it 'Crave', it's a odd spoken word thing. http://djarra.co.uk is the band site

Archive 25-5-2001

[archive]

Hi Jess, this is Joe from Italy, 1971born, artistically in love with Sarah, never met her, but it's like ever been friends. After years of literary studies I've formed on my mind a complex artistic personality; I mean, my point of view of being an artist, thinking like an artist, shaping reality into works of art and so on. Well, my starting point is that art, real art, bleeds. It comes from a deep wound ever bleeding inside our heart which makes us stretch our words (and not only) to their extreme, a sort of hallucinatory world which is a photo of reality taken from our own death's point of view. I think that an artist doesn't want to communicate just with people, but with secretly wounded people like himself first. Sarah went away from reality, took photos and then came back to our world and set up the stage. With Blasted she said, "close your eyes, see what I have seen, feel blood flow freely from your hearts, inside every corner of your body, then go back to life and express what you experienced." It's the first time I can see in an artist all my concepts realized and bestowed with life. I think art has been evolving for thousand years, and with Sarah, on the turning point of year 2k, art is at its highest top. I 'm also used to writing poems, which then become the lyrics for the band I play with, and I wrote one which I felt to dedicate her: it is entitled SPACE CLAUSTROPHOBIA. The reason by I was firstly impressed about Sarah was that she was born just a couple months before me, but committed suicide much time before. If we have a similar artistic vision, I have much and much to learn by her. This is the same reason I decided to write you, Jess, because you are likely to share a sort of 1971artistry, which for some reason get into our hearts. If so, what about exchanging some piece of art of ours? Well, that's all for now, feel free to answering me or not.

-Goryjoe-

Archive 25-5-2001

[archive]

Hi Everyone !!!

I´m writing from México city. A couple days ago was the premier here of Blasted in a small theater. Yesterday I have chance to go to theater and I really was shocked tha impact in all the people was amazing. At the end of the peace nobody say a word.

After this, for my is very important found information about Sarah because as you can imagine, here is very difficult search for information about Sarah. Plase let me know if do you have information about Sarah´s life.

Finally, I just want to share with you, that after Blasted, I see the life since the other point of view, I have more respect for all the thinks that I have, for my family and friends.

I think that at the end, Sarah just want tell us "Don´t waste your time" Take care all...


Archive 29-8-2001

[archive]

 hope this reaches you, Jess. Firstly I just want to say thankyou for putting all your thoughts about Sarah on the net. It's some what of a comfort just to read about this extrodinary women. I have fallen in love with her work, and everything i've found out about her. I am one of Graham Saunder's students, he introduced us to her work. I am so overwhelmed by her work and life that i really don't know what else to say, she has touched me in places no other writer has, you are so lucky that you met her. I only hope she is happy wherever she is now.

Archive 14-5-2001

[archive]

I was lucky enough to meet Sarah twice. When I saw Phaedra's Love, at the end of the play I saw her sitting at the end of the row opposite, I just had to go over.

"Good evening, Miss Kane," I said (a total bag of nerves!), "I thought it was excellent." She smiled. I went on to apologise for missing Blasted, but assured her that I'd read it and been very impressed, then, taking a deep breath...

"I just want to say...I'm a great admirer of yourself, your work and your approach to it, and I wish you every success for the future." Then, pushing my programme at her: "Could you sign here, please? To Jess?"

"Sure," she grinned, signed her autograph and handed me back the programme, saying "Don't run your finger across that or it'll smudge."

"Thank you very much." I offered her my hand, she shook it saying "Thank YOU, Jess." I walked out of the Gate 8 feet off the ground, all through the 40 minute Tube ride home I did nothing but gawp at that autograph.

Two years later, after Crave, while everyone else filed out I hared down the stairs to the bar, and sure enough there was my heroine sitting at a table casually smoking a fag. As I approached her table SHE WAVED AT ME, then said "It's Jess, isn't it?"

I was knocked sideways. I complimented her on the play, we talked about her work, Cleansed, Woyzeck, her two hilarious columns for the Guardian from that year's Edinburgh Festival and football. Best of all, early in the conversation, when she said she was glad I enjoyed the play and I replied "Loved it, Miss Kane," HER ANSWER WAS :

"Call me Sarah."

My heart went into overdrive, and this time SHE took the initiative in signing my programme and shaking my hand. As I got up to leave I said "Give my love to Marie Kelvedon." She laughed. "I will. See you, Jess."

"See you, Sarah." I went off floating down the Charing Cross Road...

When I heard the awful news I was devastated. The first thing that came to mind was that she'd been so cheerful that day, just a few short months ago, that this simply did not make sense. (So many people who knew her were to make similar observations.) I went straight to my local florist's for a funeral spray, then took the flowers straight down to the Royal Court. Five days later, after reading James Macdonald's tribute in the Observer, I cried for the first time in my adult life.

I always felt a kinship with Sarah as we were born in the same year, and like her I write (strictly on an amateur basis so far, alas) and the main motivation for my writing is emotional catharsis. I've idolised other people, and will again, but Sarah Kane was more than an idol. I may have only met her twice, I may never have had a chance to get to know her, but Sarah was my friend.

Archive 9-2-2001