THERE is never a dull moment for Wordsworth Trust director Robert Woof and his team.

No sooner does one event taxi to a halt as another fresh and exciting exhibition takes off.

Not to mention the Tuesday night poetry readings that are up and running again featuring some of the best wordsmiths around.

Next on the Grasmere-based trust's exhibition list is The Life of Things, created by Simon Morley, the trust's artist-in-residence.

Staged at the 3-degree West Gallery, it's an installation that includes video and paintings, taking words out of their usual context and exploring them in new ways both in the gallery and in the lanes outside, close to Dove Cottage, Wordsworth's home.

A video shows selected words from the first 14 lines from Wordsworth's great auto-biographical poem The Prelude being floated one by one down a mountain stream, while nearby a set of 84 river stones placed on a shelf each have a single word inscribed from a poem by Henry Shukman, the trust's poet-in-residence.

Simon, whose work concentrates on the interaction between words and image, sees the exhibition as being a response to the poetry of William Wordsworth, the location and, more broadly, questions about English culture and history raised by the existence of the trust.

He wants to take words out of their usual location - the book - and site them in a more physical environment creating new narrative possibilities.

The first room of the gallery contains examples of Simon's book paintings.

The text is painted just a tone darker than the background in order to blur the distinctions between reading and seeing. The colours are inspired by the surrounding landscape and the books are largely drawn from the trust's vast library.

In the same room is a series of six photographs of the lichen-covered back of gravestones in Grasmere churchyard where William Wordsworth and his family are buried.

Each photograph is twinned with a word chosen by the trust's other poet-in-residence, Jack Mapanje, from epitaphs in the graveyard.

This is linked to the book published to go with the exhibition, Elegy Wrote in an English Churchyard, containing 29 photographs plus words, as well as an essay by the well-read Mr Woof himself.

Tonight (Friday, 8pm) however, the trust links up with Derek Hook's new Zeffirellis by the Park cinema, at Ambleside, to show four award-winning short films: My Wrongs, written and directed by Chris Morris, winner of the BAFTA for best short film in 2003; Flickerman and the Ivory Skinned Woman, penned by former Wordsworth Trust poet-in-residence Jacob Polley and directed by Ian Fenton; and Dan Wilde's Bookcruncher, winner of the best film, best director and best cinematography awards at the Los Angeles Film Festival, 2002.

Plus Between the Wars, directed by Emily Woof, winner of the best short film award at the Paris Film Festival 2003.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, June 3 (6.30pm) in the Thistle Hotel, Grasmere, the trust's series of summer readings continues with the Irish novelist John McGahern, author of six novels and four collections of short stories, including the highly-acclaimed That They May Face The Rising Sun, published by Faber.

Tickets are £5 (£4 if pre-booked).

The Wordsworth Trust is open Monday-Friday, 9.30am-5pm. For further information, contact 015394-35544 or email ryreadings@wordsworth.org.uk.

Tickets for the four films cost £4.80, with booked supper for £14.95.

June 5, 2003 11:00