Ledbury Poetry Festival 2012
29 JUNE - 8 JULY
The Festival programme is coming together with poets including Owen Sheers, Simon Armitage, Jane Hirshfield, Paul Muldoon, Helen Dunmore, Andrew Motion, Sean O'Brien, Esther Morgan and Sophie Hannah confirmed.
Bill Manhire will be our poet in residence. He was the inaugural Te Mata New Zealand Poet Laureate and is currently director of the highly influential centre for creative writing at the Victoria University of Wellington. So this is a unique opportunity to workshop with him.
Tony Harrison, 2 June
Can't wait for 29 June? Then we are excited to announce that we will be warming up with Tony Harrison who is appearing on Saturday 2 June (Jubilee weekend!) to celebrate the launch of the Festival programme and our new Friends' scheme. Venue now confirmed as The Feathers Hotel, Ledbury. 8pm. Box office open shortly.
If interested in volunteering for the Festival email: manager@poetry-festival.comto find out about the opportunities available.Or to join our mailing list (we promise to only send you relevant information - news, ticket offers etc. - and not to share your information with third parties) email boxoffice@poetry-festival.com
Chloe Garner and Victoria Patch
Ledbury Poetry Competition 2012
The Ledbury Poetry Festival Competition is now open! We are re-launching the competition with a fabulous first prize of £1000 cash and a residential course at Ty Newydd, The National Writing Centre for Wales. Ian Duhig will Judge the competition. Please click on the link below to take you to the competition page.
Deadline: Tuesday 3rd July 2012
Ian Duhig wrote a sequence of three sonnets for the 2011 Festival: here is one.
III Skew Bridge
Ian Duhig
I felt quite at home,
As if it were mine,
Sleeping lazily
In this house of fresh air.
-Sora, in Bashō's The Narrow Road to the Deep North
I knew I was lost passing the Ross Maze Museum
a third time, late for connections at Skew Bridge.
Missing the Orient Express, the Troy quinquireme,
the last magic carpet and Pharoah's golden barge,
I settled with ghosts from its old navvies' shanty
to drink in that night the spirit of the navigator,
whose camp might mean a song, or build upon ty,
the Welsh word for house, our house of fresh air.
I turned in and dreamed of a nearby skew bridge,
built yearly from fresh words which only connect,
though turning like pages, a verse-end or sonnet,
or any of the coats worn by the English language.
I slept soundly. When I woke and rose next day,
I found a thousand years had passed away.
2011 below.
Book online >
Keep an eye out for our Festival Blog, coming soon, for previews of up and coming events at the festival in July, interviews with writers and an update about how the festival plans are taking shape. We are also on Twitter at Ledburyfest - for news as it happens!
Philip Wells made up new words, Kenneth Stevens planted trees which grew poems, Fetch blended poetry and puppetry, The Young Shakespeare Company blew in on The Tempest carrying over 200 children with them and Roz Goddard dug deep to uncover our Keen Writers. Herefordshire Primary Schools know what they want and the Festival did their best to provide it engaging children from six schools (Ashperton, Bromesberrow, Eastnor, Ledbury, Much Marcle and Pendock) in creative activity.
Funders such as the Pennington-Mellor Munthe Charity Trust make the above projects possible.
The Festival has been working in the community for 15 years – going out to people who may not have experienced poetry before. Things are looking positive over the next three years with a backbone of funding from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation which we are incredibly grateful for. This will allow us to continue ongoing work and start new projects, such as one in the pipeline working with the reformed group Wormen4Women. We are also continuing our work with the Courtyard Theatre, Hereford sending poets into nursing homes to work with sufferers of dementia.
Details of all exhibitions taking place during the festival can be found on our Exhibitions page. more…
Featuring many of the best moments of the 2010 Festival. more...
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