We are working on the 2012 programme but you can still read about the 2011 performances below:
Performance
Poetry to music to puppetry - these performances stand by themselves or combine wonderful poetry with other art forms.
1. Carol Ann Duffy & John Sampson
We are delighted to welcome the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, to launch the 2011 Ledbury Poetry Festival. An extraordinary poet and a mesmerising performer, she brings an urgency and importance to poetry in the 21st Century. She will be joined by multi-talented musician John Sampson for what promises to be a wonderful evening of poetry and music.
As an overture to this event Herefordshire Young Poet Laureates, Ben Ray and Hal Husbands, will give a short performance of their poems. SOLD OUT
Two of the UK’s finest performers on one stage. Longfella (Tony Walsh) joins us straight from Glastonbury Festival where he is poet-in-residence. Hollie McNish is witty, warm and already a veteran of festivals and Radio 4. Fast, funny and humane poetry from two stars of spoken word.
London’s Troubadour café comes to Ledbury. Anne-Marie Fyfe regularly hosts the finest of UK poets in this (literally) underground venue. A rare chance to hear Anne-Marie’s own work, and that of fellow troubadours Paul Stephenson and Phil Hancock, in a showcase reading.
This year' s Festival Commission!
7. Fetch Theatre presents Basant Lahore!
From the mighty and mystical ancient city of Lahore, comes a series of contemporary poems that will delight, intrigue and challenge audiences. A stunning, visual, exploration of puppetry and poetry: this performance intertwines two very different art forms and brings them together in an exciting new production that opens a unique window onto the culture, sights and language of Lahore and the Punjab. Fusing the skills of poet and puppeteer, Basant Lahore! brings together the talents of The Fetch’s Artistic Director and puppeteer, Purvin, and poet Mazhar Tirmazi in a funny, moving and illuminating performance
A head-spinning cocktail of potent poetry and spirited performances, topped off with a twist of wit and a tasty competitive edge. Bard-tenders Sara-Jane Arbury and Marcus Moore call the shots in each round as a bevy of fine wordsmiths pour out
vintage verse in a bid to gain prize points from random judges. Each
poet is marked on three categories – the quality of their writing, the
quality of their performance and the warmth of the audience response. So raucous applause, ecstatic cheering and Mexican waves are necessary to ensure that top-notch poetry receives
top scores. Poets glow and the applause gets fizzier until the
Slam-pagne star produces their magnum opus! For further details
or to enter the Slam, contact Marcus on 01285 640470 or email spielunlimited@gmail.com
Blake set to music? Really? The music of the Wraiths took our breath away when we heard it. Poems by Browning, Keats and others become magical, modern and haunting songs within these lyrical melodies. Calming, uplifting, summery and wonderful.
Due to programming constraints we apologise that this event takes place in a venue without disabled facilities
16. The Tenth Ledbury Poetry Slam
Our poetry slam is always special, and this year it’s more special than ever. A vibrant and vivacious tenth birthday for the Ledbury Poetry Slam hosted by the legendary Spiel team, Marcus Moore and Sara-Jane Arbury. Fifteen fast, furious and funny poets compete for the slam title. You, the audience, judge who is the winner. One of our best-selling events.
26. Dean's Dad's Ducks: Dean Parkin
Dean’s Dad’s Ducks is the story of 30,000 plastic ducks set adrift in the North Pacific in 1992 after their cargo ship was bombed by a US fighter jet. It’s the tale of their voyage, the double life of the man who made them and thirty years of secrets and lies. Stories, poems and songs about funny, bittersweet journeys with a dodgy Dad and his flotilla of plucky ducks.
27. Maram al-Massri & Penelope Shuttle
‘Physical passion, faithlessness, adultery, loneliness, despair… dreaminess and half-light pierced by hard, precise detail’ (The Times). Syrian poet Maram al-Massri’s poems are beguiling and erotic. She reads in Arabic from her collection A Red Cherry on a White-tiled Floor, with English translations performed by Sara-Jane Arbury. They are joined by distinguished poet Penelope Shuttle, whose most recent collection Sandgrain and Hourglass is likewise haunted by love, and the grief that comes with its loss.
28. Gwyneth Lewis & Patience Agbabi
Gwyneth Lewis was Wales’s first National Poet from 2005 to 2006. She writes in Welsh and English, and her words are emblazoned across Cardiff’s Millennium Centre. Her recent work Hospital Odyssey is a modern epic: Dr Who meets Paradise Lost. Patience Agbabi has Nigerian parents but grew up in North Wales. A ‘Next Generation’ poet and a mesmeric performer, her fresh, generous and powerful poetry has been inspired by residencies ranging from a tattoo parlour to Eton College.
30. Poetry Connections India Includes buffet supper
UK poets Bill Herbert and Zoë Skoulding, Swiss German-language poet Raphael Urweider, and Indian poets Sampurna Chattarji and Meena Kandasamy showcase the multilingual poetry performance they created last December in the artists’ retreat Adi Shakti in South India. We regret that Meenda Kandasamy will not be joining us in Ledbury.
Four extraordinary performers look at revelations and epiphanies in everyday lives - the sudden flash, the moment when everything makes sense. Lucy English, Sara-Jane Arbury, Glenn Carmichael and Anna Freeman explore flashbacks, flash floods, flashers and who knows what else in poetry, prose and video.
37. Alasdair Paterson and Tony Williams
Having won an Eric Gregory Award for his poetry in 1976, Alasdair Paterson only recently returned to writing after a 20 year gap with On the Governing of Empires (Shearsman) and Brumaire and Later (Flarestack Poets). He will be joined by Nine Arches Press poet Tony Williams, whose debut collection, The Corner of Arundel Lane and Charles Street ('from all our cultural loam and junk, Williams has made real magic.' The Guardian) and whose new collection from Nine Arches is All the Rooms of Uncle's Head.
Poet Esther Jansma is one of the Netherlands’ most interesting writers. She is also a leading archaeologist and the poems in her collection, What It Is (translated by Francis R Jones), gives voice to the distant past. She is joined by Thomas Möhlmann, a prize-winning Dutch poet who as well as publishing two collections, has edited a selection of Nijhoff's poetry.
39. Film - Howl Dir: Jeffrey Friedman, Rob Epstein 2010 84 mins. (15)
As well as having the audacity to be a movie entirely about a single poem, Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein's Howl tugs Allen Ginsberg and his fellow Beats out from under a mountain of insults, clichés and calumny. Howl ... whose loping, loosely strung lines hum the fevered, incantatory spirits of Blake and Whitman, Rimbaud and Verlaine, regains here some of the power to shock and delight.
John Patterson The Guardian Sat 19 Feb 2011
42. Allison McVety & Adam Horovitz
‘Step into the day, breathe out, breathe in, go on.’ Allison McVety’s collections, The Night Trotsky Came to Stay and Miming Happiness, show a wonderful take on everyday life. Her voice is clear and strong, her poems perceptive and moving. Adam Horovitz, an established poet and performer, launches his first full-length collection Turning (Headland) – a moving and fresh assemblage of poems
43. Poetic Licence - To Kill! An interactive Murder Mystery
Murder most florid! The prestigious launch of the latest collection by Colonel Rufford Kipling is interrupted by a gruesome murder - and there are suspects aplenty. Could the killer be publicist Carole-Anne Duffé? Step over the white chalk outline, meet the witnesses and help poet Sara-Jane Arbury to identify the perpetrator. You might have to kill for tickets.
Local poets read their work at this informal and enjoyable musical and poetry event. Come and join in, all contributions welcome.
45. Michael Horovitz All Stars
Michael Horovitz, legendary beat poet, singer-songwriter, jazz & blues anglo-saxophonist, visual artist and editor-publisher, is joined by two maestri from his William Blake Klezmatrix band - Peter Lemer (piano) and Annie Whitehead (trombone/ vocals). A creative outpouring of music and words.
An evening of poetry and song at the Seven Stars. All welcome.
An afternoon of specially choreographed dance, devised
drama and visual projected poetry, produced by students from John
Masefield High School inspired and influenced by famous wordsmiths.
51. Ann Atkinson with violinist Yvonna Magda
‘While she is often witty, she is always warm,’ says our poet-in-residence Ian Duhig, of Ann Atkinson. Ann is Derbyshire’s Poet Laureate, and a former Poet Laureate of the Peak. Her work is deeply concerned with love and with music. Moving, thoughtful and humane. Yvonna Magda will be accompanying Ann on the violin.
56. Peter Didsbury & Katrina Porteous
‘I’m inventing a Bag/which will accommodate everything...’ Peter Didsbury has spent many years producing poems of absolute originality; quirky, learned and thoughtful. He is by profession an archaeologist and by inclination a lover of rain. Like him, Katrina Porteous is deeply interested in landscape and in playing with language. The Northumbrian coast, its people and their language are her main subjects.
58. Zimbabwean New Generation Poets
Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Kimberley-Rose Kasirowore and Michael Tsingo are all featured in State of the Nation: Contemporary Zimbabwean Poetry (2009). They focus on the unasked questions, unstated views, unattainable dreams and unfulfilled promises that have marked contemporary Zimbabwe. ‘An edgy, sometimes bleak, sometimes sorrowful and sometimes fiercely funny poetry’. –Horizon Review
Magma, one of the UK's leading Poetry magazines, celebrates its 50th issue by introducing three rising poets. Ledbury Poetry Competition winner Jacqueline Saphra will read from her first collection, The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions, alongside Forward nominees Tim Turnbull (Caligula on Ice) and Simon Barraclough (Los Alamos mon Amour).
62. Luke Wright's Cynical Ballads
Starring obese teenagers, jaded chip-shop proprietors and posh twits with the luck of the devil, Luke Wright’s Cynical Ballads leads us through the run-down shopping precincts and airless television studios of modern Britain. Each poem is backed by the macabre projected illustrations of Sam Ratcliffe, as Wright makes mincemeat of his anti-heroes with rollicking, darkly comic verse.
63. Ledbury Choral Society: My Spirit Sang
Ledbury Choral Society presents an uplifting programme of poetry set to music. As Torrents in Summer, Elgar’s evocative music to Longfellow’s poem, and My Spirit Sang All Day, Finzi’s soaring setting of a poem by Robert Bridges, are included favourites.
64. Matt Harvey & The Antipoet
The Wimblepoet meets The Antipoet. Matt Harvey’s gently side-splitting humour is familiar to those who follow his Wondermentalists on Radio 4. The Antipoet are poets in PVC with a double bass, brilliant lyrics and saucy humour. ‘Eyeliner, triangle and double bass have never been funnier!' – Word of Mouth. Sweet as strawberries, sharp as lemon barley water.
69. Under the Cranes - a film directed by Emma Williams
‘Under the Cranes is a wonderfully life-affirming film-poem of place, full of lost time and effacements, reefs of street markets and shop fronts, painted in stock-brick yellows, steel shutter greys and silvery monochromes; and full of people, always people, the voices who have passed this way and called this home .... it collapses time and returns each story to its street’.
Quote Paul Farley, Professor of Poetry, Lancaster University.
73. Peter Sansom & Caroline Bird
‘..love of my life, light of my life, willing / to walk with me even in a hat like this.’ Peter Sansom’s poems are deft, gently unravelling the concerns of family, friends; what it is to live and be observant. His readings, from his newly published Selected Poems, are comically understated. Caroline Bird’s poems leap into performance; self-deprecating and, unnervingly funny.
80. Jo Shapcott & Anne Caldwell
Jo Shapcott’s status as one of our foremost poets was confirmed with her selection for the Costa Book of the Year, in January. Her winning book Of Mutability, though it touches on her recent experience of cancer, is full of gentle humour. Anne Caldwell’s poetry is sensual and personal, it expresses the personal, political and a love of landscape.
Jean Binta Breeze could fill our programme on her own. The unrivalled queen of dub poetry, she came to this country from Jamaica in the 1980s and was soon a fixture of the British poetry scene. Breeze has been compared to Maya Angelou. ‘Her poetry shifts effortlessly through standard English to a native Jamaican which has no equal in its emotional depth’ – Alexander Linklater, The Herald. Get ready to be moved, to laughter and tears.
82. Alison Brumfitt, Sally Crabtree & Brenda Read-Brown
Prepare yourself for a final day’s poetry with a delicious croissant and some mouth-watering poetry from three poets who make a Sunday morning, well…sunnier!
In association with Sez Café
84. Helen Ivory & Shamshad Kahn
In The Breakfast Machine, Helen Ivory’s latest book, a chicken on squeaky tin legs is cooking eggs and a squirrel plays tape-recorded birdsong from a tree… Beguiling, dark, ironic; her poetry has been called an explosion in the sky of contemporary poetry. Shamshad Khan is a poet, performer and collaborator – she has worked with musicians, beatboxers and video artists. An electric performer of her poetry, Shamshad’s work moves from the satirical to the spiritual. Her most recent book is Megalomaniac.
85. Andrew Forster & Helen Mort
Andrew Forster’s poems stalk the hills of lowland Scotland, echoing communal and personal histories. He has an attention for detail that is breathtaking – his Damselflies are ‘sparks in the scratched dark /riding the warm air into the kitchen.’ Helen Mort is currently Poet-in-Residence at Dove Cottage and the WordsworthTrust. Her poems sparkle with the suspect glitter of contemporary life.
89. Lorraine Mariner & Annie Freud
Lorraine Mariner’s poems are beguiling and distinctive; precise, witty, moving. Her first full collection is Furniture. She is joined by Annie Freud, whose book, The Mirabelles, was short-listed for the 2010 T S Eliot Prize. Gloriously, sometimes outrageously, packed with images that ignite the imagination, her poems are absolutely compelling.
Jackie Kay has always been a Ledbury Poetry Festival favourite, and we are delighted to bring her back to read from her new collection of poetry, Fiere. Tender and troubling, these are poems to that effortlessly move the reader or the listener. She will be joined by Cliff Yates, whose latest book, Frank Freeman’s Dancing School, makes us see the everyday differently. He is truly… Yatesian!
Former American Poet Laureate, Billy Collins said they were ‘Terrific’ and Adrian Mitchell said they were ‘like a great jazz quintet, only with voices.’ Well, that’s good enough for us. Finish the festival with the Joy of Six, an ensemble performance by poets including Ann Berkeley and Ted Hughes Award nominee, Martin Figura. A choreographed interplay of voices and styles that will leave you breathless…. and counting down the days to Ledbury Poetry Festival 2012.
Book online >
Performance 2011 highlights...
Hollie McNish
Fetch Theatre
Dean Parkin
Patience Agbabi
Allison McVety c. D Adams
Michael Horovitz
Jacqueline Saphra
Luke Wright
The Antipoet
Jo Shapcott c. Derek Adams
Jean 'Binta' Breeze c. Earle Robinson
Jackie Kay
Joy Of Six c. Martin Figura