All entries for Wednesday 16 July 2008

Astonishing Poetry Festivals

The political wing of the Warwick Writing Programme broke into Stratford on Avon last week and let loose some poets.

Thanks to a kind invite from Paul Edmondson the Director of Learning at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and new Director of the Stratford Poetry Festival the poets Fiona Sampson, Andy Webb, Anna Lea, James Brookes (pictured left to right) and me gave readings for the poetry festival.

A large and appreciative audience helped the whole thing move along as did a delightful 'high tea' beforehand in the Birthplace offices presided over by Paul and his wonderful team. (I took the Diabetics right and stole the strawberries and distributed them to the audience.) Our reading in The Wolfson Hall had this strawberry field audience in the round (we had persuaded the seats into this new position by arriving early), with a window overlooking the Bard's birth house and gardens (the window we discovered behind a screen).

Part of what the redoubtable Paul Edmondson is achieving with such events is a partnership between some of the universities around Stratford, their creative writing programmes, and the Stratford Poetry Festival itself - 'that Rolls Royce of Poetry Festivals' according to one national newspaper. The festival is 55 years old, a remarkable fact.

Remarkable too were the performances of the four musketeers pictured above - a sensitive and concise set by Fiona Sampson, currently Creativity Fellow at Warwick whose most recent book Common Prayer is wonderful; a driving, edgy performance of new work by Andy Webb; Anna Lea's superb work and natural stage presence had the audience completely attentive; and James Brookes, a new Jedi that shows promise, suddenly found the force and had the audience eating from his hand, especially a group of young American students who watched him with open mouthed awe while making notes on everything he said between his fine poems.

Two days later I shot across Warwickshire to the Ledbury Poetry Festival and the amazing hospitality of one of its Trust Members, Peter Carter. He and his wife Diana live in a wonderful house just outside the town and my wife and I had the pleasure of lunch with them, along with Pamela Robertson-Pearce, Neil Astley, the poet Samuel Menashe, and my pal and co-reader Marina Warner. Pamela and Neil have just published the poetry/film book and DVD 30 Poets which I'd seen the previous week, a very interesting and relevant project. Sam Menashe is a legend, a poet of intense concision. Marina and I proceeded to Burgage Hall to perform a event on poetry and myth. We had a ball.

I have to say I think the Ledbury Poetry Festival is astonishing in its professionalism, interest and diversity; the programming is skilful and highly adventurous; but what struck me while reading there was the sheer quality of the audience. I have seldom come across a poetry audience with such attentiveness, warmth and intelligence (their questions were precise and superbly informed).

Ah, you will say, you are only kissing the hand that feeds you - but that is not the case. I actually felt lifted by the Ledbury audience in a way I have never quite experienced anywhere else. I am trying to put my finger on it, and can only conclude that I was in the same room (the same converted chapel in fact) as eighty-odd other poets. It was almost as though the audience was not an audience at all. They possessed such vocation. Or maybe it was because it was a chapel. Maybe it is all down to common prayer.

David Morley : 16 Jul 2008 20:18 |  Tags: Poetry The Practice Of Poetry |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem