Ledbury Poetry Festival celebrates its 20th birthday in July 2016.
Britain’s biggest and liveliest poetry festival happens over ten
days each July in the Herefordshire market town of Ledbury. Poets from
all over the world join audiences drawn from near and far for an
annual celebration of poetry in England’s rural heartland. There are
live readings, performances, workshops, open mics, music, exhibitions,
films, family events, schools visits, street happenings, a slam, a
poetry competition, and much more. ‘Hwaet!’ (rhyming with cat) is
the opening word of the great Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf and other poems
of that time. It means ‘Listen!’ or ‘How…’ or ‘So…’
– a calling for attention. Which is what hundreds of poets have been
saying, both in their work as well as in numerous, highly memorable
readings to Ledbury audiences over 20 years. Mark Fisher was delighted
to be asked to open the first Ledbury Poetry Festival in 1997 as
Labour arts minister, and has maintained his support for the festival
as an active Patron over many years. His anthology Hwaet! brings
together 200 new poems by a wide range of poets who have delighted
audiences at Ledbury Poetry Festival over 20 years as well as poems by
some unforgettable visitors no longer with us who will always be
remembered in Ledbury. Scattered between the poems are anecdotes
contributed by poets and others offering a sense of the diverse
flavour of an international poetry festival which is perhaps unusual
in being created, nurtured and loved by the community in which it is
based. The two hundred poets saying ‘Hwaet!’ include writers from
all parts of Britain and Ireland, from North America, Europe, the
Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. They include
writers who’ve been poet-in-residence or worked on popular community
and schools projects in Ledbury along with winners of the Ledbury
Poetry Competition. ‘A rare joining of place, poetry and people.’
– Carol Ann Duffy
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781780373140
Publisert
2016
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloodaxe Books
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter