News
2010 Aldeburgh First Collection Prize
The Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2010 is now open for submissions from publishers and individual poets. As the first serious ‘First Collection’ award, Aldeburgh’s is now one of the most prestigious and highly valued poetry prizes in the UK. Previous recipients include Robin Robertson, Colette Bryce and Nick Laird. The winner receives £3,000, plus a fee-paying invitation to read at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival 2011 and a weeks ‘protected’ writing time on the East Suffolk coast. Plans are afoot to extend the scope and benefits of the prize to offer mentoring for the winner and shortlisted poets and increased opportunities at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. The poet-judges this year are Michael Laskey (Chair), Neil Rollinson and Jo Shapcott. Closing date for entries is 31 July 2010.
Further info & submission process
Enjoy Ciaran Berry, the 2008 winner, discuss his experience of devising a first collection at The Poetry Channel (scroll to Aldeburgh Backchat 8)
News
The Female Poem – does it exist?
To mark International Women’s Day - Monday 8 March - we’ve produced a new podcast for The Poetry Channel on the vexed question of The Female Poem. This is an edited 20 minute version of the lively and wide-ranging one hour discussion chaired by Jo Shapcott during the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival 2009. Enjoy Maureen Duffy, Pascale Petit and Annie Freud debate, amongst other things, the horror of being labelled a ‘female poet’, whether the male poem is the default position, the importance of ‘outsider art’, why ‘miserable guys stalk the poetic world’ and whether Donne, Keats and Wyatt actually wrote ‘female’ poems.
The Female Poem - does it exist?
News
The Poetry Toolkit
For more than a decade The Poetry Trust has been running creative workshops for teachers. This new (free) toolkit draws on this unrivalled experience and provides fun, adaptable, tried-and-tested exercises to get young people - and indeed people of any age - confidently writing poetry. Primary and secondary school teachers who kept on coming to our workshops have repeatedly said what a revelation it was to try writing themselves - putting themselves in the position of their pupils. Dip into the toolkit which is based on direct contributions from leading poet-tutors - including Mandy Coe, Peter Sansom, Jackie Wills and Anthony Wilson - for warm-ups and group exercises based on poem-jigsaws, photographs, eavesdropping and telling lies! Printed copies of the toolkit will be sent to all Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk schools who participated in the workshops. Click for your free PDF download copy.
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Celebrated Scottish Poet Robin Robertson
Wednesday 17 March, 7.00pm, Lecture Theatre 1, University of East Anglia
The Poetry Trust is partnering the UEA Spring Literary Festival and can whole-heartedly recommend an evening with the outstanding Robin Robertson. Robin is the only poet to have won both the Aldeburgh and Forward First Collection Prizes (in 1997) and he has since won all three categories of Forward Prize. His poems draw on myth and the natural world - stark imagery of falconry, forests, fishermen - and his poetry is exhilarating in its oral and aural relish for language. A L Kennedy describes him as "master of the dark and wounded, the torn complexities of human relations."
Tickets £6, telephone 01603 508050
Full programme
News
The Poetry Toolkit
For more than a decade The Poetry Trust has been running creative workshops for teachers. This new (free) toolkit draws on this unrivalled experience and provides fun, adaptable, tried-and-tested exercises to get young people - and indeed people of any age - confidently writing poetry. Primary and secondary school teachers who kept on coming to our workshops have repeatedly said what a revelation it was to try writing themselves - putting themselves in the position of their pupils. Dip into the toolkit which is based on direct contributions from leading poet-tutors - including Mandy Coe, Peter Sansom, Jackie Wills and Anthony Wilson - for warm-ups and group exercises based on poem-jigsaws, photographs, eavesdropping and telling lies! Printed copies of the toolkit will be sent to all Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk schools who participated in the workshops. Click for your free PDF download copy
News
The art of translation
This month we're celebrating the art of poetry translation. Every year poets in translation are a key element of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and a necessary reminder that not all poetry starts off in English! Enjoy two insightful and meditative conversations on the process and challenge of translating the uniqueness of another poet's vision and voice.
Jamie McKendrick is the translator of the pre-eminent Italian poet Valerio Magrelli. Magrelli's first UK publication The Embrace: Selected Poems was launched by Faber at the 2009 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. McKendrick suggests that translation involves revealing the language within the language and finding the distinct and unique tongue of the individual writer. Magrelli himself is an experienced translator, obsessed by the complex inner life of words.
The Poetry Channel
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Sasha Dugdale has won huge acclaim for her translations of Elena Shvarts, one of Russia's greatest contemporary poets. In conversation with Robert Seatter she discusses how Shvarts's extraordinarily eccentric view of the world has influenced her own poetry. And be sure not to miss her Russian recital of Robert Burns....
The Poetry Channel
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More poetry in translation news and links...
The Stephen Spender Prize for Poetry Translation 2010: Three categories: Open, 18-and-under and 14-and-under. Deadline Friday 28 May 2010
The Poetry Translation Centre: Dedicated to translating contemporary poetry from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The British Centre for Literary Translation: Take a look at the new website for the UK's leading centre for the development, promotion and support of literary translation.
Modern Poetry in Translation: The international magazine for the translation of poetry into English.
News
New Board Member
Current board membership comprises a strong mix of marketing, legal, financial, digital, and business planning skills and experience. But the board needs a champion money-raiser and advocate. In today's difficult financial climate, the Trust must maintain its outstanding fundraising track record to ensure a robust future. Could you be just who we're looking for?
For an informal chat and more information, please call 01986 835950. Or send a CV and statement of suitability to (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (The Poetry Trust, The Cut, 9 New Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk, IP19 8BY)
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Brilliant poetry at UEA Spring Literary Festival 2010
Poetry is a particular highlight of the UEA Spring Literary Festival this year, with three outstanding internationally acclaimed poets coming to the University of East Anglia. The Poetry Trust is partnering the festival and would like to draw your attention to the amazingly good value Poetry Passport - a ticket that enables you to attend all three poetry evenings for just £12. Each poet will read and discuss their work and there is dedicated time for questions from the audience. This is a fantastic opportunity to hear world-class poetry in the East of England.
Don Paterson
Tuesday 26 January, 7.00pm, Lecture Theatre 1, UEA
Just awarded The Queens Gold Medal for Poetry, Paterson's fourth collection Rain won the 2009 Forward Prize and was described by Prize Chair Josephine Hart as "knee-weakeningly good".
Robin Robertson
Wednesday 17 March, 7.00pm, Lecture Theatre 1, UEA
Robertson is the only poet to have won both the Aldeburgh and Forward First Collection Prizes (in 1997) and he has since won all three categories of Forward Prize.
Simon Armitage
Wednesday 19 May, 7.00pm, Lecture Theatre 1, UEA
A close-runner for the laureate and currently poet-in-residence at the Southbank Centre, he has published nine collections of poems which, to quote Carol Ann Duffy, "have an energy which comes directly from life now and the living language."
To buy a ‘Poetry Passport' or tickets for individual readings (£6), telephone 01603 508050. For full programme information visit: www.uea.ac.uk/litfest
News
Festival in photos
If you couldn't make it to Aldeburgh this year or if you'd like to re-live the weekend enjoy the story of the 21st Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in photos.
Join in poetry conversations on Facebook and Twitter. Keep an eye of The Poetry Channel where you will soon be able to listen to some Festival favourites. Take a look at some press coverage; Guardian online 'Female poem discussion'
News
Watch Philip Levine in conversation with Naomi Jaffa
Enjoy Philip Levine - one the most significant US poets of the last 50 years - in conversation with The Poetry Trust director Naomi Jaffa. Levine received a long ovation following his sell-out reading at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival - his first UK appearance for over 30 years. In this short film Levine touches on growing up in Detroit, ‘needing a larger world' and the impact of ‘the greatest teacher he ever had' John Berryman. A big thank you to Neil Astley, Founder and Editor of Bloodaxe Books for producing this short film, recorded live during this year's Aldeburgh Poetry Festival: http://bit.ly/aldeburghlevine
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Do Women write ‘Female’ poetry’?
The ‘Female Poem' discussion at the 21st Aldeburgh Poetry Festival was so popular it sold out within days of the box office opening and had to be moved to a larger venue. Chaired by Jo Shapcott, President of The Poetry Society, with a panel of distinguished writers - Maureen Duffy, Annie Freud and Pascale Petit - the discussion captivated the audience. Over 200 people turned up at 9am on Sunday morning (!) to hear the writers cross the gender minefield and discuss questions such as ‘Is poetry informed by the body?' ‘Are female poets outsiders'? And from the fabulous Maureen Duffy ‘Is being bizarre more important than being liked!?'
Jo Shapcott has blogged the event for Guardian Online, where it is causing a wide ranging, informed and engaging debate. Join the debate.
The Female Poem discussion was supported by the Poetry Society
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Tell us what you thought!
If you came to the 21st Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and have not yet completed our online feedback survey we would be enormously grateful if you could spare 5 - 10 minutes to do so.
We genuinely value and act on what our audiences think and feel - and your feedback will be critical for helping us plan and develop the Festival and The Poetry Trust's year-round programme of events and activities.
Click here to complete the online survey
Prize draw: We know surveys are generally pretty tedious, so as an incentive all respondents will be entered in to a free prize draw to win a year's subscription (11 issues, US$35) to Poetry, the outstanding magazine from the Poetry Foundation in Chicago.
News
Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2009
The winner of the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2009 - one of the most important and established poetry prizes in the UK - was announced at the 21st Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, 6-8 November. The recipient of this £3,000 major prize for the year's best first collection is Scottish poet J O Morgan for Natural Mechanical (CB Editions).
The book - which was also shortlisted for the Forward Best First Collection Prize - comprises a single narrative poem recounting a childhood on the Isle of Skye. In a year attracting a record 92 entries, Aldeburgh judges (and poets) David Constantine, Mimi Khalvati and Michael Laskey (Chair) were unanimous in their final decision.
Mimi Khalvati said:
"Such an engaging, affecting book. It effortlessly combines different verse-forms: remarkable, particularly for a first collection, in deftly tackling a book-length narrative, and also refreshing in its sense of tradition."
Michael Laskey said:
"We admired this book for its live language and sophisticated story-telling, but we loved it for its generosity, its unsentimental celebration of a disadvantaged boy making good."
Responding to news of his win, J O Morgan (31) said:
"I've never thought of it as a prize-winning book. I had hoped it might affect people in the way books have affected me in the past. That's all I've ever wanted from any of the works I've undertaken. I really hope the book continues to be enjoyed by many more people."
Click to read Alison Flood's blog for The Guardian on The Aldeburgh First Collection Prize.
Further information, contact: Alice Kent, 01986 835950 or email (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)