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The 23rd Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Round-up

We think we’re allowed still to be basking in the afterglow of our most successful Aldeburgh Poetry Festival ever. Happy poets + happy punters = happy Poetry Trust!  We’re thrilled that our rich programme of inter-connecting events translated into an all-time high at the box office (14% up on 2010) with over 5,000 tickets issued (22% up on 2010). And book sales were up by 33%, helped no doubt by storming readings and three new collections launched during the weekend. Aldeburgh audiences aren’t simply huge and hugely attentive; they’re avid book buyers too!

Of course everyone has their own Festival highlights – we’d love to hear more about yours – and ours this year would have to include a series of wonderfully arresting female readings: from Emily Berry, Jane Draycott, Leontia Flynn and Luljeta Lleshanaku. We’d also add the all-too-brief quarter of an hour with Scottish Island poet Robert Alan Jamieson who set the Jubilee Hall alight, in Shetlandic; memorable poems by Fleur Adcock, Fergus Allen, Christian Campbell, Amjad Nasser, Oliver Reynolds and Maurice Riordan; and the overwhelming generosity and scintillating contributions throughout the weekend from this year’s Americans, Robert Hass and Kay Ryan. We were blessed with notable ‘conversations’ too: the Saturday morning discussion (brilliantly chaired by Robert Seatter) saw Fleur Adcock, Christian Campbell, Robert Hass and Luljeta Lleshanaku tackling The 21st Century Poem in front of an audience of 180 at 9am. Yes, 9am! And later that day, Robert Hass and Andrew Motion relished their first encounter in a searching and moving exchange about 21st war poetry.

There’s been seriously high-class blogging about the Festival too – thanks to Charles Boyle, his pre-Aldeburgh posting, Charles Christian, Katy Evans-Bush, Olivia Fairweather, Fiona Moore and Alicia Stubbersfield (via The Rialto) among others. We’ve greatly welcomed their Festival experiences and thoughts.

The Poetry Trust’s Director, Naomi Jaffa, was surprised to find herself giving a brief and unscheduled interview in the middle of the Aldeburgh weekend. Hear what she said about why poetry festival’s matter in Radio 4’s recent ‘Guns, Roses and Poetry Readings’, presented by Bill Herbert and Zoe Skoulding.

 

The Festival’s Best Words & Pictures

Festival attenders will know that we converted the old HSBC office in Aldeburgh into our headquarters for the weekend – unfortunately they didn’t leave any money behind! –successfully banishing the stale corporate aroma with vibrant poem and Festival posters. As usual, our Festival ‘poetcatcher’ Peter Everard Smith was on hand to record the Aldeburgh ‘experience’ and you can see a gallery of his weekend’s work on our website.

We’ll also be uploading a series of Festival podcasts to The Poetry Channel early in the New Year – with maybe some in time for Christmas: Poem Shows, behind the scenes interviews and edited highlights of the best events from 2011. What was your favourite poem of the Festival? Or maybe you had a ‘best event’? Is there something you’d love to ‘listen again’ to? Please do let us know – we’re always happy to receive possible podcasts suggestions.

 

The Poetry Paper, Edition 8

Not only did 2011 see probably our best poetry festival ever, we also think that this year’s Poetry Paper is the issue we’re proudest of. And, miraculously, it’s still free. We’re endlessly grateful to our advertisers and to Arts Council’s Grants for the Arts for ensuring this year’s publication. This attractively substantial edition includes interviews with Jackie Kay, Helen Dunmore and Alice Oswald, an essay from Robert Hass on literature and violence, and a short but all-observing stroll with Kay Ryan. Plus new poems from Fleur Adcock, Fergus Allen, Roger McGough, Oliver Reynolds and even a fiendish cryptic crossword in which all the answers are the names of poets who’ve read at Aldeburgh. How to get your hands on a copy? We suggest you get in touch with us pronto and we’ll post one direct to your door (in the UK only and while stocks last), or alternatively you can read the Poetry Paper online anywhere in the world through our interactive flipbook. We’ve spent more money this year to ‘optimise’ the e-read experience – so it’d be great to know if it’s made a difference. Do email and tell us.

 

Aldeburgh First Collection Prize Winner

Many congratulations to Nancy Gaffield who has won this year’s Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2011 for her CB Editions-published Tokaido Road. As announced at the Festival in November, Nancy receives an invitation to read at next year’s event, a week’s paid protected writing time in Suffolk, plus a cheque for £1,000.

Nancy, who was still waiting to hear if her book would be published a year ago, said she was simply astonished at the news of her win. “For me, Tokaido Road was a book that just had to be written: how it would be received was a complete unknown. I never imagined that it would achieve such recognition. Aldeburgh attracts support from so many distinguished poets and commands so much respect, that I could not have wished for a better reception for my work.”

The book (which was also shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection) was described by Robert Seatter, one of this year’s three judges, as: “a remarkable piece of subtle, sustained and surprising writing. Taking as its starting point a set of period Japanese prints, Nancy reinvents these images as a revelatory journey which feels both fresh and timeless. It’s as if every word must have been written before, but comes new off the page.”

We look forward to welcoming Nancy to the Suffolk coast next autumn!

 

Aldeburgh Young Poets Competition Winners

We were also delighted to hear the winners of our Young Poets Competition 2011 in person at Aldeburgh’s traditional opening event, the Family Reading with Roger McGough. We received 650 entries from 33 schools and awarded a total of ten prizes (£20 book tokens) to the young writers – aged 8 to 15 – who delivered their terrific poems to a packed Jubilee Hall audience (234) and certainly provided a hard act for Roger to follow.

For the first time, Bramfield Primary achieved the great distinction of being the school with the strongest overall entry – for which they received the Hardiman Scott Cup, awarded annually by The Suffolk Poetry Society. All the prizewinning poems were featured in a National Poetry Day double page spread in the East Anglian Daily Times which has sponsored the Aldeburgh Young Poets Competition from the very beginning. And you can read them here.

Details of next year’s Aldeburgh Young Poets Competition will be available in Spring 2012.

 

Outstanding Live Poetry At UEA

Three of the UK’s most assured and impressive poets will feature in a series of solo evenings as part of the Spring Literary Festival 2012 at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. All start at 7pm, will take place in Lecture Theatre 1, and will offer a properly in depth mix of conversation and poems. John Burnside last read at Aldeburgh in 1994, Sean O’Brien in 1992 and Paul Farley in 2003, and so it’s fair to say that fans in the East of England are well overdue an update on their necessary poetry. The Poetry Trust will be very much present at all three evenings (we’ll have copies of The Poetry Paper to give away too) and we recommend you put these dates in your diary now.

John Burnside – Tuesday 17 January
His recent collection Black Cat Bone won the Forward Poetry Prize and is currently shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. His acclaimed novels include A Summer of Drowning, recently shortlisted for a Costa Novel Award.
A poet whose rapt, floating verse conjures up effects of great beauty in both the ear and the imagination. The Independent

Sean O’Brien – Tuesday 20 March
His latest collection November has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot and Forward Prizes. His last – The Drowned Book – won both.
Truth may be beauty, and beauty truth, but it’s a masterful writer who manages, like O’Brien, to get both into his verse. The Independent

Paul Farley – Tuesday 27 March
Winner of the Forward Best First Collection for his first book and the Whitbread Poetry Prize for his second, The Dark Film is his most recent investigation into ‘the art of seeing’ – what lies out of sight, at the edge of vision or under our noses.
Poems that are rich in thought and memorable in expression, tuning in to a cosmic white noise. TLS

Tickets cost £6 per reading, but you can buy a ‘Poetry Passport’ for just £12 which covers all three evenings. Telephone 01603 508050 to book. Full programme information here.

 

Other STUFF you might like

TS Eliot Poetry Prize Reading
Don’t miss this unique live reading by the shortlisted poets live in the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday 15th January 2012. Tickets are selling fast for the year’s biggest single poetry gathering (the PBS recorded an amazingly full house last year) so we’ve made sure to book ours this side of Christmas!

Christopher Tower Poetry Competition
The UK’s most valuable competition for young poets is now open for entries – with prizes of £3,000, £1000 and £500. This year students between 16-18 years are challenged to write a poem on the theme of ‘Voyages’. Closing date 2 March 2012.

The Rialto Nature Poetry Competition
Judges: Andrew Motion and Mark Cocker who, we’re assured, will be giving the term ‘Nature Poetry’ a very wide interpretation. Prizes are £1000, £400 and £300. Closing date 30 April 2012.

More attractions via The Rialto website in the shape of Hannah Lowe who was part of the popular ‘New Voices’ reading at Aldeburgh 2011 and who’s reading on video here.

Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition 2012
Judge: Dean Parkin, closing date 30 April 2012. For poems of up to 50 lines with prizes of £500, £200, £100. Download the flyer.

 

And Finally…

We hope you’ll understand (and forgive) our decision to make the forthcoming editions of STUFF occasional rather than monthly. The Poetry Trust has been reduced to a skeleton part-time team and consequently we must focus on doing all we can to secure a brilliant future for the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. Also, if we’re honest, the period between January and May is always when we’re much busier behind the scenes – raising money, developing partnerships, programming – and there aren’t that many ‘public’ Poetry Trust activities to report. We’ll let you have details for our Poetry at the Pumphouse (June 2012) and the Poetry Prom (probably 23 August 2012) in the New Year. And of course we’ll keep you posted about the 24th Aldeburgh Poetry Festival (which will either take place over the weekend of 2-4 or 8-10 November – dates to be confirmed asap).

In the meantime, stay in touch with us via Facebook (make sure you ‘like’ The Poetry Trust page) and we’ll sign off with enthusiastic compliments of the season to all STUFF readers.