Welcome to Stuff. The Poetry Trust's latest news, events, podcasts and publications.

NPO Funding Decision – The Aftershock

You will probably have heard that The Poetry Trust has not been awarded NPO status from Arts Council England for the period 2012–15, meaning we have no secure public funding for the future. The news – received on 30th March – came as a big shock and disappointment – not least because the Arts Council has been a motivating force and loyal funder of our successful development since 2003. We’ve been deeply heartened by the quality and quantity of offers of support coming in from poets, publishers, other poetry organisations and of course our audiences.

In the short term, the good news is that there will DEFINITELY be a 23rd Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in November (and we think this year’s line-up is one of the best yet – more news of that below). But the longer term future of The Poetry Trust is uncertain and we’re letting the blood soak into the dirt (as they say) before making any big decisions about what may happen next.

What’s plain is that the Arts Council is no longer willing to support The Poetry Trust as a national organisation for poetry, delivering an ambitious year-round programme (Advanced Poetry Seminar, The Poetry Channel podcasts, The Poetry Prom, The Poetry Paper, Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, outreach projects etc). However ACE has indicated that it does value the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and we’ll be meeting with officers in Cambridge in early May to discuss Lottery and other funding options to secure the future of the Festival. Meanwhile we are also, as ever, exploring and pursuing other sources of income. We’ll keep you posted.

I just wanted to be another poet adding to your bulging in-box to say how very saddened I was to read of the ACE outcome. It’s all the more surprising as Aldeburgh is I think the finest and most intelligently-programmed of the specialist poetry festivals. Your festival is always full of interest, rather than simply a publishers’ tours round-up of usual suspects; at the same time, it never falls into the opposite trap of being a club for not-yet-very-good poets. It’s terrific to attend, and terrific to take part in.
Fiona Sampson

 

23rd Aldeburgh Poetry Festival

If you are intending to come to just one Aldeburgh Poetry Festival (or if you’ve not been to the Festival for a while), make sure you get to it this year. And join The Poetry Trust as a Friend to be sure of priority booking – because events are bound to sell out faster than ever. Friday 4th through Sunday 6th November is the weekend when you really need to be on the east Suffolk coast. It’s going to be one hell of poetry gathering and we think one of the best line-ups ever.

The Poetry Trust and Aldeburgh Poetry Festival have a fantastic international reputation – poets from all over the world have heard by word of mouth about the ‘Aldeburgh Experience’ – and that’s why we can attract the best poets despite our flat-rate and necessarily modest reading fees. We’ve a particular tradition of bringing outstanding American poets to the UK and this year will be no exception. We’re delighted – and more than a little excited – to have Robert Hass and Kay Ryan confirmed for Aldeburgh 2011. Both are former US Poet Laureates; both will be celebrating new UK publications of Selected Poems; Hass hasn’t read in Britain for 35 years and Ryan will be making her debut at Aldeburgh. So, a lot to celebrate.

Robert Hass is a giant of American poetry and one of those poets who warms the soul with his acute intelligence, emotional honesty and deeply moral sensibility. He dissolves the usual boundaries between the personal and the political; his poems are at once intimate and of global significance. Also a brilliant translator, Hass is famous for his contrasting affinities with the poetry of Poland’s Czeslaw Milosz and Japanese haiku masters Bashō, Buson and Issa.

The gloriously singular Kay Ryan is often compared to Emily Dickinson and was a real poetry ‘outsider’ for many years before finally achieving recognition. With prestigious recent awards including Guggenheim and National Endowment of the Arts Fellowships and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, she’s certainly visible and cherished in America now. (And John Glenday’s Close Reading of her poem ‘Blandeur’ at Aldeburgh last year proves she’s already got fans this side of the pond.) She describes her writing process as “a self-imposed emergency… if I don’t write poetry, in the profoundest way I have no way to think.” Her simultaneously condensed and expansive poems are shot through with humour and her trademark love of surprising rhymes.

We’d walk to Aldeburgh with a stone in our shoe to hear these poets (OK, we’ve perhaps not got as far to go as some of you, but you get our drift!). Here’s two YouTube tastes of the pleasures in store from Robert Hass and Kay Ryan.

 

Three new podcasts for National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month in America and we’re marking this on The Poetry Channel by showcasing some of the leading contemporary US poets we’ve brought to Aldeburgh in recent years. Don’t miss three terrific new podcasts available this month.

Aldeburgh Backchat: Marie Howe
available now
Marie Howe in conversation with Nick Patrick at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival last November, talking about how art gives our hearts the opportunity to break open (or close), her quest to get rid of the desire to be the hero of her own poems, and how “death is always the mother of beauty…”

Aldeburgh Close Reading: Dorianne Laux on ‘Curtains’ by Ruth Stone
available now
Close Readings have been a part of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival since 2003 and are now undoubtedly one of the most popular items on the programme. They’re free fifteen minute events where we ask a Festival poet to talk about a favourite poem, an essential poem they just can’t help going back to. At last year’s Festival, Dorianne Laux introduced us to fellow American Ruth Stone and her powerful poem ‘Curtains’.

Poem Show: USA Special – American English
available from 20th April
We’re delighted to plunder the Festival archive to create this American dream trio – three poems celebrating language in all its richness – Barbara Hamby with her ‘Ode to American English’, Tony Hoagland’s ‘When Dean Young Talks About Wine’ and Stephen Dunn’s ‘Decorum’.

You can listen to or download all these podcasts - and more - here

 

Don Paterson / The Poetry Foundation

Continuing the theme of The Poetry Trust’s international reach and our ‘assistance’ with America’s National Poetry Month celebrations, we’re delighted that last year’s Festival Poet-on-Poet lecture – ‘Frost as a Thinker’ by Don Paterson – will be available from 21^st April on The Poetry Foundation’s fantastic website. If you weren’t at Aldeburgh, this is your chance to catch Don’s inimitable, invigorating and insightful ‘take’ on Frost as a metaphysical poet. His close reading of ‘West-Running Brook’ delivers a particularly rewarding exploration of how Frost uses the drama of natural speech to introduce complex ideas.

Check out the Poetry Lecture page at the Foundation’s website from 21^st April.

 

Andrew Motion’s ‘Incoming’ at HighTide

Not long now until HighTide’s brilliant Festival of Theatre comes to The Cut in Halesworth, Suffolk – 6th to 8th May. We’re especially excited at the prospect of seeing Andrew Motion’s first play ‘Incoming’ – brokered by The Poetry Trust in a new partnership with HighTide. The Poetry Trust’s director, Naomi Jaffa, had a sneak preview of the script and was taken aback to find herself really moved while reading the draft on a recent train journey. Naomi says: “The dialogue leaps off the page as being wonderfully true to how people actually speak. And I found it structurally really satisfying – simple, logical, balanced. It raises important questions yet never overtly or heavily – they flash by, implicit – and there’s a passionate conflict of belief between the dead soldier and his widow about the pointfulness/pointless of war. I can’t wait to see how page translates to stage!”

HighTide Festival’s main venue is The Cut Arts Centre (home of The Poetry Trust) and makes imaginative and brilliant use of the building’s atmosphere and different performance spaces. If you like quality contemporary theatre and would like to experience another of Suffolk’s world-class cultural treasures, book now.

 

Farewell to Alice Beer

Sad news has reached us about one of Aldeburgh Poetry Festival’s most loyal supporters: the venerable Alice Beer has died at the age of 98. Alice was a Quaker, a potter and a poet – and always a popular audience member at Aldeburgh (we’re sure you’ll recognise her) with something to say at the annual Masterclass. We’re so glad to have been able to welcome and look after Alice at the Festival well into her nineties!

The picture below sums up both Alice and Aldeburgh. She’s pictured at a Paul Farley Close Reading at the Festival in 2003, surrounded by poets – Neil Rollinson, Adam Thorpe, Daljit Nagra and Henry Shukman. We’ll certainly miss her presence and her smile.

Full obituary in The Guardian

 

Other STUFF you might enjoy:

Poetry next the Sea
The 14th Poetry next the Sea at Wells in Norfolk – Clare Pollard, Robin Robertson, Owen Sheers and Anne Stevenson among the poets reading.

Poem for Life
Competition for East Anglian poets on the theme ‘Hope’ – all in aid of cancer research.

Tidelines – Creative Walk & Workshop, Orford, Suffolk
Wednesday 27th April
A day of walking, poetry and creativity inspired by floatsam and jetsum and Orford Ness. Led by visual artist Fran Crowe and our very own Dean Parkin, who will take a small group by boat (‘The Regardless’) to the Ness, followed by an afternoon of creating at Fran’s workshop. Open to all over 18s, £10 per person. For more information and to book, click here

The 58th Crabbe Poetry Competition 2011
Open to anyone either born, resident at any time or educated in Suffolk.
Judge: Elaine Feinstein, closing date: 31 May 2011
For more information, click here