Woodstock Poetry Festival 2016 - 11-13 November - programme

So,..

Here's the programme for this year's festival!

5th WOODSTOCK POETRY FESTIVAL

Friday to Sunday 11 - 13 November 2016

Friday 11 November

*6.30pm Liz Lochhead, former Makar of Scotland, reads from Fugitive Colours. £10

*8.30pm Alice Oswald reads from Falling Awake and recent work. £10

(wine and sandwiches served between these readings)

Saturday 12 November

11am – Free children’s event: John Foster ‘The Dinosaur Rap’, reading & activities with puppets in Woodstock Library for children aged 3-11. Tickets from the library.

1pm Oxford Stanza 2 – welcome return of this group of local poets. £5

2.30pm Jenny Lewis leads an open mic session. £5

4pm See How I Land. Anthology edited by Carole Angier seven years ago, bringing together Oxford poets and exiled writers. Several contributors join us today, including Yousif Qasmiyeh, Palestinian poet and translator; Gregory Leadbetter (whose first full collection The Fetch has just been published by Nine Arches Press); Nigerian poet Afam Akeh, founding editor of African Writing, and Vahni Capildeo, whose Measures of Expatriation won this year’s Forward Prize. £8, includes a copy of See How I Land.

Vahni Capildeo

6pm Gillian Clarke, formerly National Poet of Wales, reads from her recently published Selected Poems and from her forthcoming book, Zoology. £8

*8.30pm Lemn Sissay, Chancellor of Manchester University and official poet of the 2012 Olympics, reading from his recent collection, Gold from the Stone. £10

Sunday 13 November

2.30pm Deryn Rees-Jones & Jamie McKendrick have both recently published their Selected Poems. Jamie McKendrick is a distinguished poet and translator from the Italian and ‘among the most interesting, surprising and distinctive poets of his generation’ (Sean O’Brien). 

Deryn’s previous work Burying the Wren was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and she is Professor of Poetry at the University of Liverpool. £8

4pm Oxford Stanza – readings by members of this long-established Oxford-based group including Simon Altmann, Caroline Ashley, John Elinger, Paulette Mae, David Olsen and Andrew Smardon. £5

6pm Carrie Etter, Penny Boxall & Jane Draycott. Penny Boxall recently won the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award for her first collection, Ship of the Line; For a recent interview with Penny see here.

Carrie Etter, an American poet living in England, is Reader in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and has published three collections of poetry, most recently Imagined Sons; 

Jane Draycott’s previous collection, Over, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. She teaches at Oxford and Lancaster and last appeared at the festival with her remarkable translation of Pearl. She will read from her latest book, The Occupant. £8

8.30pm Bernard O’Donoghue & Tom Paulin, with singer Mick Henry and guitarist Nick Hooper. Traditional Irish singing and music, with poems by Bernard O’Donoghue, including recent ones from The Seasons of Cullen Church, and readings of Yeats and his own work by Tom Paulin. Woodstock Social Club - drinks available at the bar. £8

Tickets and information: 01993 812760

Festival ticket giving entry to all events - £60

Children & students half price

Tea and cakes are included in the price of all afternoon events

Most readings are held upstairs in Woodstock Town Hall

Events marked * are held in St Mary Magdalene Church

info@woodstockbookshop.co.uk