Woodstock Poetry Festival 9-11 November 2018

Here it is! The programme for this year's Woodstock Poetry Festival, our seventh. Booking is now open - please note, tickets can be bought for each separate event or, if you plan to attend several events, you can buy a festival ticket for the whole weekend.

Friday 9 November

7pm Wendy Cope reads from her latest collection, Anecdotal Evidence – poems about childhood, friends, love and growing older: 'Wendy Cope is without doubt the wittiest of contemporary English poets, and says a lot of extremely serious things' - Rowan Williams. £10

8.30pm Kayo Chingonyi, Kumukanda. This exploration of masculinity, race and identity won the Dylan Thomas prize. Kumukanda, the name given to the initiation rites a boy from the Luvale tribe in Zambia passes through to become a man, is the inspiration for these poems which speak of the 'loss which attends moving from one place to another'. Jackie Kay called it a 'wonderful debut… A subtle and affecting, lyrical and powerful collection that explores boyhood, rites of passage, the ancient and the modern world'... 'a natural performer. He reads his poems with an immediacy that gives each one to you like a present' – Kate Kellaway. £10

Saturday 10 November

12pm Niall Munro, director of Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre, introduces three poets published by ignitionpress, the poetry pamphlet press established by the Centre in 2017. Mary Jean Chan's A Hurry of English was the Poetry Book Society's Summer Pamphlet Choice; her first full collection is published by Faber next year. Natalie Whittaker's first pamphlet is Shadow Dogs. Belinda Zhawi was a 2015/16 London Laureate and the 2016/17 Institute of Contemporary Arts Associate Poet. Her debut pamphlet is Small Inheritances. £6

2.30 pm Christopher Reid – Old Toffer's Book of Consequential Dogs. A 'companion volume' to T S Eliot's Book of Practical Cats, discussed by Eliot and written at the request of the Eliot estate, Old Toffer's Book celebrates a variety of dogs in similar spirit. Christopher Reid is a former poetry editor at Faber and the author of many books of poems. Come and meet Flo the Philosophical Foxhound, Frazzlesprat, who'd rather be a cat, and other consequential dogs. Family event, followed by tea. £5

4pm Liz Berry & Esther Morgan. The Republic of Motherhood, Liz Berry's first collection since Black Country, sings of the rawness and joy of new motherhood. Esther Morgan's fourth book, The Wound Register, explores her family's response to her great grandfather's death at the Somme & her own experience of motherhood. £10

6pm James Harpur & John F. Deane. John F. Deane founded Poetry Ireland and the Dedalus Press. Dear Pilgrims uncovers a map of spiritual pathways, both external and internal. James Harpur's The White Silhouette meditates on the divine, and explores pilgrimage and loss. Both poets are members of Aosdana, established by the Arts Council to honour artists whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland. £10

7.30pm Treelines: launch of the fourth anthology selected by Janie Hextall & Barbara McNaught, who brought you Washing Lines, Shorelines & Strings of Pearls – this time, poems about trees, woods & orchards; introduced by Esther Morgan. £5

Sunday 11 November

3.30pm Sean O'Brien & Jamie McKendrick address timely and contemporary issues in their new collections. Europa, Sean O'Brien's ninth collection, looks at the shared heritage of European identity; Anomaly, the seventh collection from poet and translator Jamie McKendrick, tackles interconnectedness. £10

5.30pm Isabel Galleymore, Abigail Parry & Imtiaz Dharker. Isabel Galleymore's first full-length collection, Significant Other, is published next year. Jinx is Abigail Parry's first book: 'These are outstanding poems' – Jo Shapcott; Imtiaz Dharker won the Queen Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014 and her latest book is Luck is the Hook: ‘If there were to be a World Laureate, then for me the role could only be filled by Imtiaz Dharker.’ - Carol Ann Duffy. £10

7.30pm Jenny Lewis of The Poets House, Oxford, will introduce open mic, the popular platform for local and unpublished poets, following the launch of Gilgamesh Retold, her re-telling of the world's oldest poem, composed in Mesopotamia four millenia ago. Open mic is open to all but should be booked in advance. £5

Tickets and information: 01993 812760 or info@woodstockbookshop.co.uk

Festival ticket giving entry to all events - £60, children and students half price

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

Friday's readings are held in St Mary Magdalene Church;