WOODSTOCK POETRY FESTIVAL 2014
Friday to Sunday, 14 - 16 November
Tickets and information 01993 812760
info@woodstockbookshop.co.uk
Events are held in Woodstock Methodist Church unless otherwise indicated.
Children and students half price.
Festival ticket, giving entry to all events - £40
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 14
Carol Ann Duffy, 7pm. The Poet Laureate reads from collected and recent work at St Mary Magdalene Church. Carol Ann Duffy writes for children and adults and has also edited several outstanding poetry anthologies. £10
Carol Ann Duffy
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 15
Oxford Stanza 2: Falling Leaves, 3.30pm. An Oxford-based group of poets affiliated to the Poetry Society, some published and some newer to poetry, who meet monthly to listen to and discuss their work. £5 to include tea and cakes after the reading.
Michael Longley, 6pm, reading from The Stairwell, his tenth collection. His new poems include meditations on the Great War and the death of his twin brother, with echoes of The Iliad and detailed observations of Carrigskeewaun, his house in County Mayo. Michael Longley is a central figure in contemporary Irish poetry, 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders' (Seamus Heaney). £10
Michael Longley
Bernard O'Donoghue, 8.30pm - with Irish traditional singer Mick Henry and guitarist Nick Hooper.This evening is now being held in Woodstock Methodist Church: no drinks in the church, I'm afraid, but wonderful poetry and music, and there are plenty of pubs in Woodstock for before or afterwards! An evening of Irish singing and music, and recent poems by Bernard O'Donoghue. £8.
Bernard O'Donoghue
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 16
Andrew McNeillie, Jenny Lewis and John Greening, noon. Winter Moorings, Andrew McNeillie's sixth collection, returns to the sea and its immensity as a metaphor for fate. in To the War Poets, John Greening writes across the years directly to the poets, while Taking Mesopotamia, originally inspired by Jenny Lewis's search for her father, extends to a wider exploration of the Iraq wars. £8
Andrew McNeillie
Jenny Lewis
John Greening
Jo Shapcott and Neil Astley - A celebration of Rosemary Tonks, 4pm. Between 1963 and 1974 Rosemary Tonks published two 'epoch defining' and widely admired poetry collections, six novels, many reviews for leading journals and papers and collaborated with the BBC on an experimental sound-poem. She stopped writing and disappeared from the literary scene and from public life, suppressing publication of her work for four decades. Following her death at the age of 85 ealier this year, her poems and a selection of her prose are now available - for the first time in 40 years - in Bedouin of the London Evening: Collected Poems, edites by Neil Astley and published by Bloodaxe Books. Neil will introduce her work - read by Jo Shapcott, a long-term admirer and supporter of her poetry, whose own most recent poetry collection is Of Mutability. £10
Rosemary Tonks
Neil Astley
Jo Shapcott
Katrina Porteous and Liz Berry, 6pm. Katrina Porteous has lived in Northumberland since 1987 and wrote about the fishing community of the Northumberland coast in her first collection The Lost Music (Bloodaxe). She is reading from her new book, Two Countries, based on her radio work, drawing on Border Ballads and Northumbrian song and story-telling - a continuation of an oral tradition, these poems are meant to be heard out loud.
Katrina Porteous
Liz Berry has just won the Forward Prize for best first poetry collection with Black Country. Like Katrina, she often uses dialect in her poetry - 'I wanted to tell a story about the place where I grew up... In many ways, the book is a love letter to the Black Country'. 'Liz Berry's Black Country is a thing of wonder' (John Field). £10
Liz Berry
Poetry Platform with Jenny Lewis, 8.30pm. Open evening for local poets in The Woodstock Arms with Jenny Lewis, who teaches poetry at Oxford University and runs poetry workshops. This is a very relaxed event - people who would like to read are asked to bring along two or three poems - there is no theme. Free entry - please let us know if you would like to read. A soup and bread supper is available for £5 at the pub from 7.30pm but only if you pre-book.
