Burgage Hall
Much-loved poet Fleur Adcock makes a welcome return to Ledbury. Her poems are remarkable for their wry wit, conversational tone and psychological insight, unmasking the deceptions of love or unravelling family lives. She read from her latest collection The Land Ballot. Her migrant grandparents acquired a plot of bush in New Zealand’s North Island, and laboriously transformed it into viable farmland.
Adcock plunders family diaries, reminiscences and contemporary news items to piece together the lives and inner worlds of various relatives.
Hannah Lowe’s first collection Chick was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. Chick circles round her Chinese/ black Jamaican father, a gambler who disappeared at night to play cards or dice in London’s old East End to support his family. Hannah Lowe also presents her new collection Chan.