01 – Foyle Young Poets
This 20th birthday celebration is not only about looking back. We launch the festival with a celebration of young poets of the future. A showcase of winners and former winners …[Read More]
Series: Festival 2016
2016 Recordings
Here are recordings of some of the 2016 Ledbury Poetry Festival events for you to enjoy. You can download a copy of the 2016 programme with more information about these events.
02 – Hwaet! 20 Years of Ledbury Poetry Festival!
Community Hall Anniversary Anthology Showcase Hear a selection of poems from poets who have read at Ledbury since the Festival started, all of whom feature in Hwaet!, a Festival anthology …[Read More]
04 – We Are All from Somewhere Else
Burgage Hall We Are All from Somewhere Else: Writing Between World and Identity. Ruth Padel and Daljit Nagra both write on an edge between myth and experience; between different cultures …[Read More]
05 – Fleur Adcock and Hannah Lowe
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 …[Read More]
07a – Versopolis Part 1
Burgage Hall Versopolis is a platform that unites 13 European Festivals to promote and translate their most exciting new poets. André Rudolph (Germany), Goran Colakhodžic (Croatia), Monica Aasprong (Norway), Samantha …[Read More]
07b – Versopolis Part 2
Burgage Hall Versopolis is a platform that unites 13 European Festivals to promote and translate their most exciting new poets. André Rudolph (Germany), Goran Colakhodžic (Croatia), Monica Aasprong (Norway), Samantha …[Read More]
08 – Peter Tatchell’s Desert Island Poems
Community Hall Peter Tatchell has campaigned since 1967 on issues of human rights, democracy, LGBT freedom and global justice. In 1994, he named 10 Anglican bishops and urged them to …[Read More]
10 – “Yippee!” Laughter and Melancholy in the Poetry of Frank O’Hara
Burgage Hall Frank O’Hara, a poet whom Mark Doty described as “Urbane, ironic, sometimes genuinely celebratory and often wildly funny”, was simultaneously a subtle elegist. Daniel Kane’s talk will explore …[Read More]
11 – James Fenton
Burgage Hall James Fenton travels from New York to Ledbury to give a rare performance. This is an opportunity to hear “a modern master” according to Ian McEwan who says, …[Read More]
14 – Jacob Polley and Aonghas MacNeacail
Burgage Hall Aonghas MacNeacail is one of the best Gaelic poets writing today. He was born in Uig, on the Isle of Skye and writes in Gaelic, Scots and English. …[Read More]
17 – Mark Waldron and Matthew Caley
Burgage Hall Mark Waldron is a brilliant and highly engaging reader of his work. He began writing poetry in his early 40s, has published The Brand New Dark and The …[Read More]
18 – Desert Island Poems with Dame Eileen Atkins
Community Hall Dame Eileen Atkins was born in a Salvation Army Women’s Hostel in north London. Her father was a gas meter reader; her mother, a seamstress and barmaid. A …[Read More]
19 – Desire in Poetry
Burgage Hall Mark Doty’s many honours include the T. S. Eliot Prize. His poetry has long been celebrated for its risk and candour, an ability to find transcendent beauty even …[Read More]
20 – South Africa Spotlight
Burgage Hall Toni Stuart is a South African poet, performer and spoken word educator. Most recently she collaborated with the flamenco company dotdotdot dance as part of the Sadler’s Wells …[Read More]
25 – Festival Open Mic Featuring Amy Key
Burgage Hall Amy Key’s debut collection Luxe “is a magnificent spree in a bric-a-brac shop. A haul of pre-loved and glittering objets – pralines in a crystal bowl, a handful …[Read More]
26 – Eleanor Farjeon: Something I Remember
Baptist Church Something I Remember is the title of one of Eleanor Farjeon’s best-loved poems. Anne Harvey’s talk reveals the skill and surprising diversity of the writer who wrote poetry, …[Read More]
32 – Strange Landscapes: Jim Dening and Christopher North
Burgage Hall. Christopher North and Jim Dening explore people, landscapes and ideas in reading from their recent work. Chris’s poems report surprising, sometimes serious, sometimes hilarious, events and encounters. Jim …[Read More]
36 – Ted Hughes – The Unauthorised Life
Burgage Hall Sir Jonathan Bate tells the inside story of the not undramatic process of writing a biography of Ted Hughes. Well known as a biographer, critic, broadcaster and scholar, …[Read More]
38 – An Evening With Mike Harding
Community Hall Mike Harding is a poet, singer, songwriter, comedian, author, broadcaster and multiinstrumentalist. For fifteen years he presented a popular Folk, Roots and Acoustic Music programme on BBC Radio …[Read More]
39 – Peter Sutton on Piers Plowman
Burgage Hall Piers Plowman is a disturbing and humorous commentary on corruption and greed that is still topical centuries later. Peter Sutton’s translation from the original Middle English preserves the …[Read More]
46 – Eric Gregory Award Winners
Burgage Hall The Eric Gregory Awards have identified the promise of some of our best poets including Sarah Howe who won the award and read at Ledbury in 2010. Listen …[Read More]
47 – National Poetry Competition Winners
Burgage Hall The Poetry Society presents a celebratory reading from a selection of winners of the 2015 National Poetry Competition. The competition is the UK’s most prestigious award for a …[Read More]
48 – Edmund de Waal Desert Island Poems
Community Hall Edmund de Waal is an artist and writer. He is best known for his large scale installations of porcelain vessels which are informed by his passion for architecture, …[Read More]
49 – Poetry East – Arundhathi Subramaniam
Burgage Hall Maitreyabandhu in conversation with Arundhathi Arundhathi Subramaniam is an award-winning poet and writer on spirituality and culture. She mostly lives in Mumbai (a city she is perennially on …[Read More]
50 – Book Launch: Heath by Penelope Shuttle and John Greening
Burgage Hall Heathrow Airport landed, in the early 1940s, as if from outer space, on the ancient common land of Hounslow Heath. In Heath John Greening and Penelope Shuttle transcribe …[Read More]
52 – Poetry East: Maitreyabandhu in conversation with Medbh McGuckian
Burgage Hall McGuckian’s first major collection, The Flower Master, which explores post-natal breakdown, was awarded a Rooney prize for Irish Literature, and other awards. Since then she has published seven …[Read More]
54 – Old Rhymes for New – Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation
Burgage Hall Shakespeare’s poems in original pronunciation. In 96 of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets there are couplets that don’t rhyme in modern English. In the major poems, similarly, there are many …[Read More]
Poetica Botanica: Making Words from Healing Herbs
The Walled Garden With Adam Horovitz Herefordshire poet in residence Adam Horovitz was commissioned to write ‘February in the Physic Garden’ at Hellens, Much Marcle. This inspired the Poetica Botanica. …[Read More]
56 – Frieda Hughes: Alternative Values
Burgage Hall Pictures and poems. As a painter, Frieda Hughes exhibits regularly and latterly has used the emotional and psychological elements of her poems as the basis for accompanying images, …[Read More]
59 – Ledbury Poetry Competition Winners
Burgage Hall Deryn Rees-Jones hosts this reading of Ledbury Poetry Competition winners. Jane Satterfield from America won first prize in the adult category with Rosie Shepperd and Nisha Bhakoo taking …[Read More]
61 – Slicing The Brain
Burgage Hall Poetry of Pathology and Neuroscience Valerie Laws is a poet, science poetry installation artist and mathematician/physicist and Anya Hurlbert is a Professor of Visual Neuroscience, Scientist Trustee of …[Read More]
65 – Karthika Naïr
Burgage Hall The Mahabharata, one of South-Asia’s foundational epics, is as much an interrogation of power and morality as a rousing saga of gods and heroes. In Until the Lions, …[Read More]
67 – Iranian Poetry and Protest
Burgage Hall This event was conceived in response to the news that Iranian poets Fatemeh Ekhtesari and Mehdi Mousavi, who were sentenced to 11.5 and 9 years in prison respectively, and also …[Read More]
71 – Sarah Howe and Katrina Naomi
Burgage Hall Sarah Howe won the T.S Eliot Prize for her first collection Loop of Jade, an intimate exploration of Howe’s Anglo-Chinese heritage through her journeys to Hong Kong to …[Read More]
72 – Adnan al-Sayegh and Caroline Smith
Burgage Hall (A technical fault meant that only the first 26 minutes of this event were recorded – very sorry) Born in al-Kufa (Iraq) in 1955, Adnan al-Sayegh is one …[Read More]
73 – Athena Farrokhzad and Amir Darwish
Burgage Hall Athena Farrokhzad was born in Iran in 1983, grew up in Sweden and lives in Stockholm. She is a poet, literary critic, translator, playwright and teacher of creative …[Read More]