Series: Festival 2016

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]