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2022 Festival Programme

Festival Programme

Welcome to our 2022 Programme 

You may scroll down to the Schedule below which is in date order or click on a button to start with Online events and workshops from Monday 31st October or jump to the Weekend from Friday 4th Nov

We are delighted that Jessica Jane Charleston will be our Festival Artist

Jessica Jane Charleston

Book Workshops or Events   Here

2022 Pricing

Online events (Zoom) are free

but donations requested

Venue Events are £10pp*

All Workshops are £20pp

*Weekend Passes

Venue Event Pass - £60pp

Livestream Event Pass - £20pp

MONDAY

Online Schedule

  7:00pm

  • Online Reading

HAZEL PRESS - ANNA SELBY INTRODUCES FOUR POETS 

Helen Mort, Maria Isakova Bennett, Kate Fletcher, Maggie Wang 

60min         E1

Online Schedule

10:30am

  • Online Workshop

Anna Selby  - 'Rewilding Poetry: An Ecology of Listening and Writing'

 

Poetry can be a powerful tool for speaking up for the environment in multifaceted ways. The poems we’ll look at are from all over the world, with translations from German, Chinese, Japanese and Irish.  

90min         W1

  1:30pm

  • Online Workshop

Helen Mort - 'Working with Silence'

In this workshop, we'll consider how 'silence' can occupy a contestedrole in our work. We'll discuss topics from the dramatic pause, the line break and the unsaid to times when silence can be political.

90min         W2

THE FROGMORE PAPERS AT 100- presented by Jeremy Page 

In this event, the story of the Papers will be told by founding editor Jeremy Page, with readings from poets who have contributed to the journal over the last four decades.

with Susan Wicks, Janet Sutherland, Michael Swan, John Freeman 

  7:00pm

  • Online Reading

60min         E2

WEDNESDAY

10:30am

  • Online Workshop

Holly Hopkins - 'Talking to Strangers'

In this workshop, we will look at poems which use chance encounters – real and imagined – to unlock new thoughts and ideas. We will use these poems as jumping-off points for our own work. There will be lots of exercises to generate new ideas and starting points for our own poems. 

90min         W3

Sarah Westcott - 'Magical Thinking'

What is meant by 'magic' in poetry? From prayers to myth, manifestos, curses and charms, poems can create ‘something’ out of nothing, enacting a material transformation.

  1:30pm

  • Online Workshop

90min         W4

NEW COLLECTIONS ON POLITICS AND ENVIRONMENT FROM THREE US POETS

with André Naffis-Sahely, Christopher Soto and Jenny Xie 

Join these three exciting poets as they discuss their latest collections.

  7:00pm

  • Online Reading

60min         E3

THURSDAY

10:30am

  • Online Workshop

Karl Knights - 'Writing Good Spirits and Evil Spirits'

Czeslaw Milosz once wrote that he hoped ‘that good spirits, not evil ones,’ would choose poets ‘for their instrument.’ 

90min         W5

Polly Atkin - 'Precarious Property: Writing in, through and of the Body'

We all live in and write from our bodies.

  1:30pm

  • Online Workshop

90min         W6

  7:00pm

  • Online Reading

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON DISABILITY: FOUR POETS

read from their ground-breaking, prize-winning work.

Polly Atkin, Karl Knights, Daniel Sluman, Hannah Hodgson

60min         E4

Friday Schedule

10:30am

  • Online Workshop 

Greta Stoddart -  'Moving Poetry'

Looking at both the emotional power of a poem as well as exploring its movement as a whole we’ll play around with the shape of the poem, its breath and beating heart. 

90min        W7

11:00am

  • Workshop in the Gallery   

Sue Wallace-Shaddad  - 'Unpacking a Sense of Place'

Sue will consider the ways in which we are affected by ‘place’. Participants will be asked to reflect on what ‘place’ means for them, whether a physical place or a position accorded to them. What place do you hold in your family? How can you evoke geographical place?

90min        W8

 1:00pm

  • Online Reading   

ARTISTS, LOVERS, GHOSTS and FOOLS A lunchtime reading with Holly Hopkins, Greta Stoddart, Dean Atta and Shazea Quraishi

60min        E5

  2:15pm

  • Workshop in the Gallery

Fokkina McDonnell - 'That Special Place'.            NEW ADDITION

In this workshop we will explore and review several techniques that help us connect more securely with our creativity, manage our internal states, and use our mental and creative resources effectively. You’ll also be able to use the techniques in performing poems ‘live’ and for podcasts. They are sound psychological techniques which the workshop presenter has used in her previous career as a NLP psychotherapist and EMDR consultant.

90min        W9

  2:30pm

  • Ballroom Reading   

SUFFOLK POETRY SOCIETY CELEBRATES 70 YEARS

Suffolk Poetry Society, celebrating its 70th birthday, launches an anthology of 70 poems chosen and introduced by Elizabeth Cook. Readers will include

Kate Foley, Ivor Murrell, Ian Griffiths, Elizabeth Soule, Sue Mobbs, Antony Johae, Lizzi Thistlethwayte, Sue Foster, Sue Wallace-Shaddad.

sps-logo 70 years 1952-2022.jpg
  • Also Live-streamed   

60min        E6

  • Free

04:00pm

  • Festival Opening

FESTIVAL OPENING and EXHIBITION

Come and join us for a welcome with tea, cake and welcome words

‘OUR WHOLE SELVES - NEW WORK AND RECENT DEBUTS 

Kathy Pimlott, Ramona Herdman, Pam Thompson, Sarah Mnatzaganian, Fokkina McDonnell read together after two and half years meeting online 

05:30pm

  • Ballroom reading

  • Also Live-streamed   

75min        E7

08:30pm

  • After Dinner Event

After Dinner Social upstairs in the Ballroom

Kate Noakes reads new work and hosts Open Mic.

90+min      E8

8:30am

  • Breakfast Meeting

      South Lookout

BREAKFAST EVENT - Vanessa Raison hosts a morning get together with croissants and coffee to discuss writing poems about the sea at the South Lookout Tower (Space limited).

60min        E9

Rebecca Goss -  'A Catalogue of Skies’ 

When we think of the sky, it is easy to think of how benign we know it to be. We all store particular blue skies and warm suns that, at one time, we have flourished beneath. Yet the sky can rage above us.

9:30am

  • Workshop in the Gallery

90min        W10

9:30am

  • Online Workshop 

Sarala Estruch - ‘An Inheritance: Writing Poems of Memory and Family History’

Everyone has a history – a personal and familial history, which can provide abundant material for writing poetry. If, like me, you believe that uncovering untold histories – whether personal, familial, or national – is important, and a vital part of the poet’s work, then join me for a workshop of reading and discussing poets who do just that.

90min        W11

11:30am

  • Ballroom Reading  

MICHAEL LASKEY AND POETS FROM VITAL INDEPENDENT PRESSES - Michael reads and introduces John Lynch, Martin Hayden, Elizabeth Cook, D. A. Prince.

  • Also Live-streamed   

75min        E10

01:15pm

  • Lunchtime Talk Ballroom

THE MISERICORD AND THE TENNIS NET: A MATTER OF FORM 

A Talk by Christine Webb. Poetry began as an art of the ear, spoken or sung to an audience who were not going to go away and read it. It needed all the helps it could summon up, structures of sound and repetition to make it memorable. But in a literate society, does a ‘sound-world’ matter?

  • Also Live-streamed   

60min        E11

  2:30pm

  • Workshop in the Gallery

Arji Manuelpillai - 'Poetry for Change'

Come with me on a journey of protest. Throughout my career I’ve been driven by a need to create sustainable social change. I’ve worked with communities across the world raising awareness about causes that I feel are just and ethical. I believe wholeheartedly in poetry as a means for change

90min        W12

  3:00pm

  • Ballroom Reading  

LIFE AT ITS LIMITS: FOREST, CITY, EARTH, UNIVERSE

with Susannah Hart, Mina Gorji, Stav Poleg, Stewart Carswell

  • Also Live-streamed   

60min        E12

  4:30pm

  • Ballroom Reading  

SYLVIA PLATH AT 90 – The Nine Arches Anthology

with Sarah Corbett, Sarah Westcott, Rebecca Goss, Tiffany Atkinson

  • Also Live-streamed   

60min        E13

6:00pm

  • Ballroom Reading  

THE KINARA COLLECTIVE - POETRY FROM THE SHORELINE

with Anita Pati, Gita Ralleigh, Sarala Estruch, Rushika Wick

  • Also Live-streamed   

60min        E14

08:30pm

  • After Dinner Event in the Ballroom

POETRY PERFORMANCE with Arji Manuelpillai followed by Finished Creatures Poetry Showcase

90+ min     E15

9:30am

  • Workshop in the Gallery

Kathy Pimlott - 'Making the Everyday Sing'

In this workshop we’ll look at how very ordinary stuff– kitchen utensils, shops, routine tasks – can be the launchpad into meditations on love, life, death and everything in between

90min        W13

9:30am

  • Online Workshop

Stav Poleg - 'Imagined Cities'

In this workshop, participants will be invited to create their own unique cities and metropolises in the process of working on their poems. We will experiment with writing about familiar cities as well as places we have never been –  real and imagined.

90min        W14

11:30am

  • Ballroom Reading  

POETRY AND PHYSICS – MAGMA 84 LAUNCH READING

Join Magma editors Stav Poleg and Susannah Hart in celebrating the launch of Magma 84 on the theme of Physics. Come and listen to poetry that engages with light, time, matter and space and meet some of our brilliant contributors!

  • Also Live-streamed   

60min        E16

M84-cv.png

  1:00pm

  • Lunchtime Talk in the Ballroom

THE LASCAUX NOTEBOOKS: ICE AGE POETRY

After a talk and discussion ledby Philip Terry on Champerret as the writer of The Lascaux Notebooks, the discussion will turn to talking about Champerret as invented.

  • Also Live-streamed   

60min        E17

  2:45pm

  • Workshop in the Gallery

Philip Terry - ‘Writing Poetry Though Ice Age Signs’

The workshop will explore contemporary versions of the ancient form of the riddle.  It will look at Ice Age signs from the caves at Lascaux, including upside down “V’s”, rows of dots, signs resembling spears and so on. What might these signs mean? We will write poems in response.

90min        W15

03:00pm

  • Ballroom Reading  

DEBATING THE CRAFT - THE WHO, HOW AND WHY OF REVIEWING POETRY

with Sarala Estruch, Pam Thompson, D. A. Prince, Lisa Kelly (Magma)

  • Also Live-streamed   

60min        E18

04:30pm

  • Ballroom Reading  

UEA POETS - MA CREATIVE WRITING SHOWCASE

with Salma Yusuf, Vanessa Raison, Alice Bridgwood, Malavika S Udayan, Emily Veal, Shakiah K Johnson

60min        E19

07:00pm

  • Online Reading

‘WRITING WHERE WE ARE’ - FESTIVAL FINALE

 with Gail McConnell, Padraig Regan, Jay Bernard, Stephen   Sexton followed by weekend's work by festival artist Jessica Jane   Charleston

75min        E20

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