Cheltenham Poetry Festival 2019 Programme

2019

CHELTENHAM

POETRY FESTIVAL cheltenhampoetryfest.co.uk

Thu 25 April - Sat 4 May

SLAM • MUSIC • SPOKEN WORD • WORKSHOPS • RAP • COMEDY • TALKS • ACTIVISM Headline Sponsor

BOOKING INFO You can book your tickets online, by phone, or in person.

Concessions & Groups

In line with many other arts organizations & festivals, our concessionary prices apply only to under-18s, full-time students under 25 and to those officially registered as disabled or unemployed. They do not apply to OAPs (unless registered disabled). We offer discounts for group bookings.

Tickets Cheltenham Playhouse MAIN STAGE events only • Online: credit & debit card sales: www.cheltplayhouse.org.uk/whats-on/ • Telephone: credit & debit cards: 01242 522852 • Personal visit - cash & cards: Cheltenham Playhouse, 47-53 Bath Rd, Cheltenham, GL53 7HG ALL OTHER EVENTS TicketSource • Online: credit & debit card sales: www.ticketsource.co.uk/ cheltenhampoetryfestival Festival Box Office • Email for ticket & group booking enquiries: cpfboxoffice@yahoo.com • Telephone: cards, online banking details: 07963 784957 • Post: cheques: Festival Box Office, 77 Tennyson Road, Cheltenham GL51 7DD

See details of all our events at cheltenhampoetryfest.co.uk

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WELCOME from Cheltenham Poetry Festival Founding Director Anna

Saunders with Robin Gilbert and Howard Timms.

Our 2019 programme offers ground-breaking stage Doctor Zeeman’s Catastrophe and provocative performances from Machine - a spellbinding and life-affirming uncompromising artists such Jamie theatre show by Martin Figura which fuses Thrasivoulou, Nafeesa Hamid, poet and poetry, a mathematical catastrophe rapper Casey Bailey, multi-prize winning machine and the moon - and launch For poet Kim Moore, art activist James Kearns, the Silent, an anthology of poetry against protest poet Kamil Mahmood, poets Richard cruel sports (Indigo Dreams) as well as Skinner, Pete Raynard, Duncan Forbes, featuring music from Scott James, Dan Bobby Parker, Charley Barnes, Paul Deaton, Hartland, plus hip hop from festival Ross Cogan and Brenda Read Brown. favourite Professor Elemental.

We have Rowan McCabe - the world’s All this plus talks, workshops, first door-to-door Poet, reporting on electrifying slams, hilarious comedy, richly austerity Britain, Charlie Baxter fuses his literature song writing, dance music, and trademark high energy synths and beats readings galore. with spoken-word courtesy of Channel 4 Expect diversity, excitement, ‘Random Acts’ filmmaker 1990’s Chris. inspiration, enlightenment, complexity Annette Badland, one of this country’s and even a little unpredictability. After all, most sought-after actors offers an insight in the words of Oscar Wilde ‘the truth is into her work on stage and TV. Plus, we rarely pure and never simple.’

Beechwood

Howard Timms Press proofreading editing design and layout print production web site development

CHELTENHAM

2019

Howard and Marilyn Timms 01242 220860 howardtimmswritesite.com

Sponsor providing Box Office, Publicity and Publishing services

POETRY FESTIVAL cheltenhampoetryfest.co.uk

Thursday 25 April OUTSPOKEN - Trailblazing Spoken Word and Pioneering Poetry Jamie Thrasivoulou & Charley Barnes 7pm - 8pm, Smokey Joe’s, £6/4 Jamie Thrasivoulou’s live shows have seen him forge a reputation as one of the most exciting poets in the UK. In The Best of a Bad Situation (‘the most urgent, vital collection of poetry you will read all year’) he takes aim at the big issues of racism, political control, drug addiction, class division and identity.

Charley Barnes’ moving and witty A Z-hearted Guide to Heartache offers sharp, sad and wry observations on the reality of living with mental illness, disability and heartbreak. ‘An exciting debut pamphlet from a new and honest voice.’ Jenna Clarke.

SONGLINES Dan Hartland, Scott James and Charlie Chitty 8.30pm - 10pm, Smokey Joe’s, £8/5 Three richly literate performers offer a showcase of music, spoken word and hip hop.

Dan Hartland is a musician with a poetic sensibility, renowned for engaging storytelling and his ‘absolutely gorgeous’ (BBC Introducing) and ‘delicately lovely’ (Americana UK) songs.

Scott James is a multi-instrumental performer, who fuses velvet vocals with socially aware rap.

Charlie Chitty performs adrenalinefuelled and darkly funny spoken word.

Sponsored by The Oldham Foundation.

Dan Hartland

Charlie Chitty

Scott James

Jamie Thrasivoulou

Charley Barnes

Friday 26 April CHAPTER AND VERSE • One poet, One novelist, One theme - Native Abdul-Ahad Patel and Nafeesa Hamid 7pm - 8pm, Frog and Fiddle, £6/4 Nafeesa Hamid is a British Pakistani poet whose work erupts with femininity, empowerment and rebellion. Her new collection Besharam treads the shifting line between woman and daughter, Pakistan and the West. It’s been described as ‘powerful, rebellious, tender and bold’ (Hafsah Basheer) and ‘fearlessness and astonishing’ (Roz Goddard).

Nafeesa Hamid

Actor and writer Abdul-Ahad Patel recently starred in The Informer alongside Clive Owen. He is the author of Native - the gripping tale of a girl’s exploration into a world of Native-American prophecies and heritage, sacrifice and danger.

Abdul Ahad-Patel

OUTSPOKEN 2Trailblazing Spoken Word and Pioneering Poetry Getting Adjusted - Casey Bailey and Hannah Linden 8.30pm - 9.30pm, Frog and Fiddle, £6/4 Casey Bailey

Hannah Linden

Casey Bailey is a poet and rapper famed for his mesmerising and socially conscious TEDx performances. In Adjusted (Verve Press) he speaks of the harsh realities of his upbringing - the drugs, the weapons, the lost friends, and the lost hope, all in the compelling voice of an accomplished storyteller. ‘A brave, full-bodied, sweet textured collection’- Roy McFarlane.

Hannah Linden’s poetry explores the boundary between the inner and outer landscapes and how the past imprints itself on the present and the present shapes the past. Plus open mic - come and share your flash fiction and poetry on the theme of ‘home’.

TECHNO PRISONERS - electro and spoken word mash up Charlie Baxter, Michael D. Wynn and 1990’s Chris 9.45pm till late, Frog and Fiddle, £6/4 Charlie Baxter brings the electronic party to any festival and tonight fuses his trademark high energy synths and beats with spoken-word courtesy of Channel 4 ‘Random Acts’ filmmaker 1990’s Chris.

A socially conscious artist and performer, 1990’s Chris explores life as a working class man in a time of toxic masculinity. Featuring BBC Introducing studio shaman Michael D. Wynn. See you on the dance floor.

Charlie Baxter

Saturday 27 April Richard Skinner workshop 11am – 12.30pm, The Strand, £15

Richard Skinner

A workshop with Richard Skinner - novelist and director of the Fiction Programme at Faber Academy. Richard will share novel-writing insight, tips, strategies and stimuli, drawing upon his inspiring new guide Writing a Novel: Bring Your Ideas To Life The Faber Academy Way. Richard says it is your duty as a novelist to bring your whole self to the page; to find the story, not force it; to meet your reader in a spirit of openness.

Tell me the Truth about Love Brenda Read Brown, Ian Parker-Dodd, and Marilyn Timms 2pm, The Strand, £7/5 Brenda Read Brown (‘ a joy of a performer’ - Hammer and Tongue) has won 36 slams and is famed for her vibrant and highly entertaining sets.

Brenda reads poems from her new collection Like Love which examines not just romance, but ageing, loss and injustice. Like Love has been described as ‘profound, and immensely touching’ by Brian Patten.

Brenda Read Brown

Ian Parker-Dodd shares moving and powerful poems, inspired by myth, nature, and matters of the heart.

Marilyn Timms’ work has been published in anthologies, magazines and journals in Britain and Ireland. Of her first collection, Poppy Juice, Alison Brackenbury said ‘ a collection of brave and unexpected adventures... her writing explodes with energy’. Marilyn reads from her second collection Two Sides of a Coin.

Marilyn Timms

The Precarious Truth Richard Skinner and Pete Raynard 3.30pm, The Strand, £7/4

Pete Raynard

In Richard Skinner’s The Malvern Aviator (‘a beautiful collection, full of mysterious clarity’ - Catherine Ayres) Skinner tips certainties on their heads, making familiar objects in the world unfamiliar: a mountain is not what it seems; a watch prevents self-destruction; a skull contains a universe.

Pete Raynard’s debut collection Precarious takes questions of masculinity, class, mental health and work head on. It’s a book about precarious times, hard lessons and fragile lives, a defiant celebration of British working-class life and the people ‘who make the wheels go round’. Both collections come from Smokestack Books.

Saturday 27 April Poetry as Protest - Kamil Mahmood, Belinda Rimmer, plus Open Mic

GAG ORDER - Richard James, Ben Davis and Nick Mazonowicz

5pm - 6pm, The Strand, £6/4

7pm, Smokey Joe’s, £7/5

Kamil Mahmood

Belinda Rimmer

Can poetry be an act of resistance? Kamil Mahmood’s poetry and art explores activism, the Muslim/Pakistani diaspora, politics and the narratives of the overlooked and unheard. He champions words as tools for change. Kamil talks about his radical work and reads from his new collection from Verve Press.

Belinda Rimmer writes poems of ‘personal protest’.

Her first collection Touching Sharks in Monaco (Indigo Dreams) deals with memory and the distortion of memory - things remembered, things imagined.

The event includes readings of classic protest poems and literature of activism by writers including Adrienne Rich, William Blake and James Baldwin.

Rowan McCabe - Door-to-Door Poet A theatre/spoken word show 8.30pm, Smokey Joe’s, £8/5

Rowan McCabe

Rowan McCabe is the world’s first Door-toDoor Poet. Knocking on strangers’ doors, he asks what is important to them; he then writes a poem about this, free of charge, before bringing it back and performing it on their doorstep. Through this bold and arguably

‘Destined for comedy from birth’ (wearesouthdevon.com), Richard James’ quick wit, strange anecdotes and heckle-defeating one-liners are making him a hot ticket.

‘Richard James is the smiling assassin: he is warm, charming and entirely likeable, but equally sharp and confident ‘ (Stand Up For Comedy).

Ben Davis blew our audiences away at our Slam Qualifier thanks to his jawdroppingly adept and hilarious set. Get ready to guffaw!

Richard James

Ben Davis

Nick Mazonowicz Nick Mazonowicz represents the raw, angry voice of middle England, albeit in a slightly overweight and awkward form. ‘A hilarious mix of buffoonery and angry ranting, both intelligent and silly, an absolute delight!’

(Joy-Amy Wigman - Lemon Rocket Comedy). stupid act, he hopes to prove that anyone in the world can enjoy poetry. The project has been featured in The Guardian, on BBC Breakfast and was named ‘Best of Today’ on BBC Radio 4.

Through a funny and thought-provoking mix of spoken word and theatre, this show asks a simple, yet vital question: Can we trust strangers? ‘Moves seamlessly from hilarious anecdote to poignant poem’ - The Journal ‘A must-see’- Morning Star

Sunday 28 April WOMEN ALOUD 2pm, Playhouse Lounge, £8/5 Women Aloud are a group of poets who have been developing their poetry together for some time and are achieving success in competitions/publications. They are: Judith van Dijkhuizen, Gill Garrett, Christine Griffin, Penelope Ayres, Frances March, Belinda

Rimmer. More recently, the group has been led by Angela France, who also reads at this event.

Angela France is the author of several critically acclaimed collections, her latest being The Hill (Nine Arches Press). David Morley said of her poetry that it ‘possesses and is possessed by a gloriously sheared weight and shared music.’

Under the Influence Ann Drysdale and Duncan Forbes 3.30pm, Playhouse Lounge, £8/5 Two acclaimed writers perform their own poems and share work by poets who have inspired and on occasion influenced their work.

Duncan Forbes is the author of six collections of poems, the most recent being Lifelines.

He’s won many prizes, including an Eric Gregory Award with particular praise from Philip Larkin.

Vernon Scannell said of him ‘Duncan Forbes is a real discovery’.

Ann Drysdale’s popular poetry collections include Between Dryden and Duffy, The Turn of the Cucumber, Gay Science and Backwork.

She is the current holder of the Dylan Thomas Prize for poetry in performance and delights readers with her witty, playful, yet erudite poems.

Ann shares her poems with work by Frederick William Harvey, DCM, often known as Will Harvey, and dubbed ‘the Laureate of Gloucestershire’ whose poetry became popular during and after World War I. Duncan shares his poems with work by TS Eliot and WB Yeats.

Duncan Forbes

Ann Drysdale

Sunday 28 April VERISIMILITUDE Roy Marshall, Steve Walter, Derek Healy 5 pm - 6pm, Playhouse Lounge, £8/5 How realistic can poetry be? Three poets, famed for their acute perspectives, share work and discuss the concept of being ‘truthful’ in poetry - what this means, and if it is possible.

Roy Marshall

'A collection that is filled with invention, exceptional skill and rueful humour.’ (Under The Radar) The Sunbathers by Roy Marshall (Shoestring Press) was short-listed for the Michael Murphy Award and described as ‘poems that hold words to the light until they catch it and flash with sudden truth.’ (The Sunday Times.)

Steve Walter reads powerful and clear-sighted poems from When the Change Came (Indigo Dreams) ‘lyrical, intelligent poems of love and death that are by turns tender, erotic, witty, elegiac and celebratory.'Michael Laskey. The collection spans the years from Steve’s first breakdown and through the road to recovery.

Derek Healy explores serious and humorous themes, often in traditional, formal styles. In autumn of 2016, he became poetry editor for Graffiti Magazine, and in February 2018 published his first volume, Made Strange by Time.

Steve Walter

Derek Healy

Desert Island Poetry with Annette Badland 7pm, Playhouse Main Stage £12/10

Annette Badland

One of the country's most sought-after actors, Annette Badland's extensive credits include appearances on Doctor Who, Bergerac, Cutting It, Skins, EastEnders, The Archers, Midsomer Murders, The Worst Witch, Bad Girls and Coronation Street. Her stage roles include A Winter's Tale at The Globe Theatre, London. Annette also has a passion for poetry.

For one night only, Annette is 'castaway' and asked to choose eight poems and a luxury item that she would take to a desert island. She discusses her life, work, and the reasons for her poetry choices.

Sponsored by The Oldham Foundation.

University Showcase Playhouse Main Stage, 8.30pm, £3 A showcase of poetry and new writing from students on the Creative Writing Course at The University of Gloucestershire.

Monday 29 April Poetic Alchemy with R M Francis

Saili Katebe, R M Francis, ZD Dicks

11am – 1pm, Suffolk Anthology, £15

7pm, Playhouse Main Stage, £6/5

Based on his recent PhD research, acclaimed writer R. M. Francis offers a poetry workshop that uses scientific ideas of forging RM Francis compounds and solutions. He’ll share his poetics of joining disparate themes and ideas to create something larger and more than the sum of its parts. He’ll guide writers through experimental ways of approaching poetry, compacting and expanding poetic solutions.

Home and Away with Anna Saunders 2pm – 4pm, Suffolk Anthology, £15

Write convincing and vivid poems inspired by real and imaginary travels, in this inspiring workshop with poet Anna Saunders, author of Anna Saunders Communion, (Wild Conversations Press), Struck (Pindrop Press), Kissing the She Bear (Wild Conversations Press), Burne Jones and the Fox and Ghosting for Beginners (Indigo Dreams).

Saili Katebe

Z D Dicks

Saili Katebe smashed the stage at last year’s Cheltenham Poetry Festival slam and is our reigning champion. He’s a spoken word artist who is rapidly gaining fame for his electrifying and potent performances.

RM Francis is the author of Transitions; (The Black Light Engine Room, 2015) Orpheus; (Lapwing Publications, 2016) Corvus’ Burntwing Love Balm and Cure-All; (The Black Light Engine Room Press, 2018) and Lamella (Original Plus Chapbooks, 2019). In 2020 Smokestack Books will publish his first full length collection.

His poems have been likened to those of Whitman and Ginsberg and he has been described as ‘a writer of true grit’.

Z Dicks’s poetry has been described as ‘Evocative, atmospheric, breathing new life into the everyday’ by Nicola Harrison, and ‘uncompromising, sometimes controversial, but always entertaining’ by Clive Oseman. He reads from his darkly coruscating new collection Malcontent.

Doctor Zeeman’s Catastrophe Machine - the theatre show 8.30pm, Playhouse Main Stage, £10/7 Is there an equation for love and the behaviour of a beating heart? What can be retrieved from life’s catastrophes and wounds? In this spellbinding and life-affirming theatre show, Martin Figura uses poetry, mathematical catastrophe machine and the moon to navigate through marriage, divorce, a father/son road trip and raising a headstrong daughter with Down’s Syndrome.

Poetic storytelling with searing honesty, wit and fun. Shortlisted for ‘Best Spoken Word Show’ in Saboteur Awards 2018.

Martin Figura

Tuesday 30 April Poetry and the Cotswolds - a talk with Sylvia Charlewood 2pm - 3pm, Playhouse Lounge, £6/4 The Dymock Poets weren’t the only great writers to hail from this beautiful part of the world.

Poet Sylvia Charlewood reveals the work and worlds of a group of Gloucestershire poets, some of whom are already known and much loved, some of whom may come as a surprise. Sylvia explores the work of Caroline Alice Roberts, Ivor Gurney, James Elroy Flecker, Cecil Day-Lewis, Adam Lindsay Gordon, John Masefield and FW Harvey.

Let the sunshine in: photosynthesis and poetry in Gerard Manley Hopkins and Dylan Thomas - John Parham 3.30pm - 4.30pm, Playhouse Lounge, £6/4 Taking two poems about photosynthesis: Binsey Poplars (1879) and The force that through the green fuse drives the flower (1933) John Parham explores the scientific interests of Gerald Manley Hopkins and Dylan Thomas and compares Thomas’ darker vision of nature’s destructive tendencies, which anticipate the horrors of climate change, with Hopkins’ religious view.

Devotion, Real and Simulated: the religious poetry of George Herbert and John Donne- PM Oliver 5pm - 6pm, Playhouse Lounge, £6/4 The first editions of the verse of George Herbert and John Donne appeared in the same year, but that is arguably where the similarities between the two end. In this illustrated talk PM Oliver, whose second book on Donne came out last May, will highlight some of the differences between the two poets’ religious writing and suggest why, four centuries on, it remains so popular with readers.

Working Class Voodoo and Hex - Bobby Parker and Jennie Farley 7pm - 8pm, Playhouse Lounge, £8/6 Dark metaphysics and magic from two visionary poets. Praised as ‘Brutal, honest, and startlingly good’ (Bethany W. Pope), Bobby Parker’s ground-breaking and radical Working Class Voodoo is a wild, fantastical and electrifyingly original collection of confessional poems exploring masculinity, the family, desire and addictions.

In the barbaric and bewitching Hex by Jennie Farley (Indigo Dreams) the everyday is imbued with old magic from myth, legend and folklore.

Characters in these tales include deviant goddesses, eccentric old ladies, a female arm-wrestler, a cross-dresser and an erring priest who play out narratives inspired by passion, unrequited love, loneliness and intimations of mortality. Hex has been described as ‘A place you will enter and never want to leave’ by Nina Lewis.

Bobby Parker

Jennie Farley

Tuesday 30 April Vanguard Verse - Neil Richards and Shaun Hill, Jack Crowe, James Kearns 8.30pm - 10pm, Playhouse Lounge, £7/5 Four ground-breaking writers perform their fiercely original new work - led by Neil Richards. Neil Richard’s experimental and charged Wings Made from the Muscles of a River (Frosted Fire Press) ‘masters a world unfamiliar’ (Eye Flash) in poems of myth, loss and surrealism, and has been praised for his ‘poems of true assurance’

by Alison Brackenbury.

Shaun Hill is renowned for the mesmeric quality of his physical performances and his fresh and visionary writing.

Jack Crowe was a finalist in the Hammer & Tongue Poetry Slam and has worked with the RSC, Apple and Snakes and is famed for his linguistically inventive spoken word sets, James Kearns is an art activist from Birmingham, whose innovative and exhilarating performances challenge our expectations of poetry.

Neil Richards

Shaun Hill

Jack Crowe

James Kearns

Wednesday 1 May Rhythm and Rhyme - Davy Edge and Chris Hemingway 2pm - 3pm, Playhouse Lounge, £6/4 Is there any similarity between writing lyrics and writing poetry? Two poets/musicians explore what, if anything, these lyric siblings share.

Davy Edge has enjoyed a long and varied career as a singer, songwriter, musician, and actor, including gigs around the world, record deals, television, tours, and a part in the Original West End Cast of Blood Brothers with Barbara Dickson. He is the author of Poems from the Midnight - ‘a delightfully orchestrated, beautifully produced chronicle’ (High Reviews).

Chris Hemingway’s latest collection is Party in The Diary House (Picaroon Poetry) described by David Clarke as ‘poems for the rock stars we never were... full of melancholy, regret and acceptance - all delivered down the barrel of a finely tuned vinyl collection’.

Davy Edge

Chris Hemingway

Wednesday 1 May Kim Moore - Encounters in Poetry - a workshop 3.45 - 5.45pm, Playhouse Lounge, £18 Poets have always used encounters with things to inspire their writing.

During this workshop, we will look at poems that have an encounter with an ‘other’ - whether this is an animal, a ghost, the past or the landscape.

Participants will then have an opportunity to write their own poems of encounter. This workshop is suitable for beginners and advanced writers. With acclaimed poet Kim Moore.

Kim Moore

Truth is a Five Letter Word - Kim Moore, David Clarke, Cian Murphy 6.45pm - 8pm, Playhouse Lounge, £8/6 Three poets at the top of their game read prize-winning and critically acclaimed work riffing on the theme of truth.

Kim Moore’s first collection The Art of Falling (Seren) won the 2016 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. She won a Writers Award in 2014, an Eric Gregory Award in 2011 and the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2010.

David Clarke

David Clarke photo ©Helen Dewbery

Cian Murphy

David Clarke, winner of the Michael Marks Poetry Award 2013 and longlisted for the Polari Prize in 2016, reads from his second collection of poems - The Europeans (Nine Arches Press). Timely, wry and closeto-home, these poems explore journeys, ideas of nationhood, difficult histories and the optimism of a time when Europe and Britain enjoyed a quite different entente cordiale.

Cian Murphy was born and raised in Cork and now teaches at Bristol University. In 2018, his work was long-listed for the Anthony Cronin International Poetry Award and was chosen for Eyewear Publishing’s Best New British & Irish Poets 2018.

Cheltenham Poetry Festival Players Water, Water Everywhere 8.30pm, Playhouse Lounge, £8/5 The Players will be back to treat you to an hour of great poetry on the theme of water - rain, streams, ponds, lakes, rivers, oceans - in fact, anything involving the fourth element.

With Gill Garrett, Frances March, Geoff March and Festival co-Director Robin Gilbert.

Thursday 2 May Place in Prose - a workshop with Christine Whittemore 2.30pm - 4pm, Playhouse Lounge, £15 Setting is a vital element of fiction and the creative essay. In this workshop we’ll see how other writers use language to transport us to a place, and through creative exercises we’ll discover ways to evoke settings in our own writing, and make places come to life.

Christine Whittemore, poet and novelist, is author of the poetry collection Sudden Arabesque and award-winning novel Inscription.

Indigo Dreams Showcase - Truth & Lies 7pm, Playhouse Main Stage, £9/7 Indigo Dreams is an award-winning publisher renowned for beautifully produced poetry collections from new and established writers.

Our showcase features four exciting poets: Alyson Hallett’s poetry has been described as 'As fresh as anything, the voice just jumps straight out at you' by Jackie Kay. Alyson reads from LZRD (co-written with Penelope Shuttle).

Jean Atkin's work maps memory, work, loss, and place. She has been commissioned by Radio 4 and was the first Troubadour of the Hills thanks to the Ledbury Poetry Festival.

'Jean Atkin examines the detail of other lives and her own, ... revealing them in deft, luminous imagery’ - Anna Crowe.

Nicola Jackson's first collection won the Geoff Stevens’ Memorial Prize. Difficult Women reveals the suffering and courage of women exploited in the industrial age and beyond.'

Rich, imaginatively complex, rooted in

research as well as empathy but also unbearably raw.' - Geraldine Wall.

Paul McGrane's Geoff Stevens’ Memorial Prize winning collection unites and shapes contemporary life and has many little miracles.

‘These poems are well-crafted, not a word wasted;’ - Write Out Loud

Alyson Hallett

Jean Atkin

Nicola Jackson

Paul McGrane

For the Silent - the launch of an anthology of poetry against cruel sports 8.30pm, Playhouse Main Stage, £9/7 Literary supporters of animal rights include Thomas Hardy, author of Tess of The d’Urbervilles and, in the 21st century, Ronnie Goodyer Poet-in-Residence for The League Against Cruel Sports. In this world-premier event, contributors to Indigo Dreams’ For the Silent anthology (in aid of the League Against Cruel Sports) perform poems which celebrate the natural world, condemn the cruelty of bloodsports, and speak out for the silent creatures in our countryside.

Poems by Mary Oliver, Pascale Petit, Maggie Smith and many more. With special guests and poets including Angela France, Alison Brackenbury, Sharon Larkin, Carole Bromley, and Matt Duggan.

Friday 3 May How to Keep Motivated as You Write your Manuscript 3pm, Playhouse Main Stage, £7/5 Two acclaimed writers talk about the trials and tribulations of working on a manuscript. Christine Whittemore and Anna Saunders read from their current work in progress (a novel and a collection of poetry respectively) and talk about their experience with long writing projects, the pitfalls and roller-coasters, and how to keep motivated.

Christine Whittemore

Christine Whittemore is a poet and novelist. Her ‘Unusual and deeply moving’ novel Inscription (Kevin Crossley-Holland) won the Eludia Award and publication (2015) with Sowilo Press.

Anna Saunders is the author of Communion, Kissing the She Bear (Wild Conversations Press), Struck (Pindrop Press), Burne Jones and the Fox, Ghosting for Beginners (Indigo Dreams) and the forthcoming Persephone Goes on Question Time (Indigo Dreams). She has been described as a ‘modern myth-maker’ by Paul Stephenson and ‘A poet of quite remarkable gifts’ by Bernard O’Donoghue.

Anna Saunders

OUTSPOKEN 3 Steve Pottinger, Matt Nicholson, Joe Cook 7pm - 8pm, Playhouse Main Stage, £9/7

Steve Pottinger

Exuberant witty and highly entertaining performance poet Steve Pottinger has been described as offering a ‘grinning hope’ and an infectious vitality. His collection Island Songs was described as a book ‘you’ll want to return to again and again’ by Joolz Denby.

Matt Nicholson is a fresh and exciting new voice who writes poetry which is sometimes dark and intense, sometimes heartfelt and funny, but always painstakingly honest; poetry that describes a man who has been There and back, if only to see how far it is.

Matt Nicholson

Joe Cook

Joe Cook aka Cookie is a spoken word artist and musician from Birmingham UK. Originally a lyricist for various bands including Birmingham reggae punk outfit Lobster, Joe has exploded onto the spoken word scene. His style has been described as ‘The Streets meets Joe Strummer’. Joe delivers social commentary in lyrical rhythmic style.

Friday 3 May URBAN POETRY COMEDY HIP HOP Professor Elemental with Joy-Amy Wigman and JPDL 8.30pm - 10pm, Playhouse Main Stage, £12/8 ‘‘Chap hop’s leading exponent’ (The Wall Street Journal) the loveably bonkers Professor Elemental offers a unique neo-Victorian blend of ‘Breathtaking freestyle rap’ (The Guardian), hip hop and comedy.

With a career spanning a decade, Professor Elemental first got noticed with Cup of Brown Joy which notched up over two million views on You Tube and headlines in the national press. This was soon followed by a scuffle with another rapper named Mr B, resulting in the follow up Fighting Trousers which has been viewed over three million times and gained worldwide acclaim.

Join the Professor for an unmissable and high-energy night of music and comedy with guests - comedian/performance poet and redheaded pixie of doom Joy-Amy Wigman and Cheltenham-based rapper JPDL - who fuses socially conscious lyrics with adrenalinefuelled performances.

Joy-Amy Wigman

JPDL

Cheltenham's friendliest independent coffee house

Professor Elemental

35 St. George's Place • GL50 3LA Tel: 01242 373318 email: kate@oharascoffeehouse.co.uk oharascoffeehouse.co.uk

Saturday 4 May Frost and Fire, the Dragon, Wolf and Raven - the world of the Poetic Edda 2pm - 3pm, Upper Event Room, The Strand, £6/4

The Old Norse Poetic Edda is one of the greatest bodies of mythic and heroic verse in the world. It influenced poets as diverse as Thomas Gray, Matthew Arnold, William Morris, and W. H Auden. In this talk, Professor Carolyne Larrington, the poems’ premiere English translator and author of The Norse Myths and Land of the Green Man, reads from her translation and discusses the background to these fascinating and beautiful works.

Paul Deaton and Ross Cogan 4.00pm, Playhouse Lounge, £7/5

Paul Deaton

Ross Cogan

Ross Cogan’s startling new collection connects with the dynamic dreamtime of nature and magic. The ‘Bold and striking’ (Poetry Book Society) Bragr (Seren) reinvents Norse myth and legend to explore urgent environmental issues such as habitat loss and global warming in hauntingly beautiful poems. Bragr has been described as ‘poetry of the first order’ by Adam Wyett.

A rigorous intelligence meets an adept sensitivity in the debut collection

by Paul Deaton. A Watchful Astronomy (Seren) is a Poetry Book Society recommendation and the collection is comprised of ‘wounded, sincere and carefully accurate’ poems (Poetry Wales) that offer a meditation on loss and renewal, and cast their gaze to the sky above, and the earth below. ‘Each poem in this collection is like a little torchlight’ - Jen Campbell.

Graham Clifford, Holly Magill and John Porter 5.30pm - 6.30pm, Playhouse Lounge, £7/5

Graham Clifford is the author of Welcome Back to the Country, The Hitting Game, Computer Generated Crash Test Dummies and Black Light Engine Room. His work has been described as ‘visceral, direct and full of startling visions’ (Sabotage Reviews 2017).

Holly Magill’s The Becoming of Lady Flambé (Indigo Dreams) tells the story of a young girl’s coming-of-age against the backdrop of a fading and failing circus, peopled with quirky characters and moments of darkness beyond the spotlight. ‘Lady Flambé is a force to be reckoned with - earthy, charming, raunchy . . . a wonderful heroine to keep you warm on a dark, chill night.’ Helen Ivory.

John Porter writes quick-witted and potent poems which fuse the sharp investigative eye of a journalist with a lyric beauty.

Graham Clifford

Saturday 4 May SLAMALOT! The 9th Cheltenham Poetry Festival Slam

8pm, Playhouse Main Stage, £11/7 Get ready for the ‘knight’ of your life with the 9th Cheltenham Poetry Festival slam! In a fast and furious spoken-word stand-off, 12 of the UK’s hottest slammers lock swords on the bardic battle field.

Expect jesting, jousting, rapier-sharp words, and Kingly performances of poetry, rap and spoken word, as our performers compete for the Holy Grail - The Cheltenham Poetry Festival Cup. This high-octane and exhilarating event is hosted by the hilarious and ‘Completely spellbinding’ (***** edfringereview.com) slam champ Tina Sederholm and comedian and slammer Neil Spokes.

The Gloucestershire Poetry Society was founded in 2016 to encourage new writers and seasoned professionals into action.

It offers events, workshops and publications to enable all to be involved. Its mantra is ‘poetry is for everyone’ and that is encouraged with the Gloucester Poetry Festival held every October at various events around the city.

Come join the revolution at

www.thegloucestershirepoetrysociety.co.uk

OPEN DAYS

Get a feel for campus life Sunday 9 June Friday 21 June Saturday 22 June Saturday 28 September Sunday 20 October Saturday 9 November

Book now:

glos.ac.uk/open 10233 02/19