Bath Literature Festival
(Saturday 28 February - Sunday 8 March 2009)
Come and hear a selection of exciting poets perform and discuss their own work
Poetry Taxi
Saturday 28 to Sunday 29 February, Saturday 7 to Sunday 8 March
12 noon to 4pm, Kingston Parade by Bath Abbey, FREE
Following on from the success of last year, the Poetry Taxi will be back with a vengeance on both weekends of the Festival! Come and choose from our list of selected poems for a unique personal performance. This event occurs on both weekends of the festival, from 12noon to 4pm
Chinese Poetry
Monday 2 March, 10.00-11.30am, The Museum of East Asian Art, £8
China is at a pivotal point in its long history. This reading presents a unique opportunity to engage with this most fascinating of cultures through a selection of classic and contemporary Chinese poetry, performed in Mandarin and English. Yu Yan Chen’s poetry appears in the New York Quarterly. She reads alongside Caroline Heaton, co-editor of Close Company and Caught in a Story: Contemporary Fairy Tales and Fables, who recently published a Chinese fable for children. Both are graduates from the Bath Spa Creative Writing MA.
Adam Foulds & Ruth Padel
Wednesday 4 March, 4.30-5.30pm, Guildhall, £6 (£4)
Shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys and the Costa Prize, Adam Foulds’ The Broken Word is a narrative poem set in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion. Ruth Padel’s forthcoming collection includes poems on global warming and the Middle East and her 2009 collection tells the narrative of Charles Darwin’s life. The two poets read from their work and discuss the importance of poetry’s engagement with politics and with history, and the art of writing narrative poems. With Tim Liardet.
Bath Spa University Stand Up Poetry Series
Thursday 5 March, 7.30-8.30pm, Victoria Art Gallery, £6 (£4)
We welcome Bath Spa University Stand Up Poetry Series back to the Festival for a second year! Vicki Feaver’s The Book of Blood was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award and Forward Prize and Catherine Smith was listed as one of the ‘Next Generation’ poets by the Poetry Book Society and her book Lip was shortlisted for the Forward Prize. Two award-winning poets discuss their work with poet Tim Liardet.
Claire Crowther & Greta Stoddart
Saturday 7 March, 7-8pm, Guildhall, £6 (£4)
Claire Crowther’s Stretch of Closures was shortlisted for the Jerwood/ Aldeburgh Best First Collection prize in 2007, and her second, The Clockwork Gift, is launched this month. Greta Stoddart’s first collection won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and her second, Salvation Jane, was shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Prize. Both poets live in the South West. They read from and discuss their new work with Bath Spa University lecturer and poet Carrie Etter.
Wendy Cope
Sunday 8 March, 7-8.30pm, Guildhall, £10 (£8)
Celebrate nine days of imaginative richness, of inspiration, and of sustenance for the heart and spirit with our Festival finale: hugely popular poet Wendy Cope reads and performs from Two Cures for Love, a new anthology that includes brand new poems as well as old favourites. Frank, seditious, wry, ironic and seriously warmhearted, Wendy Cope will not fail to delight.
Tickets 01225 463362
