Poetry in Aldeburgh Residency
Seven Highlights from Poetry in Aldeburgh
‘Hinterlands’ – Blake Morrison, Anne-Marie Fyfe Blake Morrison and Anne-Marie Fyfe opened the Poetry in Aldeburgh readings, both poets recalling a spectrum of desolate coastal locations, including in and around Aldeburgh. Morrison’s ‘Ballad of Shingle Street’ was a stirring example, offering an insistent rhythm (one line simply “again again again again”) that sounded like someone…
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Florence Cox Wins Our Poetry in Aldeburgh Pronto Comp!
Florence Cox is the winner of our Aldeburgh ‘Pronto’ Competition. Congratulations! Congratulations also to three runners-up Patricia Wooldridge, Michael Hutchinson, and Roger West. We’re back from the beach, having had a brilliant time at the Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival – talking to the audience, sidling up to possible new poet-tutors, and enjoying some fantastic readings. Ben Rogers, our…
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‘Siberia – Irrational representation III’ by Perienne Christian and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Siberia is one of the most sparsely populated places on Earth. Against a black backdrop, Perienne Christian’s etching is informed by her own family’s history, the harrowing escape of her grandparents from a hard labour camp, walking at night, hiding and surviving on tiny amounts of food. See the interview with Perienne here. At Poetry…
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Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews Perienne Christian
You have an interest in ancient walkways. Can you tell us why you are generally interested in this, do you walk them, and is there one in particular that you have recently been drawn to? Perienne: I am interested in the history of human presence and movement across landscape. The old walkways, changed and shaped…
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Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews Emily Berry
Unnerving and commanding figures of authority recur in your poetry, including the Doctor in ‘The Incredible History of Patient M.’, the biographer in ‘Our Love Could Spoil Dinner’, and Arlene in the Arlene poems. What do you think draws you to write about these figures, and do you see the writing about them to be…
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‘My Perpendicular Daughter’ by Emily Berry and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Confusion and resentment begin today’s poem by Emily Berry, where a new mother complains that her daughter has not fulfilled expectations: “I wish they hadn’t lied/ like that”. Spare language and few tangible details add to the clinical and disturbing atmosphere, in which a woman is left exposed to dispassionate and questionable responses from unseen…
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‘RILT’ by Geraldine Clarkson and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Beginning with a word that can mean ‘disturbed’ or ‘off balance’, today’s poem, which won the 2014 Ware Sonnet Prize, sees one of a group of “crooked-leg” girls take decisive action and assert her “right” to go where she wishes, over the hill and down to the sea. At Poetry in Aldeburgh: Geraldine Clarkson will…
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Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews… Geraldine Clarkson
An Interview with Geraldine Clarkson
“The boundaries can be a little porous, and spoonfuls of poetry can be stirred into daily life…”
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‘Orpheus’ Imagination as a Subterranean Car Park’ by Ruth Padel and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Ruth Padel has spoken of Orpheus’ power to forge connections: “Orpheus draws everyone towards him and brings his audience together”. In today’s poem, the Orpheus myth resounds in a perhaps unexpected location, the underworld of an Ikea car park. At Poetry in Aldeburgh Ruth Padel will read alongside Rachel McCarthy as part of Passion and…
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Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews… Ruth Padel
An Interview with Ruth Padel
A work which tries to be ‘political’ often fails to work as art. You have to make the poem as good as you can as a poem, as art, rather than bang on with its message.
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‘On Sizewell Beach’ by Blake Morrison and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Sizewell is a small fishing village just north of Aldeburgh, though perhaps best known as a site for nuclear power. The presence of the nuclear power station is felt in Blake Morrison’s ‘On Sizewell Beach’, a poem full of local detail, including mention of the unusually named (and allegedly haunted) Vulcan Arms pub. However, the occasion…
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Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews… Blake Morrison
An Interview with Blake Morrison
“I have written two memoirs and my poems have become increasingly personal. So yes, I understand the torment.”
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‘Wireman’ by Mona Arshi and a new writing prompt by Ben Rogers
Starting by announcing the potentially idyllic locale of a beach in St Lucia, ‘Wireman’ (from Mona Arshi’s first collection Small Hands) reveals itself to be a surreal and unsettling poem. A seemingly innocuous seller/maker of wire-based objects casts a “long shadow” over the narrator who then becomes fixated on a distorted vision of the world…
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Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews… Ian Duhig
An Interview with Ian Duhig
“I think it can be misleading to talk about musicality in poetry as that tends to mean a certain kind of musicality when in fact many exist, including those which seem distinctly unmusical to other musics.”
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‘Half the Story’ by Ian Duhig and a new writing prompt by Ben Rogers
Today’s poem begins by offering a tale about the celebrated writer Franz Kafka cheering up a little girl who has lost her doll in a park, producing a succession of letters for her from the absent doll. The second “half” of the poem then offers an alternative version of events, before trailing off with a…
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‘Instructions to the Lemon Grass Artist’ by Chrissy Williams and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Today’s poem charts the surreal and incredible adventures of some Lemon Grass voyaging into space. Additionally though, the poem in itself is in a kind of transit, being a set of “instructions” for an unseen artist to convert the words into visual form, supplemented by textual captions given in capital letters. At Poetry in Aldeburgh:…
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Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews… Chrissy Williams
An Interview with Chrissy Williams
“Play is fundamental, I think, to anyone interested in artistic expression, and communication.”
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‘Accidental Narratives’ by Jack Underwood and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Today’s poem starts as an eclectic list of objects, ranging from a caraway seed to a waxwork head of Chaplin, that all may have “accidental narratives” to tell. This miniature collection of curiosities then segues into a rumination that spills out of the frame of the poem. At Poetry in Aldeburgh: Jack Underwood will read…
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Wayfinders: A Poetry School Reading at Poetry in Aldeburgh
Wayfinders, a Poetry School reading at the Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival, is an example of the Poetry School in action. From our earliest days, we have been a place where poets come to learn from each other, and where they find ways into poetry with the help of a supportive community of fellow writers. Tamar Yoseloff…
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‘Two Tannoys (A Noise Annoys)’ by Paul Stephenson and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Today’s poem from Paul Stephenson playfully splices a pair of tannoyed announcements at a train station with homophonic translations of the instructions. Arranged in the shape of the two tannoys, the poem seeks to “fuse” the authoritative voice with a subversive echo. At Poetry in Aldeburgh: Paul Stephenson will read as part of ‘Making Sense…
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Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews… Paul Stephenson
An Interview with Paul Stephenson
“In the manner of George Perec’s lipogram novel La Disparition, can you explain, without using the letter E, what you like about poetry in Aldeburgh…?”
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‘On Dunwich Beach’ by Fiona Moore and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Today’s poem from Fiona Moore’s pamphlet The Only Reason for Time is set in Dunwich, a small coastal village located a few miles north of Aldeburgh. The poem’s persistent refrain “for you” develops and builds through the couplets, while echoing the rhythm of the North Sea’s “raids” against the shore. At Poetry in Aldeburgh: Fiona…
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‘The Molecatcher’s Warning’ by Rebecca Watts and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Today’s poem from Rebecca Watts is one of a number of animal poems that feature in her first collection The Met Office Advises Caution, recently released with Carcanet. In gruesome detail, it depicts a scene of strung-up moles in a remote place “Ten miles from the nearest anywhere”, and the futility of the warning that…
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‘The Institute’ by Dan Burt and a new writing prompt from Ben Rogers
Today’s poem describes the experience of encountering a whiteboard covered with incomprehensible calculations while being toured around a mathematics faculty. The poet was struck by the symbols and the “unthought, deep belief in the potential value of an idea”, the emphatic instruction DO NOT ERASE beneath them suggesting the possibility of their profound importance. Read…
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Poetry in Aldeburgh: Ben Rogers interviews… Dan Burt
An Interview with Dan Burt
“If a piece has nothing to say, why bother saying it?”
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