Blog Archives
Exeter Poetry Festival Programme 2014
Tickets for events can be purchased:
– Online, using the links below or by browsing upcoming events
– By phone, 01392 667080
– In person in advance from Exeter Phoenix Box Office, Gandy Street, Exeter,
– In person at the venue on the night
Guidance on using the box office to purchase tickets.
Quick links to event ticket purchase:
– 01/10 ‘The Retold Ramayana’ at Exeter University with Daljit Nagra
– 04/10 ‘The Forgotten of World War One’ at Exeter Central Library
– 04/10 Fiona Benson and Carrie Etter at Exeter Central Library
– 05/10 Workshop with Carrie Etter at Exeter Central Library
Monday 29th September
Simon Williams and Susan Taylor
Venue: City Gate Hotel, Cellar bar, Exeter
Time: 7.30pm
Tickets: FREE
After great success last year, we again kick-start the Festival with the launch of a collector’s edition of The Broadsheet, featuring poems from Festival guests alongside work from some of the most talented poets resident in the South West
Tuesday 30th September
NEXT GENERATION
Venue: Queen’s Building, Exeter University, Prince of Wales Road, EX4 45B
Time: 6pm – 7pm
Tickets: Donations to Festival appreciated
Four of Exeter University’s brightest lights read for us as a poetic prelude to the Festival’s signature lecture…
BEYOND BORDERS:
With Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, Harry Guest and Martin Sorrell
Venue: Old Library, Exeter University
Time: 7.30pm – 9pm
For one night only we’re lucky to bring together experts in poetry translation to read their work and discuss the joys and challenges of translation in practice. Introduced and facilitated by Dr. Andy Brown, Director of the Centre for Creative Writing at Exeter University, we bring you multi-award winning Cuban poet Víctor Rodríguez Núñez; poet, editor and specialist in Japanese and French translation, Harry Guest; and esteemed academic, BBC playwright and translator Martin Sorrell, for a stimulating and multi-cultural evening of readings and debate.
Wednesday 1st October
With Daljit Nagra
Venue: Roborough Studios, Exeter University, Prince of Wales Road, EX4 45B
Time: 7pm – 9pm A two hour performance including interval.
Tickets: £12 / Students £8 /children 11+ £6
We are thrilled to have the critically acclaimed Daljit Nagra amongst our line up this year, for a visually stunning retelling of the Ramayana.
Daljt’s technicolour and multi-cultural version of the tale follows Rama’s quest to rescue his wife Sita from her abduction by Raavana, Lord of the Underworld.
Ahead of the event (6pm – 6:30pm) is a free lecture by Dr. Jerri Daboo, Senior Lecturer in Drama at Exeter University: “Exiling heroes and burning demons: examining two productions of ‘The Ramayana’ in Britain”.
Thursday 2nd October
With Gillian Clarke and Adam Horovitz
Venue: Exeter Central Library
Time: 7pm – 9pm
The Festival’s signature reading this year brings National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke and upcoming poet and performer Adam Horovitz, described by Carol Ann Duffy as ‘the real deal’ to the Exeter stage.
Friday 3rd October
Venue: Exeter Central Library
Time: 7pm – 9pm
Tickets are now SOLD OUT! For other events at Exeter Poetry Festival, 30th September to 5th October, buy your tickets here.
Critically acclaimed rapper and spoken word artist Kate Tempest comes to Exeter for one night only.
Her epic narrative poem Brand New Ancients won the Ted Hughes Prize and she has just completed a sell out run in the UK and New York. Everybody Down, her debut solo album, came out earlier this year on Big Dada Records, also to vast acclaim. Her first full collection, ‘Hold Your Own’, will be published by Picador on October 9th 2014. Early booking advised.
Saturday 4th October – Daytime
THE FORGOTTEN OF WW1
Venue: Exeter Central Library
Time: 1pm – 5pm
The Untold story of Ivor Gurney
A special screening of Redcliffe Film’s widely praised biopic of Ivor Gurney, the WW1 soldier, poet and composer.
Women Poets of WW1
Some well known female writers based in Devon and Cornwall read and respond to poems written by women living and working during the Great War including Charlotte Mew and May Sinclair. With Ann Gray, Rachel McCarthy, Helen Evans and Chrissy Banks.
FREE EVENT – Voices and Memory
Time: 3.30pm – 5pm
ExLibris launches a pamphlet of poems based on WW1 objects held in Exeter Library’s archive.
Saturday 4th October – Evening
THE RONALD DUNCAN READING
Venue: Exeter Central Library
Time: 7pm – 9pm
Our final reading brings Fiona Benson, fresh from reading at the Forward Prize for Best First Collection for her widely acclaimed Bright Travellers, together with American poet Carrie Etter, whose latest work, Imagined Sons, was described by Bernard O’Donoghue as simply “of the utmost importance.”
Sunday 5th October – Daytime
WORKSHOP : CARRIE ETTER – Adventures in Prose Poetry
Venue: Exeter Central Library
Time: 11am – 1pm
Join award-winning poet and lecturer Carrie Etter to delve into the intricacies of the prose poem. For both those new to and those familiar with the form, this workshop offers fresh adventures in prose poetry, in reading and discussing wonderful works as well as composing our own.
Sunday 5th October – Daytime
Venue: Bikeshed Theatre
Time: 7.30pm –
To apply to take part, please email: slam@speakinsong.co.uk
15 contestants, 3 rounds, 1 winner, much kudos.
There will be a prize of £50 cash and a further £50 paid slot at Spokes Amaze! for the winner.
Judges for the event are last year’s winner, Saskia Tomlinson, current Bard of Exeter Daniel Haynes and celebrated local poet Graham Burchell.
Victor Rodriguez Nunez, one of Cuba’s foremost poets, coming to Exeter Poetry Festival on 30th September 2014
Tuesday 30th September
BEYOND BORDERS:
With Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, Harry Guest and Martin Sorrell
Venue: Old Library, Exeter University
Time: 7.30pm – 9pm
For one night only we’re lucky to bring together experts in poetry translation to read their work and discuss the joys and challenges of translation in practice. Introduced and facilitated by Dr. Andy Brown, Director of the Centre for Creative Writing at Exeter University, we bring you multi-award winning Cuban poet Víctor Rodríguez Núñez; poet, editor and specialist in Japanese and French translation, Harry Guest; and esteemed academic, BBC playwright and translator Martin Sorrell, for a stimulating and multi-cultural evening of readings and debate.
Víctor Rodríguez-Núñez has published twelve books of poetry and numerous editions of his selected poems, most recently Cuarto de Desahogo (Letras Cubanas, 2013). His poetry has received major awards across the Spanish-speaking world, and he has performed his poems in over twenty countries. His works in English include The Infinite’s Ash (Arc Publications, 2008), thaw (Arc Publications, 2013), and Every Good Heart Is a Telescope: Early Poems (Toad Press, 2013). Rodríguez-Núñez is also a scholar with works appearing in anthologies and introductions, as well as essays on Spanish American writers, and a book about García Marquez’s non-fiction. He is National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professor of Spanish is active as a journalist in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Columbia, and has been an editor for both cultural and specialized magazines.
Harry Guest was born in Penarth, Wales in 1932. He read Modern Languages at Cambridge before teaching in schools and universities in Japan and England. He edited and translated Post-War Japanese Poetry (with Lynn Guest and Kajima Shôzô, Penguin, 1972). His translations include poems by Jean Cassou and selected poems by Victor Hugo, The Distance, The Shadows. His recent works include the novel Lost Pictures and Traveller’s Literary Companion to Japan; a selection of his poetry was also published in Penguin Modern Poets 16, and A Puzzling Harvest (Anvil, 2002 ) collects his poems 1955-2000. He was appointed Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter in 1994, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Plymouth University. He lives in Exeter, and is married to Lynn Guest, a historical novelist. They have two children.
Martin Sorrell’s publications in translation include Rimbaud: Collected Poems and Verlaine: Selected Poems (both Oxford University Press), Elles: a bilingual anthology of modern French poetry by women (University of Exeter Press), as well as three Molière plays for Nick Hern Books. He is currently finishing an edition in translation of the poems of Apollinaire, also to be published by Oxford University Press. Sorrell has won two major translation prizes. He also writes original plays and stories for BBC radio.
‘The Retold Ramayana’ by Daljit Nagra at Exeter Poetry Festival on Wednesday 1st October 2014
Wednesday 1st October
With Daljit Nagra
Venue: Roborough Studios, Exeter University, Prince of Wales Road, EX4 45B
Time: 7pm – 9pm. A two hour performance including interval.
Tickets: £12 / Students £8 /children 11+ £6
Poet Daljit Nagra brings his Ramayana to Exeter– complete with monkey army
Last year, poet Daljit Nagra published Ramayana A Retelling with Faber & Faber – a rumbustious reworking of the ancient Asian epic remade for a modern multicultural, multi-faith audience. It was the Financial Times and the New Statesman Book of the Year. ‘A high-octane mythology redux’ said the Independent. ‘Fizzy and up-to-date … universal’ said the Telegraph.
This Autumn, Jaybird Live Literature brings an adaptation of Daljit’s tale to the stage in Exeter. The Retold Ramayana features Daljit performing the key scenes of the story interspersed with reflections on his own relationship to the literary epic. He was told about Rama and his quest to rescue Sita from Raavana, Lord of the Underworld, when he was a little boy in the 70s, and this history is reflected in the show. The love scenes, kidnaps and – yes – monkey army battles of Rama’s story take their place alongside Daljit’s boyhood experiences and development as a writer.
Daljit Nagra was born and raised in London then Sheffield. He currently lives in Harrow. His first collection Look We Have Coming to Dover! (Faber) won the 2007 Forward Prize for Best First Collection. His Tippoo Sultan’s Incredible White-Man Tiger Toy-Machine!!! was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize in 2011, as was Ramayana A Retelling in 2013.
Accompanying Daljit on stage will be specially commissioned illustrations by comic book artist Jim Connolly projected expertly through space by lighting designer John Castle.
Ahead of the event (6pm – 6:30pm) and unique to this performance is a free lecture by Dr. Jerri Daboo, Senior Lecturer in Drama at Exeter University: “Exiling heroes and burning demons: examining two productions of ‘The Ramayana’ in Britain”.
Beyond Borders: Roddy Lumsden, Peter Finch and Hannah Silva at the Exeter Poetry Festival on Friday 4th October 2013
Peter Finch
Friday 4th October 2013
BEYOND BORDERS with Roddy Lumsden, Peter Finch and Hannah Silva
Exeter University Queen’s Building – Lecture Theatre
7.30pm – £9 Book at the Exeter Phoenix box office online or phone 01392 667080
preceded by
EXETER UNIVERSITY MA SHOWCASE with Barbara Farley, Isabel Galleymore, Louise Jenkins, and Naomi Williamson
Exeter University Queen’s Building – Senior Common Room
6.30pm – Free Event
Hannah Silva
As part of this year’s Exeter Poetry Festival, Beyond Borders on 4th October looks at the landscape of modern poetry, the supposed divisions between mainstream, experimental and performance poets and the characteristics and overlaps of their practices. Roddy Lumsden, Peter Finch and Hannah Silva will present samples of their work and then participate in a panel discussion chaired by Andy Brown. Simon Williams will introduce the evening and Waterstones will bring along a pop-up bookshop.
Roddy Lumsden
Is the division of contemporary poetic activity into ‘mainstream’, ‘performance’ and ‘experimental’ a useful mapping device? What are the aims and practices of poets in these differing areas, and how accurate or useful do they perceive the terms to be? in Beyond Borders, Roddy Lumsden, Hannah Silva and Peter Finch, all poets with a national reputation, will perform a sample of their work and debate the implications of labels in contemporary poetry. This is an event that promises to be as challenging and thought-provoking as it will be entertaining. Don’t miss out.
Exeter Poetry Festival 
