The List

Burgage Hall

What's On @ Burgage Hall

Versopolis Poets: Hamed Abboud & Bejan Matur
Over the years, our Versopolis events have allowed us to showcase some incredible international poets. This year is no exception, as we present a double bill of Hamed Abboud, originally from the Republic of Syria, andBejan Matur, a Kurdish-Alevi poet from Turkey. While their styles and subjects differ, there are inescapable parallels in their experiences and in the themes that emerge in the stories they tell. Weekend Pass Event Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Poets Prosing: Caleb Klaces & Kayo Chingonyi
Why and how do poets start prosing? Is there something singularly poetic about how poets approach writing prose? Award-winning poets Caleb Klaces, author of the novels Fatherhood (Prototype) and Mr Outside (Prototype), and Kayo Chingonyi, author of memoir Prodigal: A Memoir of Healing and Return (Fourth Estate) have recently turned to writing prose on themes of fathers and sons, illness and loss, home and belonging, immigration and climate change, political and personal catastrophe, and, ultimately, the power of poetry and love. Weekend Pass Event Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Pleasure: University of Liverpool Kenneth Allott Lecture / Poetry Society Summer Lecture
In 1802, William Wordsworth was already worried like us about that craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication" enabled by new technologies hourly gratifies. Poetry could speak more truly of the great national events which are daily taking place, by activating the grand elementary principle of pleasure by which we know, feel, live and move. Is pleasure different to escapism? Join Ledbury Poetry Critics co-founderVidyan Ravinthiran as he explores this. Vidyans latest books are Asian/Other: Life, Poems, and the Problem of Memoir , and Avidya . Live-streamed on Vimeo also Kindly sponsored by the University of Liverpool & The Poetry Society
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Tiny Revolutions: Nuar Alsadir & Sandeep Parmar
Every joke is a tiny revolution, wrote George Orwell. Sandeep Parmar andNuar Alsadir explore how language and art can disrupt the established order. In their work, both in poetry and prose ranging over modernism and psychoanalysis they show how small acts of resistance can spark change. Weekend Pass Event Live-streamed on Vimeo also Supported by the Hawthornden Foundation
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Archiving The Body: Yousif M. Qasmiyeh & Shash Trevett
The body holds memory, just as poetry holds history. Shash Trevett andYousif M. Qasmiyeh explore displacement, violence, and survival, writing from the histories past and present of Tamil and Palestinian peoples. Their work considers how poetry can bring the archive to life, making the past present and the faraway close. Weekend Pass Event Live-streamed on Vimeo also Supported by the Hawthornden Foundation Kindly sponsored by Ethos + John Burns
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Excavations & Elevations: Nisha Ramayya & Geraldine Monk
Nisha Ramayya andGeraldine Monk unearth buried voices and lift them into new forms, exploring poetry as ritual and transformation. Their work moves between the material and the mystical, tracing pathways through history to reimagine the present. Weekend Pass Event Live-streamed on Vimeo also Supported by the Hawthornden Foundation
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Nightshade Mother & First Rain In Paradise: Gwyneth Lewis
Wales's first National Poet, Gwyneth Lewis MBE, shares readings from her memoir Nightshade Mother and her new collection First Rain in Paradise . With her characteristic blend of technical brilliance and disarming candour, Lewis explores the impact of childhood abuse, and the powerful tendrils it wraps around a life. While trauma might be the starting point, Gwyneths work is often joyful, and leads, like a veritable Pandoras box, to hope. Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Judith Kiros

Judith Kiros

30 Jun 2025 - 30 Jun 2025

Join Swedish poet Judith Kiros as she reads from her latest collection O , in conversation with Kayo Chingonyi. O revisits characters and stories that feel familiar, like Othello and Julian of Norwich, through a fresh lens; one which challenges the boundaries of genre, gender, and race. Supported by the Swedish Arts Council in collaboration with the Embassy of Sweden, UK as part of their Stories From Sweden programme Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Helen Ivory & Martin Figura

Helen Ivory & Martin Figura

30 Jun 2025 - 30 Jun 2025

Helen Ivory and Martin Figura read from their latest books. Constructing a Witch (Bloodaxe), a PBS Recommendation, tackles the fear and denigration of ageing women whilst advocating for a womanhood that is as "mutable as the day is long -Jo Clement. The Remaining Men (Cinnamon Press) not only Martin's finest book but one of the best you are likely to read this year. humane, clear-eyed, and compassionate without the least sentimentality. - George Szirtes Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Matt Howard & Rachel Bower: The Birds and the Bees
The poems of Matt Howards Broadlands are grounded in the reedbeds, meadows and marshes of the Norfolk Broads. They are closely and thrillingly observed from real encounters, inviting us closer to the more-than-human world, its violence, fragility and wonder. Yet the human is evermore present; here too are poems of intimacy, love and grief. Joining Matt is Rachel Bower who will read from Bee , a beautiful collection of eighteen poems exploring the ancient and complicated relationship of help and harm between bees and humans, from Stone Age honey hunters to modern beekeepers. Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Ledbury Poetry Competition Winners Event
Competition judge, Maya C. Popa, will host this celebration of the winners of Ledbury Poetry Competition 2024, who were selected from over a thousand entries. Mark Fiddes, Molly Twomey andAlicia Rebecca Myers will share their winning poems and more. Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Maya C. Popa

Maya C. Popa

2 Jul 2025 - 2 Jul 2025

Join award winning poetMaya.C Popa as she reads new work from her upcoming release. Live-streamed on Vimeo also Kindly sponsored by Nigel & Alison Falls
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Casey Bailey, Music & Poetry

Casey Bailey, Music & Poetry

2 Jul 2025 - 2 Jul 2025

Former Birmingham Poet Laureate,Casey Bailey describes himself as a poet and conscientious rapper. Casey performs poetry and music which tells the stories of the community he loves, with his music and his poetry rooted in his unshakeable belief in fairness. Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Coleridge & Keats: John Whale

Coleridge & Keats: John Whale

3 Jul 2025 - 3 Jul 2025

Part of the curriculum for as long as anyone can remember, Coleridge and Keats position among the Canon of the Romantics is irrefutable. But are they still relevant today?Professor John Whale, Professor of the Romantics at the University of Leeds, offers a decidedly fresh perspective on two of our most familiar poets. Hosted by Zaffar Kunnial. Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Louise Glck: A Past Poet Panel

Louise Glck: A Past Poet Panel

4 Jul 2025 - 4 Jul 2025

American poetLouise Glck passed away in 2023. For a poet so dedicated to privacy and hermeticness, Glck garnered nearly every award a poet can win, with a capstone on her career arriving in 2020, when she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature; the first time an American woman won the award since Toni Morrison in the 1993. How did these quiet, often classical poems that meditated on myth, grief, love, and death, elevate her to a poetic force and household name over a 60-year career? And what are the lasting of effects of work in the practice of contemporary poets today? In this panel, three contemporary poets take on these questions and think about the lasting legacy of her momentous career. Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Ruth Padel & Karen Downs-Barton

Ruth Padel & Karen Downs-Barton

4 Jul 2025 - 4 Jul 2025

In Girl ,Ruth Padel offers a fresh and questioning look at girlhood and its icons. Across a triptych of sequences, Ruth Padel unravels the millennia of myth woven around girls. Karen Downs-Bartons Minx reveals the vibrant but precarious world of a multi-racial Romani family. Uplifting and heart-breaking; a lyrical evocation of a childhood on the edge of society that marks the arrival of a vital new voice. Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Richard Scott & Romalyn Ante

Richard Scott & Romalyn Ante

4 Jul 2025 - 4 Jul 2025

At first glance, Richard Scotts debut That Broke Into Shining Crystals and Romalyn Antes second collection AGIMAT have little in common. But in very different ways, both offer searing reflections on how we fracture, suffer, and ultimately possess the tools to heal. Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Ellen Cranitch & Isabelle Baafi

Ellen Cranitch & Isabelle Baafi

5 Jul 2025 - 5 Jul 2025

Without question, lifes undulations and curve-balls change who we are and the course we chart. But who gets to determine who we become, as trauma and experience shape us? In Ellen Cranitchs Crystal and Isabelle Baafis Chaotic Good , we see, through very different narratives, the unfolding stories of two women staking their claim to self-determination. One not to miss! Weekend Pass Event Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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BBC Live Recording Of The Verb

BBC Live Recording Of The Verb

5 Jul 2025 - 5 Jul 2025

Ledbury Poetry hosts a special edition of BBC Radio 4s AdVerb. Presenter Ian McMillan is joined by poets Jackie Kay, Hollie McNish and Michael Pedersen who will be reading from their own work.
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Oluwaseun Olayiwola & Nick Makoha

Oluwaseun Olayiwola & Nick Makoha

5 Jul 2025 - 5 Jul 2025

Strange Beach is the debut collection fromOluwaseun Olayiwola. Intimate and erotic, ecological and philosophical, these poems illuminate the body as a porous landscape across which existential dramas, filial fractures and sexual reckonings occur. Nick Makohas The New Carthaginians is a poetry collection of staggering originality: a work by an author at the height of his powers, in which the familiar Western canons of art, history and philosophy are prised apart and reassembled in a new configuration. Weekend pass event Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Poetry Society New Poets Showcase: Tom Bailey, Freya Bantiff & Maureen Onwunali
Three exciting new poets recognised through Poetry Society talent development programmes: the National Poetry Competition, Canham Prize and Foyle Young Poets Award. Tom Bailey is based in Edinburgh. His debut pamphlet Please Do Not Touch or Feed the Horses , won the Poetry London Pamphlet Prize. Climate-concerned Sheffield poet Freya Bantiff won the Poetry Business New Poets Prize with her pamphlet All Appear Ordinary . Maureen Onwunali is a Dublin-born Nigerian poet, author of the pamphlet Homegrown , and two-time National Slam champion. Weekend Pass Event Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Maria Barnas, "Night Boat and Other Poems"
Join Dutch poet and visual artist, Maria Barnas, as she reads from Night Boat and Other Poems . Marias work has been described as contemplative, musical poetry. Desperate and humorous, powerful and brittle, with a transparency that gets more complex on re-reading. Supported by the Dutch Foundation for Literature/Nederlands Letterenfonds as part of their New Dutch Writing programme Weekend Pass Event Live-streamed on Vimeo also Kindly sponsored by Words Without Borders
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Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife

Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife

6 Jul 2025 - 6 Jul 2025

In this literary detective story,Francesca Wade delves into the creation of the Stein myth. Stein was someone who might be found posing for Picasso, playing host to Matisse and Hemmingway, or racing around the French countryside with her enigmatic partner, Alice B. Toklas, yet wanted to be known for her work not her personality. Using never-before-seen material, Wade uncovers Gertrude Stein as she was when nobody was watching: captivating, complex and human. Weekend Pass Event Live-streamed on Vimeo also Kindly sponsored by Viv Arscott
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Jasmine Gardosi

Jasmine Gardosi

6 Jul 2025 - 6 Jul 2025

Jasmine Gardosi is the current Birmingham Poet Laureate and a multiple slam champion, beatboxer and Honorary Doctor of Letters (Birmingham Newman University). She is a winner of the Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry and winner of the Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Performer. Jasmine's performances are touching and engaging, dealing with emotive personal subjects such as mental health and gender identity in a way that compels the audience to come along for the journey. Live-streamed on Vimeo also
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Alice Oswald

Alice Oswald

3 Jul 2025 - 3 Jul 2025

AlthoughAlice Oswald is an award winning poet and was the previous Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford, she has been described as one of the most important poets writing in Britain today, and also one of the most elusive. We are delighted to welcome Alice back to Ledbury for this unique event. Hosted by Zaffar Kunnial. Live-streamed on Vimeo also Photo credit David Levenson
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Oh Big Blue: Peter Oswald

Oh Big Blue: Peter Oswald

3 Jul 2025 - 3 Jul 2025

In Oh Big Blue, Peter Oswald presents poetry written by Palestinian children aged 9-17 years, which has been created through the work of the Hands Up Project. Hosted by Zaffar Kunial
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Doing Dante Differently: Two Performances: Philip Terry & Kimberly Campanello
Philip Terry and Kimberly Campanello do Dantes Commedia differently. Terrys Inferno and Purgatorio (Carcanet) take Essex as the setting and Ted Berrigan as the poet's guide. The threads of Campanellos This Knot (Poetry Ireland Review, Still Point) radiate from her birthplace in Elkhart, Indiana, traditional lands of the Potawatomi, to Volturara Appula (Italy), and her experience of Parkinsons. Their performances mutate and version Dantes text, dramatizing its key concerns: How should we treat each other? What is knowledge for? What moves the universe, and therefore, us? Weekend Pass Event Live-streamed on Vimeo also Kindly sponsored by Sir Roy Strong
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Poetry & Transformation: Sascha Akhtar & Kimberly Campanello
The notion that poetry and language itself are transformative and capable of creating change, is vital, cross-cultural and ancient. Sascha Aurora Akhtar ( Grimoire of Grimalkin , Prototype) and Kimberly Campanello ( An Interesting Detail , Bloomsbury) take an expansive approach to this process ritually recognising the non-linear logics of change in poems that futureproof and retrofit, dive and resurface, spiral and collide, loop and rest, inviting us to dream and wake up. Weekend Pass Event Live-streamed on Vimeo also Kindly sponsored by Jo Kingham
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Poetry, Passion and Painting: The Pre-Raphaelites
In nineteenth century Britain, the challenge for ambitious artists was simple how to create modern English art that would be equivalent to that of great civilisations of the past. Using painting and poetry, this lecture fromMichael Howard allows us to see the art of this period in a new light and will include poetry from Shakespeare, Keats and Rossetti. The interaction between the poetry and much-loved Pre-Raphaelite paintings will present an unexpected way of enjoying both. Kindly sponsored by The Arts Society Hereford
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Feel Everything!: Ruth Stacey

Feel Everything!: Ruth Stacey

30 Jun 2025 - 30 Jun 2025

Pamela Colman Smith was an artist, writer, occultist, and creator of the iconic images we still associate with tarot today. Join award-winning poetRuth Stacey as she tells Smith's remarkable story through this exquisite "imagined memoir" of poetry. Perfect for anyone interested in forgotten female pioneers and stories that bring history into the present. Live-streamed on Vimeo also Kindly sponsored by JB Gaynan and Son & The Juice Collection
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