Bloodaxe events at Ledbury Poetry 2024
The 2024 Ledbury Poetry Festival takes place from 28th June – 7th July 2024, with related events running throughout the year.
All booking links can be found on the What's On page of the Ledbury website here.
On Monday 13th May at 7pm, Philip Gross will host the online Ledbury Poetry Competition Winners Event, which he judged this year. There will be readings from the winners Anna Woodford, J.J. Starr-McClain, and Mark Fiddes. Philip Gross is the author of 28 books of poetry. His latest collection, The Shores of Vaikus, is published by Bloodaxe in November 2024. His previous collection, The Thirteenth Angel (2022), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2022.
IN-PERSON LEDBURY EVENTS WITH NEIL ASTLEY AND BLOODAXE POETS
Friday 28th June, 6pm
Reading by Jackie Kay
Community Hall, Ledbury, Herefordshire, HR8 1DW
Former Scottish Makar Jackie Kay will be reading from her new collection May Day, published by Picador. Jackie Kay's The Adoption Papers was published by Bloodaxe Books in 1991 and won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Darling: New and Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2007) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
Tickets: £10
Friday 28th June, 8pm
A celebration of the life and works of Benjamin Zephaniah, hosted by Neil Astley
Burgage Hall, Ledbury, Herefordshire, HR8 1DW
Following the death of Benjamin Zephaniah last year, join his publisher, Neil Astley of Bloodaxe Books, and poets appearing at the Festival to celebrate the phenomenal and much loved poet who entertained, moved and inspired so many readers, listeners and writers.
Tickets: Standard £10 / Friends £5
Sunday 30 June, 4pm
Fleur Adcock reading and in conversation with Neil Astley
Community Hall, Ledbury, Herefordshire, HR8 1DW
Fleur Adcock celebrated her 90th birthday with the publication of her Collected Poems by Bloodaxe Books, and she appears for this unmissable reading and in conversation with her editor for over 55 years, Neil Astley. Recipient of an OBE and The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, Fleur Adcock’s poised, ironic poems are remarkable for their wry wit, conversational tone and psychological insight, unmasking the deceptions of love or unravelling family lives. Touching on identity, roots and rootlessness, memory and loss, animals and dreams, nature and place.
Tickets: £10
Sunday 30 June, 6pm
Lucasta Miller on Keats
Burgage Hall, Ledbury, Herefordshire, HR8 1DW
Bloodaxe Books editor Neil Astley will be hosting this event with eminent biographer Lucasta Miller, who excavates Keats’ backstories in her 2023 book Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph, published by Vintage.
Tickets: £10
Friday 5 July, 6pm
Imtiaz Dharker Reading and Interview with Clae Eastgate
Community Hall, Ledbury, Herefordshire, HR8 2AE
Shadow Reader is a new collection by Imtiaz Dharker, who holds a Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Published in 2024, it is a radiant criss-cross of encounters, messages and Punjabi proverbs, shot through with the dark thread of an unwelcome prophecy. Witty wise profound and moving. Dharker is an artist poet who illustrates all her collections. She will read and appear in conversation with artist Clae Eastgate whose gorgeous portrait of Imtiaz was a highlight of a recent exhibition at Ledbury Poetry House.
Tickets: £10
Saturday 6th July, 10am
Poet Encounters: Paul Muldoon and Imtiaz Dharker
Community Hall, Ledbury, Herefordshire, HR8 2AE
Two of the world’s leading poets, Imtiaz Dharker and Paul Muldoon meet in conversation ranging across themes including history, myth, happiness, anger, awe, elegy, grief, migration, religious strife, exile and working across art forms. They will weave poems of their own and by poets dear to them, hosted by Bloodaxe Books editor Neil Astley.
Tickets: £10
Booking links for all of these events can be found on the What's On page of the Ledbury website here.
[01 May 2024]
