Bloodaxe Books at Poetry in Aldeburgh 2026
This year's Poetry in Aldeburgh festival takes place 5 - 8 November and includes several events featuring Bloodaxe poets and books. Event tickets, including Festival Passes, are available on the festival website here.
Friday 6 November, 3.15pm
Versus Versus: Disability, Identity and Resistance with Rachael Boast and Dean Atta, Anthony Vahni Capildeo and Karl Knights
Celebrating the landmark Versus Versus anthology, which presents 100 poems by deaf, disabled and neurodivergent poets, editor Rachael Boast will be joined by Dean, Anthony and Karl, who will be reading their own work as well as poems from other contributors.
Supported by the Suffolk Book League
Friday 6 November, 7.30pm
Beauty in the Teeth of Extinction
Acclaimed poets Anthony Vahni Capildeo, David Morley and Clare Shaw read poems and discuss how the natural world shapes their thinking and poetics. Supported by Clare Best.
Clare Shaw's fourth collection Towards a General Theory of Love was published by Bloodaxe in 2022 and won a Northern Writers' Award for work in progress. Towards a General Theory of Love follows Flood, Clare Shaw's eye-witness account of the devastating floods in Britain that left whole swathes of the country submerged, including their home town of Todmorden.
Saturday 7 November, 9.30am
WORSKHOP - Be Like the Magpie: Collage Poems with Helen Ivory
Collage creates order out of chaos; it’s a method of divination and a playful way into the unconscious. When you cut words from their original source and juxtapose them with other found texts and images, they create new spells. Materials will be provided, but please bring anything of your own you’d like to include in your collage, or any of your own poems you wish to incorporate.
Helen Ivory’s sixth collection Constructing a Witch, published in 2024, fixes on the monstering and the scapegoating of women and on the fear of ageing femininity. The witch appears as the barren, child-eating hag; she is a lustful seductress luring men to a path of corruption; she is a powerful or cantankerous woman whose cursing must be silenced by force. The collection includes ten collages by Helen Ivory. Constructing a Witch is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
Saturday 7 November, 9.45am
Words for All: Reading & Mass Workshop with Kim Moore and Clare Shaw
Poets Kim Moore and Clare Shaw will start the morning by reading a selection of their own work, and then lead the audience in a mass workshop in the spirit of their popular Daily Writing Hour series. Whether you’ve never written a poem or published 10 collections, either way you’ll get something from this immersive and fun session.
Saturday 7 November, 11:30am
World to World: Translatings
Three renowned writers – Flemish poet Charlotte Van den Broeck, Naush Sabah, a British poet of South Asian heritage, and poet and translator Don Mee Choi from South Korea – will range across language(s), place and cultures. Each poet will read their work, followed by a discussion chaired by Fiona Moore. Charlotte Van den Broeck's festival appearance is supported by Flanders Literature as part of their Flip Through Flanders programme.
After first making her mark as a compelling performer, Belgian poet Charlotte Van den Broeck was acclaimed as one of Europe’s most innovative and original new voices in poetry. She has published three previous collections of poetry, Kameleon (2015), which was awarded the Herman de Coninck debut prize for poetry by a Flemish author; Nachtroer (2017), which was nominated for the VSB Poetry Prize 2018 and the Ida Gerhard Prize; and Aarduitwrijvingen (2021). The first two volumes are combined in Chameleon | Nachtroer, translated from the Dutch by David Colmer (Bloodaxe Books, 2020). David Colmer's translation of her third collection Aarduitwrijvingen was published by Bloodaxe in 2025 under the title The Inside of a Stone.
Saturday 7 November, 3.30pm
Close Reading: Charlotte Van den Broeck and Camille Ralphs
In this close reading event, poets Camille Ralphs and Charlotte Van den Broeck choose favourite poems which are infinite in their scope and power. Charlotte Van den Broeck’s festival appearance is supported by Flanders Literature as part of their Flip Through Flanders programme.
Sunday 8 November, 11.30am
Fire Burn: The Poetry of Witchcraft with Helen Ivory, Camille Ralphs and Rebecca Tamás
Jump into the cauldron with three of our foremost poetic explorers and interpreters of witches and witchcraft for what promises to be a set of spellbinding readings. Hosted by Alison Brackenbury.
Helen Ivory’s collection Constructing a Witch was published by Bloodaxe in 2024.
[17 July 2026]
