Hwaet!: 20 Years of Ledbury Poetry Festival

By Mark Fisher

Ledbury Poetry Festival celebrates its 20th birthday in July 2016.

Britain’s biggest and liveliest poetry festival happens over ten days each July in the Herefordshire market town of Ledbury. Poets from all over the world join audiences drawn from near and far for an annual celebration of poetry in England’s rural heartland. There are live readings, performances, workshops, open mics, music, exhibitions, films, family events, schools visits, street happenings, a slam, a poetry competition, and much more.

‘Hwaet!’ (rhyming with cat) is the opening word of the great Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf and other poems of that time. It means ‘Listen!’ or ‘How…’ or ‘So…’ – a calling for attention. Which is what hundreds of poets have been saying, both in their work as well as in numerous, highly memorable readings to Ledbury audiences over 20 years.

Mark Fisher was delighted to be asked to open the first Ledbury Poetry Festival in 1997 as Labour arts minister, and has maintained his support for the festival as an active Patron over many years. His anthology Hwaet! brings together 200 new poems by a wide range of poets who have delighted audiences at Ledbury Poetry Festival over 20 years as well as poems by some unforgettable visitors no longer with us who will always be remembered in Ledbury. Scattered between the poems are anecdotes contributed by poets and others offering a sense of the diverse flavour of an international poetry festival which is perhaps unusual in being created, nurtured and loved by the community in which it is based.

The two hundred poets saying ‘Hwaet!’ include writers from all parts of Britain and Ireland, from North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. They include writers who’ve been poet-in-residence or worked on popular community and schools projects in Ledbury along with winners of the Ledbury Poetry Competition.

‘A rare joining of place, poetry and people.’ – Carol Ann Duffy

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: Jul 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781780373140

Book preview

HWAET!

20 YEARS OF LEDBURY POETRY FESTIVAL

Ledbury Poetry Festival celebrates its 20th birthday in July 2016.

Britain’s biggest and liveliest poetry festival happens over ten days each July in the Herefordshire market town of Ledbury. Poets from all over the world join audiences drawn from near and far for an annual celebration of poetry in England’s rural heartland. There are live readings, performances, workshops, open mics, music, exhibitions, films, family events, schools visits, street happenings, a slam, a poetry competition, and much more.

‘Hwaet!’ (rhyming with cat) is the opening word of the great Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf and other poems of that time. It means ‘Listen!’ or ‘How…’ or ‘So…’ – a calling for attention. Which is what hundreds of poets have been saying, both in their work as well as in numerous, highly memorable readings to Ledbury audiences over 20 years.

Mark Fisher was delighted to be asked to open Ledbury Poetry Festival in 1998 as Labour arts minister, and has maintained his support for the festival as an active Patron over many years. His anthology Hwaet! brings together 200 new poems by a wide range of poets who have delighted audiences at Ledbury Poetry Festival over 20 years as well as poems by some unforgettable visitors no longer with us who will always be remembered in Ledbury. Scattered between the poems are anecdotes contributed by poets and others offering a sense of the diverse flavour of an international poetry festival which is perhaps unusual in being created, nurtured and loved by the community in which it is based.

The two hundred poets saying ‘Hwaet!’ include writers from all parts of Britain and Ireland, from North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. They include writers who’ve been poet-in-residence or worked on popular community and schools projects in Ledbury along with winners of the Ledbury Poetry Competition.

‘A rare joining of place, poetry and people.’ – Carol Ann Duffy

COVER PHOTOGRAPHS

: The cover shows poets reading at Ledbury Poetry Festival over the past 20 years. Clockwise, from left: Yang Lian, †Ko Un, Paul Muldoon, John Agard, †Michael Longley, Carol Ann Duffy, Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, †Naomi Shihab Nye, †Antonella Anedda, Sara-Jane Arbury, †Patience Agbabi, Adrian Mitchell, Jack Mapanje, Kazuko Hohki (© Harry Rook 2013), Ian McMillan, †Emily Berry, Fleur Adcock, †Benjamin Zephaniah. Photos either commissioned by Ledbury Poetry Festival or taken by †Neil Astley.

HWAET!

20 YEARS OF LEDBURY POETRY FESTIVAL

edited by

MARK FISHER

CONTENTS

Title Page

THE PEOPLE

Hwaet! Ledbury Poetry Festival

Adam Munthe A Foreword

Mark Fisher Introduction: Hwaet!

Chloe Garner A Festival of Generosity

Peter Arscott [comment]

John Burns [comment]

Martyn Moxon [comment]

Richard Surman [comment]

Peter Carter [comment]

Alan Lloyd [comment]

THE POETS

Robert Adamson The Long Bay Debating Society

Fleur Adcock The sleeping-bag

John Agard The Jester’s Eureka Moment

Patience Agbabi Museum (1590)

Fadhil al-Azzawi Unsuccessful Film

Maram Al-Massrifrom Barefoot Souls

Basem Al-Nabriss No cherries in Gaza

Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi Poem

Nick Alexander A Heron

Al Alvarez Night Life

Antonella Anedda [Untitled]

Sara-Jane Arbury The next train to depart from platform 2 is the 10.40 Central Trains service to Hereford. Calling at…

Simon Armitage The Subconscious

Nic Aubury Job description

Mona Arshi Seashells

Shakila Azizzada Kabul

Gabeba Baderoon The Song of the Husband

Jo Bell SBJ

Charles Bennett New Come Over

Emily Berry Drunken Bellarmine

Liz Berry Connemara

Sujata Bhatt A Neutral Country

Ruth Bidgood Enigma

Julia Bird The Preservation of Flowers

Eavan Boland Local History

Sean Borodale Otters

Alison Brackenbury Ninety-seven

Alan Brownjohn Making a Difference

John Burnside Midnight in Novosibirsk

Ciaran Carson Rain

Kayo Chingonyi In Defence of Darkness

Tom Chivers Fallout

Gillian Clarke Eisteddfod of the Black Chair

Billy Collins Our Poem

David Constantine Fields

Wendy Cope Orb

Julia Copus Grievers

Lorna Crozier The Underworld

Tadeusz Dąbrowski Nothing was made

Fred D’Aguiar Transit Lounge

Amir Darwish Fizzy Drink

Jim Dening A cold sun

Imtiaz Dharker Wolf, Words

Isobel Dixon Late Knowledge

Maura Dooley A bunch of consolation

Mark Doty In Two Seconds

Carol Ann Duffy 22 Reasons for the Bedroom Tax

Ian Duhig The Passion of the Holly

Helen Dunmore Ten Books

Douglas Dunn Botanics

Ali Cobby Eckermann Thunder raining poison

Jonathan Edwards Servant Minding a Seat for his Master Before a Performance of The Rivals, Covent Garden Theatre, 1775

Rhian Edwards The Gulls Are Mugging

Kristiina Ehin ‘This world…’

Menna Elfyn Gyrru trwy Gariad

Love rides high

Martín Espada How We Could Have Lived or Died This Way

Ruth Fainlight A Question for My Dead

Paul Farley Clever and Cold

Athena Farrokhzad Ask her

Vicki Feaver Pugilist

Elaine Feinstein The Last Trick of Harry Houdini

James Fenton The Revenant

Roy Fisher A Garden Leaving Home

S.J. Fowler Son of Ships

Angela France Cold Comfort

Annie Freud Cobra Mist

Forrest Gander Evaporation: a Border History

Azita Ghahreman The Boat That Brought Me

Vona Groarke This Being Still

Philip Gross The Day of the Things

Dominic Hale Song of the Midges

Sophie Hannah My Candle

Tony Harrison Black Sea Aphrodite

Graham Hartill Poem for Rob

Matt Harvey In Praise of Amateur Astronomers

Robert Hass An Argument about Poetics Imagined at Squaw Valley after a Night Walk under the Mountain

John Hegley A Villanelle for Mademoiselle

Paul Henry The White-leaved Oak

Selima Hill Owls

Brenda Hillman The Bride Tree Can’t Be Read

Jane Hirshfield You Go to Sleep in One Room and Wake in Another

Matthew Hollis Causeway

Liu Hongbin Voice

Adam Horovitz Fire-voices

Michael Horovitz For Felix Mendelssohn

Sarah Howe On a line by Xu Lizhi

Lesley Ingram Garter

Helen Ivory Wunderkammer with Weighing Scales and Hospital Bed

Sarah James The Man Who Raced Fire

Meirion Jordan Phaedo

Jenny Joseph Two Journeys

Doris Karevafrom Septachord

Kapka Kassabova It’s Always Strange to Sleep in Cities

Jackie Kay April Sunshine

Luke Kennard Balcony

Amy Key An Abecedary of Unrequited Love

Mimi Khalvati Glose: The Summer of Love, 1967

John Kinsella Playing Cricket at Wheatlands

Ko Un Little monk Ilyeon’s journey

Nick Laird The Good Son

Valerie Laws Lobotomy I: Walter Jackson Freeman II

Gwyneth Lewis Ornithology

Liz Lochhead Persimmons

Michael Longley The Snowdrops

Dave Lordan Tiger Blowjob

Hannah Lowe If You Believe: Old Paradise Street

Roddy Lumsden Objects at Rest

Roger McGough Aubade

Jamie McKendrick The Hunters

Lachlan Mackinnon WCW

Andrew McMillan last train

Ian McMillan He Finished Up Down Nine-clog Pit

Aonghas MacNeacail art, lived

Hollie McNish Dandelions

Nikola Madzirov The Cross of History

Valerio Magrelli Tombeau de Totò

Maitreyabandhu New Songs, Old Gladness

Bill Manhire 20 Stanzas in the Haunted House

Jack Mapanje Greetings from Grandpa

Glyn Maxwell Photos from Before

Samuel Menashe Reproduce!

Self Made

Repose

Awake

Time Out of Mind

Warm in Wool

Neil Astley In Praise of Samuel Menashe

Adrian Mitchell My Literary Career So Far

Anne Michaels Ask Aloud

Kei Miller The Weight of Bees

Reza Mohammadi Illegal Immigrant

Kim Moore The Scaffolder

Blake Morrison Meredith

Sinéad Morrissey The Rope

Helen Mort Mountain

Andrew Motion The Elimination of a Picture

Paul Muldoon With Eilmer of Malmesbury

Togara Muzanenhamo +49

Daljit Nagra The day Heaney died

Katrina Naomi Maybe Owls

Amjad Nasser Light

Grace Nichols Night

Tal Nitzán A Short History

Kiwao Nomura And then parade

Víctor Rodríguez Núñezfrom Stopover

Naomi Shihab Nye Good Night, Sleep Tight

Life Loves

Sean O’Brien Storm Beach

Bernard O’Donoghue Salmon

Sharon Olds A Mercy

Frank Ormsby The Willow Forest

Leanne O’Sullivan David Copperfield

Ruth Padel Encontro das Águas

Brian Patten The Minister for Exams

Pascale Petit My Wolverine

Clare Pollard In the Horniman Museum

Jacob Polley Jackself’s Quality

Katrina Porteous The Ain Sakhri Lovers

Craig Raine Bitch

Mohan Rana As the Past Approaches

Brenda Read-Brown How to make an angel smile

Peter Reading -273.15

Deryn Rees-Jonesfrom And You, Helen

Christopher Reid ’Twixt

Maurice Riordan Feet

Michael Symmons Roberts I Shake Out My Coat

Robin Robertson Beside Loch Iffrin

Michael Rosen People Run

Because My Parents Were Communists…

Hwaet!

Valérie Rouzeaufrom Vrouz

Philip Rush Dear Andrew

Kay Ryan The Market House, Ledbury

Lawrence Sail Lundy Headland

Fiona Sampson Harvest

Jacqueline Saphra Everlasting

Jane Satterfield Forfeit

Michael Schmidt I know the house of course

Jo Shapcott Almandine (Fanny’s ring)

Owen Sheers The Dark Seed

Penelope Shuttle The Penelopes

Hannah Silvafrom The Kathy Doll

Kathryn Simmonds Launceston

Ken Smith Days on Dog Hill

Karen Soliefrom The Caiplie Caves

Jean Sprackland lost/lust

Ruth Stacey Actions Speak

Anne Stevenson Winter Idyll from My Back Window

Gerda Stevenson Cat-like

Toni Stuart in a single breath

Phoebe Stuckes Little Song

Arundhathi Subramaniam Tongue

Matthew Sweeney Five Yellow Roses

George Szirtes What she told me about beauty

Machi Tawara Two Tanka

Fred Voss Fist-knock Future

Mark Waldron Yes I admit that I have ate

Philip Wells Reciting ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ at the Tower of London

Hugo Williams African nurses

Mick Wood The Freerunners

Karen McCarthy Woolf Up On the Hill

C.D. Wright The old business about form & content

Kit Wright Wilhelm

Luke Wright The Back Step

Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch Climbing Helvellyn

Peter Wyton Jack Mapanje Is Gobsmacked

Yang Lianfrom Narrative Poem

Jane Yeh A Short History of Migration

Gōzō Yoshimasu In Ledbury, I (who?) sang along with the bells, …..

Benjamin Zephaniah Things We Say

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

About the Editor

Copyright

THE PEOPLE

HWAET!

Ledbury Poetry Festival

Ledbury Poetry Festival came about because a group of poetry enthusiasts living in the town twenty years ago made it happen, and it has been able to flourish since then because of the support it has received over two decades from many more dedicated people, as trustees, patrons, volunteers or staff, and with much needed financial assistance from Arts Council England and regular sponsors including in particular the Pennington-Mellor-Munthe Charity Trust and The Elmley Foundation.

The six founding trustees were Peter Arscott, John Burns, Alan Lloyd, Margaret Rigby, Martyn Moxley and Richard Surman, with initial management by Blanca Rey Surman.

Charles Bennett was the first director to manage the creative programming in 2000. He was succeeded by the current artistic director, Chloe Garner, in 2006. Victoria Patch was the first festival manager in 2011, and was succeeded in 2015 by Phillippa Slinger. Sandra Dudley has been finance manager since 2010.

Key patrons have included Adam Munthe, benefactor and host of festival events at Hellens; Mark Fisher, who opened Ledbury Poetry Festival in 1998 as Labour arts minister; Ursula Owen and Juliet Stevenson.

The trustees are indebted also to numerous others who have helped the festival over the years, including all the visiting writers and performers, and most especially the people of Ledbury, who have not only wanted to come to the events but have helped as volunteers, accommodated poets in their homes and given over space in their shops and businesses to promote the festival.

ADAM MUNTHE

A Foreword

Perhaps man really dies when his brain stops, when he loses the capacity to take in a new idea.

GEORGE ORWELL

The writer’s task is to reshape an accurate and honest language that will permit communication…

THOMAS MERTON

Linguistic degeneration is both the product and the generator of economic and political decadence.

ROWAN WILLIAMS

So what’s poetry for again? Bath time with that echo from the water? For football matches, crude, rude, and noisy? For rap music and night clubs? For when you’re in the middle of nowhere, without mobile phone, and to remind yourself that you’re still there, that your voice is as strong as the wind, that you’re not alone? Or for a moment of space, stillness, when you recall someone’s clear voice whispering…and the magic of that whisper is concentrated into something close to perfection, and speaks to you, echoes in you, and in no one else! And also maybe because a rhyme is like music, and a rhythm gives you beat, pulse, the steps to somewhere else…?

So maybe poetry is for all these things…but first, what’s poetry made of? Sounds…language…words of course…but pulled, shaped, stretched, twisted, tortured, rearranged to maximise a thought, a feeling, a sense, a disturbance, from just one brain and heart; from just one person’s thinking, one man or woman’s passion…through to you, me, personally and directly.

And if it’s us – amateurs or professionals – doing the words, looking for the magic, attempting to write a piece of poetry, to encapsulate a thought, a moment, a joy – it’s the same, and the first principle, the first engagement has to be with ourselves. And this business of finding a voice is crucial – it’s what differentiates us from every other voice, and equally (no, more importantly) from the gang’s, the group’s, the mindless faceless fashionable herd’s voice!

And how do we develop this skill to be ourselves, to characterise our own voices, not just as poets but as mindful, independent human beings? I submit that firstly we must require and develop in ourselves a capacity to distinguish honesty, clarity, from subterfuge and obfuscation.

Let’s look at some examples: Language that is designed to be no one’s in particular, the language of bureaucracy, manifesto, mission, regulation, the language of much of public life, of commercial interests, tax evasion, human rights violation, dictatorship, terrorism …is the language of those whose interest is in avoiding communication and in avoiding argument. ‘That is a language that sets out to conceal and ignore…a language that wants to shrink the world… to what can be dealt with in the speaker’s terms alone’ (Rowan Williams).

The practice of open exchange, confronting assumptions, civil (not to mention polite) disagreement – in other words good thinking …speaking, writing – is meant to make the other pause and rethink; it insists that the world is larger than the ‘other’ thought… and is directed towards making a person see, and feel, and know more, not less! If we talk (and write) dishonestly, unanswerably, what we are doing is preparing for confrontation in its more terrible fancy dress; we are in effect preparing to reduce the ‘other’, for the annihilation of complexity and difference, for the elimination of humanity – ours and the other’s… and finally we are making it easy for the enemy! George Orwell puts it like this: the choice for mankind is between freedom and happiness, and for the great bulk of mankind happiness is better.

Finally all that defends us from absolute power, which is absolute stasis, are words…used with integrity. Their importance is incalculable. Our responsibility, consequently, to future generations must be to provide our children with the means, and freedom, to use language to grow their perspectives, their thoughts, and feelings, to the outer limits of their capacites.

Poets, more than philosophers, logicians, politicians and preachers, teach us to break out of our own barriers of conditioning, and conformity. Yes, they teach us to think outside the box, certainly; they also show us how to think for ourselves, to think with an individual voice, to concentrate our language, passion, intelligence, into the most powerful space possible, where the extraneous is abandoned, and where words become music, being, remembrance …and truer than true!

Last year our Ledbury Poetry Festival poets reached close to 3000 children in local schools in the West Midlands. We know from the Ofsted reports that vocabulary, articulation, and language skills are significantly improved where such an impetus is given. Words work of course! And real poets are essential to the process. They search and find the lies, and overturn their tricks; they paint images out of air, bring their truths to daylight with infinitely personal voices, add lilt to language with rhythm, rhyme, and a creative power which aims at the heart and soul of experience; and to a place where liberty is…and happiness! When poets teach us, and our children such freedoms, we can only offer gratitude.

Is there anything more important?

The limits of my language means the limits of my world.

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

(With gratitude to Rowan Williams!)

MARK FISHER

Introduction: Hwaet!

Over the past 20 years more than 550 poets have read at Ledbury, including poets from more than 35 countries.

This anthology attempts to bring together a representative selection of those poets, together with the memories, stories and comments of some of them.

The festival has always nurtured new and young writers, and worked extensively with schools. Last year we worked with nearly 3000 children. The poets who took part in this had a dramatic effect on children’s confidence, literacy and, of course, their writing ability: an effect noted by the Ofsted Inspectorate. The publication of this anthology will raise more funds to support the festival’s important educational work, and we would like to