Attending the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival is habit forming. Last
year I went to Aldeburgh for the first time and went again this year. By
now there are many blog posts out there and I’m aware I’m adding to the list,
but it takes me a while to process things. For example, last year I was
thinking about some of the events and readings ages after they’d happened. This
year I’m already looking back to some astounding readings by Helen Mort, Kei
Miller and Kim Addonizio, but also poets I wasn’t so familiar with like Valerie
Rouzeau, Dorothea Smart, Michael McCarthy, Choman Hardi, Peter Sirr and Christine Webb. Perhaps that’s one of the draws of this
particular festival, is that you go to discover new things rather to confirm
what you know. Both years I’ve felt as if gained a great deal by going. It’s
not near where I live, so there must be a special reason for travelling all
that distance to get there. And yes, it wasn’t easy travelling through Friday rush hour
and missing the first few events. But as soon I arrived I went straight to
Snape on the bus and got on with it all.
Unlike last year, I hadn’t brought any
advance tickets, which was useful, as I would’ve missed things, but I found I could get my tickets quickly enough anyway. I went to Kim
Addonizio’s close reading of a Don Patterson poem and conversation between John
Burnside and Helen Macdonald on language and nature. It was all a bit of a rush and I had to eat
my sandwiches like a schoolkid during Kim’s talk, but no one seemed to mind.
I saw lots of people I knew and settled in quickly. The main reading was a real highlight; I went to the main reading with Helen
Mort, Kei Miller and Jeremy Reed. I should say Jeremy likes glitter. He was
throwing it around as he read. He said he ‘likes glamour’ at poetry readings. Very memorable. I knew the readers would be good, but I didn’t realise how good. At
the beginning of the event, Andrew McMillan was awarded the Alderburgh first
collection prize for Physical which
I’d recently reviewed for The Compass.
Afterwards I got the bus back, ended up in The Crosskeys with various people and
then got lost on the way home. It’s very dark in Suffolk.
Next morning I woke up and listened to the seagulls. I
brought a few going home presents for the twins and got a lift to Snape with
Carole Bromley and her husband. It was a really full day. Even if people don’t
stay for the whole three days, then Saturday is the day when most people seem
to overlap. In general, one of the amazing things is how you meet people who
actually exist in real life, not just on screen or in print. It was a pleasure to meet people in the flesh like
Josephine Corcoran, Robin Houghton and John McCullough. There were so many others too.That’s
another reason for going, it's nice to chat with people you only meet on a screen or in letters. Mainly the
conversation revolved about the poetry and feeling overwhelmed - in a good way - by all the
poety things going on. I went to a great main reading and the Open Workshop,
ambitious to say the least with a roomful of about - who knows- seventy people
there. I had a bit of a break in the
middle of the day and I’d recommend leaving Snape for a bit and having a walk
around the marshes and surrounding countryside for a breather. I also made good
use of the second hand book stall and The
Rialto one, and ended up buying, among other things, many copies of seminal
poetry publication Joe Soap’s Canoe. Even though it’s all on-line, it’s good
to have the real thing.
Then back for more craft talks, coversations and readings. A
word on the main readings, they are one hour forty-five minutes long – yes
really. There’s usually a break of 15 minutes or so. I have to say and I really
mean this, they don’t feel like one
hour forty-five minutes. Honestly. The poetry’s top notch. I loved listening to Valérie Rouzeau reading in French, she had a gentle, charismatic presence. Kim
Addonizio was incredibly entertaining, she played the harmonica and in homage to Jeremy Reed threw
petals over her head. She also had time for a little drama. She asked three
male volunteers to come up to the stage and be her backing chorus of, erm, male
appendages. I was sitting next to Roy Marshall who bounced up to the stage,
good for him. If I were a man, I could have been an appendage too. It made
everything very lively and John Burnside was going to have a tough act to
follow. I didn’t think he’d be quite my thing at first, but I enjoyed listening
to him and his reading rounded off the evening for me. He also had a good sense
of humour and knew how to follow after Kim. Another thing that struck me is
that the organisers must be pretty damn good to choose readers who can make the
most of their readings. This was Ellen McAteer's first year as director of the festival, but due to a family matter was unable to come. Nevertheless it all ran like clockwork.
 |
| Festival Photo of the Audience |
Then back to Aldeburgh on the coach that the festival put on. Instead of going back to the B&B
it was a mild evening (yes really for November) I went for a walk along the
sea front, sat on a bench and phoned home. It was so dark. You could see lots of
stars but I didn’t walk into the water or anything so that was ok. I was in a
lovely B&B. I always meet a few people who tell me about the festival when it was all by the seaside, but I tried to make the most of being near the beach this year. That night I stayed up late and leafed through my various purchases. Then
ZZZs. Then morning, seagull cries and breakfast. Then 4 hour drive home past
the Llama farm and some mysterious Suffolk villages.
I was sorry
not to stay for the Sunday, but it’s amazing I was able to squeeze it in at all
with work and family. There were quite a few more things I would've liked to have attended. I did manage to photograph some of the twins’ teddies on
the beach before driving home, to provide photographic evidence for the girls that Owl and Giraffey had
indeed been to the seaside. I was still buoyant from the festival and didn’t
care how silly I looked. If you were there wondering, yes that was me.
