The evening will be headlined by Grevel Lindop, a poet who has published seven collections of poems, most recently Luna Park (2015), and is also a biographer - most recently, with Charles Williams: The Third Inkling (2015). He has travelled in Latin America (his Travels on the Dance Floor was shortlisted as Best Travel Book, 2009) and represented the UK at the Granada, Nicaragua Poetry Festival in 2013.
There will also be a reading from the new Suffolk Poetry Society President Kate Foley, a widely published, prize-winning poet who has read in many UK and European locations. Her first book, Soft Engineering, was short listed for best first collection at Aldeburgh. Her working life has ranged from delivering babies to conserving delicate archaeological material. She was Head of English Heritage’s scientific and technical research laboratories and although she has always written poetry it wasn’t until she gave up the day job that she began to publish more widely. She now lives with her wife, between Amsterdam and Suffolk, where she performs, writes, edits, leads workshops and whenever possible works with artists in other disciplines. Her 10th collection, A Gift of Rivers, came out in 2018 with Arachne Press.
Antony Johae will give a short talk, and there will be a musical interlude where six poems by James Knox Whittet form a song cycle Islands of Love, which has been set to music by Colin Whyles and will be performed by Lynne Nesbit and Colin Whyles. There will also be readings from Suffolk Poetry Society members Pam Job and Rob Lock. During the afternoon there will be readings by poets from various poetry cafés from all over the county: Pinky’s Café from Halesworth, Felixstow Café poets, Arlington's Café Poets from Ipswich, Poetry Aloud from Bury St Edmunds, Bungay and Blyth Poets and New Words: Fresh Voices from Lowestoft. Michael Laskey will enlighten us with two thoughtful, critical close readings from poems.
The afternoon session concludes with the poetry open mic, where anyone can sign up to take the stage.
