After a year of great uncertainty, we’re very glad (and relieved) to let you know that we have been awarded significant Grants for the Arts Lottery funding to back the transformational development of the Festival over the next three years. The 24th Aldeburgh Poetry Festival will definitely go ahead, so you can ink the weekend of 2–4 November 2012 in your diary today.

Now that the Arts Council has endorsed our exciting plans for the Festival’s future, we can share them with you. After a decade of being more or less at capacity, we’ve been given the green light to expand into glorious new venues – Aldeburgh Music’s superb facilities at Snape Maltings.

This year the main readings will take place in the beautiful Britten Studio which seats 340. And the craft talks, close readings, discussions and other events will be spread across several similarly high quality spaces – holding 60 to 125 – on the Snape campus. More room to welcome more people to the Festival. There’ll be a big foyer area just for the bookstall and, at last, a dedicated place for food, drink and conversation: a real Poetry Festival café with views across the Suffolk marshes.

Expanding to Snape is the natural development of our relationship with Aldeburgh Music. Together we’ve already presented nine triumphant Poetry Proms – bringing audiences of 800 for live poetry each summer – and now it’s time for this same partnership to deliver an unrivalled poetry experience each autumn.

Rest assured, the spirit of the Festival and its unique format won’t change. The same programming team is still in charge and we can guarantee the customary fresh line-up of brilliant poets from all over the world. And we’re definitely not abandoning Aldeburgh. Each day will start and finish in our traditional Peter Pears Gallery and James Cable Room venues. We’re sure that most of the audience – and certainly all our Festival poets – will continue to stay in the town. That’s why we’ll be running a free shuttle bus service between Aldeburgh and Snape (a 10-15 minute trip) throughout the weekend. Because we know that part of the Festival magic will always include walks on the shingle, fish and chips on the sea wall, browsing in the Aldeburgh Bookshop.

We’ll certainly keep you in the picture about what’s happening in this momentous year. We’re making a short film to introduce the Snape locations and to explain more about the Festival’s next chapter – available in June via our website and on YouTube. We’re launching a new Festival Friends scheme in the summer – with a range of new benefits on offer. And of course the full Festival programme will be coming your way in August.

Do join us this November for the unmissable Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in its exceptional new setting. The best place for the best words.

The Poetry Trust has recently secured three-year Arts Council Lottery funding to expand its flagship annual international Aldeburgh Poetry Festival into Aldeburgh Music’s Snape Maltings campus. This transformational development will create more space for more people across a wider range of venues.

Your key task will be to generate new audiences for the Festival, and also to promote the range of associated activities: The Poetry Paper, The Poetry Channel, the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and The Poetry Prom.

You’ll be a creative thinker with strong strategic planning and effective management and delivery experience, someone capable of inspiring others locally, nationally and globally to get passionate about poetry.

Based in Halesworth, Suffolk this is a freelance contract for 40 days in 2012/13 for a fee of £5k plus expenses, annually renewable for three years.

To apply, please send CV with covering letter. Applications close Monday 21 May. For more details please download this pdf.

1) Office Administrator (part-time)

We need someone unflappable, forward-thinking, IT-confident, literate, numerate and possessed of an exceptional passion for order.

You will be responsible for the day-to-day organisation of The Poetry Trust office in Halesworth, undertaking a range of clerical and administrative tasks, as well as supporting the fundraising, marketing and business planning activities. We’re looking for someone with excellent communication and presentation skills who enjoys working as part of a very small team where flexibility is key. You will need IT skills and be competent in using Microsoft Office together with experience of using databases. Ideally you will have a background of working in the arts and an interest in contemporary poetry.

12 hours per week spread over 3 days / £10 per hour (£19,500 pro rata)

Applications by Friday 11 May. For full job description & further details please download this pdf.

2) Freelance Fundraiser (Individual Giving)

We are currently inviting applications for a freelance contract to deliver new strategies for individual giving and to maintain relationships with donors and supporters. The major task will be to develop a new Friends scheme. We are urgently seeking a dynamic professional with fundraising flair and expertise. A background in individual giving and an understanding of the cultural / not-for-profit sector is essential.

Based in Halesworth, Suffolk, this is a freelance contract for 40 days in 2012/13 for a fee of £5k plus expenses, annually renewable for three years.

Applications by Monday 21 May. For full details and how to apply please download this pdf.

If you would like an informal conversation about either of the above please contact us or give us a call on 01986 835950.

Imtiaz Dharker describes herself as a “Scottish Pakistani Calvinist Muslim who grew up in Glasgow, was adopted by India and also (through marriage) Wales.” With warmth, candour and a lifelong experience of cultural displacement, she investigates what it means to belong. Stripping away prejudice and preconception, she offers real hope. And in the face of violence and injustice, she discovers we can grow more inclusive, bigger-hearted.

Paul Durcan’s charisma and legendary vitality raise readings to the level of high drama. Described by fellow Irishman Seamus Heaney as “one of the most original and undaunted imaginations at work”, he’s published more than 20 collections over the past 45 years. Elegies for friends, political protests, praise poems for the everyday heroism of truckers, air-traffic controllers and nurses, and indomitable accounts of love won and lost. Heartbreaking and hilarious.

Marie Howe is an indispensable American voice. She writes from necessity, to make sense of her life – childhood abuse, her brother’s death from AIDS, 21st century materialism, friendship and late motherhood. “We’re all living and dying at the same time – and we all walk around with that poignant knowledge inside us.” Her poems are by turn many things: thought-provoking, courageous, shocking, healing, celebratory, funny. And above all, relevant and beautifully truthful.

The tenth Poetry Prom is part of The Poetry Trust’s ongoing partnership with Aldeburgh Music, and takes place in the beautiful Snape Maltings Concert Hall. We really hope to see you there.

Performance suitable for adults and teenagers.

Tickets £14, £12, £10, Prom £6.50
(General booking opens Wednesday 13 June)

In partnership with   

Sponsored by   

Marie Howe’s participation funded by

In addition to the cash award (£1,000), the Aldeburgh prize carries two incalculable benefits for the winner: a fee-paying invitation to read at the following year’s Festival, plus a unique week’s paid protected writing time on the inspirational East Suffolk coast. No other poetry prize makes such a tangible investment in new talent. Entry details are here.

Winner of last year’s prize, Nancy Gaffield, who’ll be taking her place in the line-up at the 24th Aldeburgh Poetry Festival (2–4 November 2012), was astonished at her win last autumn. “For me, Tokaido Road was a book that just had to be written: how it would be received was a complete unknown. I never imagined that it would achieve such recognition. Aldeburgh attracts support from so many distinguished poets and commands so much respect, that I could not have wished for a better reception for my work.”

It’s available now at The Poetry Channel, along with six Festival 2011 podcasts: Robert Seatter’s conversations with Fleur Adcock, Jane Draycott, Maurice Riordan and Chris Wallace-Crabbe, plus new Poem Shows. Here’s some more details in case you need persuading.

Kay Ryan Q & A
Naomi Jaffa asks the questions as recent US Laureate Kay Ryan discusses the uselessness of poetry, the strange way she discovered Emily Dickinson, her love of the edges of poems – ‘If you only like crusts you get rid of the middle of the sandwich’ – and the introduction of a phrase new to most of us: ‘the stink of the lamp’.

Poem Show 12 – Memory & Preservation
Three memorable poems demonstrating the preservative powers of poetry. Maurice Riordan explores how and what we remember in his nostalgic and rueful list poem ‘Gone With The Wind’; followed by Leontia Flynn’s tender and candid ‘My Father’s Language’; and to finish, Christian Campbell passionately memorialising history, wit and friendship in ‘Oregon Elegy’.

Poem Show 13 – Human Relationships
Three inter-generational poems from Aldeburgh 2011 about human relationships. In ‘The Lovers’, 90-year old Fergus Allen shows age is no barrier to recalling the pleasures of the flesh; Emily Berry’s ‘Our Love Could Spoil Dinner’ fuses deadpan tonal control with wonderfully left-field intimacies; and Robert Hass’s ‘Privilege of Being’ beautifully captures the absurdity and the ecstasy of love.

Aldeburgh Poetry Festival headquarters (former HSBC bank!)

52 events (15 free), twenty-five poets and the best poetry audience (overall attendance a record-breaking 4,692!). Re-live November and look forward to next year’s programme…

The 2011 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Photo Gallery

In addition to the cash award (£1,000), the Aldeburgh prize carries two incalculable benefits for the winner. Nancy Gaffield will receive a paid invitation to read at next year’s 24th Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, plus a unique week’s paid protected writing time on the inspirational East Suffolk coast. No other poetry prize makes such an investment in new talent.

A year ago, Nancy was still waiting to hear if her book would be published and she was simply astonished at the news of her win:

“For me, Tokaido Road was a book that just had to be written: how it would be received was a complete unknown. I never imagined that it would achieve such recognition. Aldeburgh attracts support from so many distinguished poets and commands so much respect, that I could not have wished for a better reception for my work.”

The book (which was also shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection) was described by Robert Seatter, one of this year’s three judges, as “a remarkable piece of subtle, sustained and surprising writing. Taking as its starting point a set of period Japanese prints, Nancy reinvents these images as a revelatory journey which feels both fresh and timeless. It’s as if every word must have been written before, but comes new off the page.”

“The poems are strong in atmosphere and realisation, fluid, involving, at home with the uncertain, with human grief, memory, longing, history”, according to fellow judge Penelope Shuttle. “Here, then, is poetry as time machine, providing what Elizabeth Bishop required of poetry – ‘mystery, accuracy, and spontaneity’.”

Charles Boyle, Founding Editor of CB Editions said:
“However good, first collections from small presses are rarely noticed by more than a handful of dedicated readers. Even to be on the shortlist for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize makes a big difference: attention is focused, and the book begins to gain the readership it deserves. The prize deserves the continuing support of everyone – the Arts Council included – interested in widening the audience for new poetry.”

The judges for the 2011 Aldeburgh First Collection Prize were Michael Laskey (Chair), Robert Seatter and Penelope Shuttle. Their 2011 Shortlist comprised:
  Rachael Boast     Sidereal (Picador)
  Tom Duddy          The Hiding Place (Arlen House)
  Nancy Gaffield     Tokaido Road (CB Editions)
  Ed Reiss              Your Sort (Smith Doorstop)
  Jacqueline Saphra The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions
    (Flipped Eye Publishing)

The Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, established in 1989, was the first UK award designed to recognise and benefit a poet at first book stage. Supported from 2003 until 2008 by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation (as the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize), it is one of the UK’s oldest and most influential prizes for contemporary poetry. Previous winners include Tiffany Atkinson, Colette Bryce, Christian Campbell, Nick Laird, Esther Morgan, Robin Robertson, Henry Shukman and Susan Wicks.

We hoped you enjoyed the Aldeburgh Experience. Poets always say that it’s the audience that makes the Festival special – phenomenally big and extraordinarily attentive – so thank you if you were among this year’s multitudinous attenders. And if you couldn’t make it this time, the good news is that there will be another Festival next year. We’ll be announcing some exciting plans soon – and the dates for next year. So do keep clicking back to this site and definitely ‘like’ our Facebook page!