Friday 10 July 2009

Roger McGough at Ledbury Poetry Festival


The Royal Academy competition for tickets

J. W. Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite
The Royal Academy of Arts
27 June – 13 September 2009

The Royal Academy of Arts presents a major retrospective exhibition of the late Pre-Raphaelite artist, John William Waterhouse RA (1849-1917). The artist inherited the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood’s taste for Tennyson, Keats, and Shakespeare, and also drew from classical myth as interpreted by Homer and Ovid. His images belie a Romantic fascination with intense female passions as seen in his works; the Lady of Shalott, Ophelia, Circe and La Belle Dame Sans Merci. When seen together in their massive gilt frames, Waterhouse’s large, richly coloured canvases deliver a visual impact that is both compelling and unprecedented. This will be the first major Waterhouse show to have been presented in the United Kingdom since the late 1970s

For a chance to win a pair of tickets to J. W. Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite, email your name and address to competitions@royalacademy.org.uk with ‘Ledbury Poetry festival’ in the subject box. Winners name will be drawn on 1st August 2009. Judges decision is final

Wednesday 24 June 2009

What is the most unlikely physical situation in which you have composed or written a poem?

Philip Wells negotiated the sleeping policemen of Hampstead Heath whilst writing ‘The Rock-Me Timing Bang’ on the steering wheel of his ageing black Golf, though you will be pleased to hear he did stop the car to finish writing! Benjamin Zephaniah was stuck in a lift with a drag queen and a homophobic, claustrophobic weightlifter. Chase Twichell told us her most unusual place was in a secluded fifteenth century castle hotel in Kitzbuhel, Switzerland, where she wrote by candlelight for two days whilst the power was off! Glyn Maxwell composed ‘Either’ in his head whilst wandering the hills around Lumb Bank in the pouring rain.
What is yours?

Review a Festival event

Are you coming to the Festival? Would you like to review an event? We would be glad to hear from you. Email me to let me know what event you are planning to review, then email the review to me after the event and I will post it here on the Ledbury Poetry Festival blog!