Cheltenham Poetry Festival starts this week on Thursday 31st March and continues till 3rd April. I am reading at Waterstones at 11.30 on Saturday 2nd April, and giving an illustrated talk on John Clare at 1.45 at the YMCA, closely followed by a wonderful concert given by Gordon Tyrrall, who has set some of Clare’s lovelist poems to music.
There are many other wonderful readings including George Szirtes, John Cooper Clarke, John Hegley, Alwyn Marriage, Angela France, Cliff Yates, Clare Pollard, Philip Gross, just to name a few off the top of my head.
The organisers have worked really hard to put together an amazingly varied festival and I urge everyone to support it.
Here is the link:
http://www.cheltenhampoetryfest.co.uk/
Before that I am over in Oxford, reading and doing a school gig with my hero of old, John Foster, who was the very first person to put my work in a children’s anthology, apart from the ones from the Bees Knees collective. That was in 1992, in Can You Hear? poems for Oxfam, published by Macmillan.
I love going off to new places to do readings. I also love staying at home writing and making things, like I did today.
Angela Topping 