Simon Armitage, the Poet Laureate, will be in Knaresborough tonight for one of the highlights of the town’s Feva festival.
Almost 200 tickets have been sold for An Evening With Simon Armitage, which takes place at Holy Trinity Church at 8pm. Just a few seats remain.
Armitage, who is from Marsden in West Yorkshire, was appointed Poet Laureate by the queen in 2019. he is also professor of poetry at the University of Leeds
He will read his poetry and answer questions from the audience before signing books.
Feva started last weekend and continues until this weekend.
Picnic in the Park, the last major event, takes place on Saturday afternoon in Knaresborough House. Entry is free.
Street entertainers will round off the festival on Sunday.
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UK Poet Laureate to read at Ripon Poetry Festival
The UK’s Poet Laureate Simon Armitage will be reading at the fourth Ripon Poetry Festival, which will return to the city from October 7-10.
The festival was founded in 2017 by three Ripon-based poets, Andy Croft, David McAndrew and Paul Mills.
Born in Marsden, West Yorkshire, Armitage has been the UK’s Poet Laureate since 2019. It is a government-appointed position that dates back to 1668. He is also a professor of poetry at the University of Leeds.
Mr Mills told the Stray Ferret they wanted to have a big name appear at the festival after it was cancelled last year due to covid. Previous speakers include renowned writers and poets Ian McMillan and Michael Rosen.
He said:
“We wanted to re-establish ourselves and rebound from the pandemic.”
Ripon venues that will be taking part in the festival will be announced at a later date.
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Mr Mills is a poet himself and will be reading from his latest collection, Nomad, which includes poems about human evolution.
He expects the covid lockdowns and isolation to emerge as themes at this year’s edition, which he said will feature several local poets.
He added:
“We want visitors to the festival to feel like they’ve had a really entertaining and enlivening experience.”
Organisers have launched a poetry competition, with the best entries on any subject published in a book that will be sold at the festival.
The deadline for entries is July 23 and poems can be submitted on any subject to submissions@riponpoetryfestival.co.uk.
The entry cost per poem is below:
Children: £1
11 to 16-year-olds: £2
Adults: £3 or £5 for two poems
Schools: £10 for 20 poems.
Ripon Grammar School seeks escapist pandemic poemsRipon Grammar School (RGS) is seeking poems of the pandemic for its annual poetry challenge.
With the theme of “escape” the search is on for rhyme that have helped to reduce anxiety and provided solace during the covid lockdown.
Students, parents, past pupils and the wider Ripon community are invited to enter.
The Hullah Poetry Competition was launched in 2014 and attracts hundreds of entries every year.
Dr Paul Hullah, will judge the competition.
Judge Dr Paul Hullah, a past pupil of the school and now professor of poetry at Tokyo’s Meiji Gakuin University, explained his choice of theme for 2021.
He said:
“The last year has been difficult for all of us. We’ve had to work out new ways to live.
“We’ve all done our best, but enforced isolation, our new ‘indoor existence’, has not been easy for many of us.
“A lockdown limbo land of restrictions on movement has been a psychological as well as physical challenge we have all had to try to overcome.
“In such stressful, testing times, it’s important to find ways actively to reduce anxiety.
“Art — of which poetry is a fundamental form — can represent a welcome escape from the prosaic reality of our situation.
“Whether we’re producers of art, or consumers, or both, creativity stimulates the imagination and exercises the mind, inspires and elevates us.
“Whether it’s a Netflix binge watch, a video game, a fantasy manga, a favourite tune, a musical, a ballet, a book… or a poem, art offers us a meaningful exit route — dramatic, fantastical, and joyous — from the daily actualities in which we find ourselves, a temporary respite from the workaday mundanities that give life a regularity but are lacking in emotional release.
“Art is a medicine that soothes, and liberates: ‘Go anywhere, without leaving your chair’, as the song says.
“So, this year, the task is to write a poem of fourteen or more lines that somehow connects to the concept of ‘Escape’. Any poetic form, rhyme scheme or narrator is allowed.”
Read more:
Entries should be submitted you via email by Friday, by 16 July to Mrs Mars at marsh@ripongrammar.com. Prizes will be awarded in two categories.
Former Ripon Grammar student publishes poetry to protect wildlifeA former Ripon Grammar School student has published a book of illustrated poetry in aid of a wildlife conservation charity.
Writer, artist, photographer and film-maker Alicia Hayden has launched ‘Rain before Rainbows’, a collection of illustrated poems written over the past ten years.
Sales of her book will help to raise money for the Tiggywinkles wild animal hospital.
She said:
“These poems are about wildlife and the natural world, its beauty and its fragility – and why it’s essential we protect it.”
The 21-year-old, who is now in her third year studying biological sciences at the University of Oxford, also makes films.
The wood mouse that features in one of Alicia’s short nature films
One of Alicia’s recent films, which featured a wood mouse, was broadcast on Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin’s Self-Isolating Bird Club on YouTube:
Alicia commented:
“That was really exciting. They said some lovely things about it too, which was very encouraging.”
Alicia won the RSPCA Young Photographer of the Year award, when she was ten years old, with a stunning picture of a hoverfly mid-air.
She was inspired to publish her poems after watching Sir David Attenborough’s 2020 documentary, Extinction: The Facts, about the devastation humans have wreaked on the natural world.
She said:
“I knew I wanted to raise awareness about the environment, and also donate money to a conservation charity.
“It was a lot of work, as well as a lot of fun.
“I really liked the fact Tiggywinkles works with British wildlife, which is what I like photographing and drawing.”
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Alicia hopes to pursue a career in wildlife conservation and communications, to help inspire others to protect the natural world.
Having been encouraged by her parents, who are also wildlife enthusiasts, and her teachers at RGS, Alicia said:
“All of my work is inspired by the natural world in some way, as I think there is so much intricacy and incredible behaviour to observe in nature.”
*Rain Before Rainbows, £10.99 (with 50 per cent of profits going to Tiggywinkles) is available from Little Ripon Bookshop and aliciahaydenshop.bigcartel.com.
Pandemic poem passes test for Ripon studentA Ripon Grammar School student has won an award for her use of poetry to express feelings about the cancellation of this year’s GCSE exams.
Rebecca Edwards, 16, explained how her poem called An Epidemic of Emotions captured her feelings during lockdown. She said:
“I felt quite pointless after our exams were cancelled. After years of work and preparation we were being sent home empty-handed.”
While the daily routine of being cooped up at home was dull and repetitive, she was heartened by acts of kindness, such as the clapping for carers and small gifts and messages from friends and family:
“My friends and my community went above and beyond. I will be eternally grateful for the love and support of my friends and family at that time.”
Studying English literature, design technology, physics and maths at A-level, Rebecca hopes to become a graphic designer.
Ripon Grammar School
Former RGS student Dr Paul Hullah, professor of poetry at Tokyo’s Meiji Gakuin University and sponsor of the school’s annual Hullah Poetry Trophy competition, described Rebecca’s work as ‘magical and masterful.’
He felt the poem offered hope for the future and added:
“Let’s write ourselves out of these scary and strangest of times.”
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Rebecca’s poem was selected from the category for students. Dorothy Wood, a parent, won the community section award with her entry, My Journey’s a Day, which reflected on ageing and Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr Hullah commented:
“It made me cry. When poems do that, you know they’ve struck a chord. All the chords struck here are plangent, poignant, and greatly inspirational.”
Fleeting moments
Former RGS student Mrs Wood, from Burton Leonard, whose three older children all attended RGS, where daughter Catherine is in Year 11, fondly remembers her old English teacher Mrs Carrick, saying she was ‘inspirational.’
A qualified accountant, who now runs a gymnastics club, she said witnessing the sad decline of a relative suffering from the dehumanising and painful condition of Alzheimer’s informed her poem. She said:
“I was particularly inspired by the precious, fleeting moments when we glimpse the strong and capable person the sufferer once was, and still is somewhere deep within.”
Harrogate rotary launches kids poetry competition
The Harrogate Brigantes Rotary Club have launched a poetry competition for children to raise funds for its covid relief appeal.
Children, under 12 years old, can enter the can enter their poem until the end of the summer term (17 July). The £5 entry fee will be donated to the group’s covid relief fund which helps local causes and organisations.
Children can submit any number of poems under the following subjects- “my hero”, “I wish”, and “a better world”. Poems must be no more than 28 lines long and the writer of the best poem on each subject will receive a £30 book token.
Club member Guy Wilson said:
“When Covid-19 struck we were making plans for ‘save our planet’ concerts next year in the Royal Hall, linked with an exhibition by the children in Ripon Cathedral and a poetry competition. Sadly we have had to cancel, or at least postpone, all of these. But then it struck us that, using our good contacts with schools, we could run a different poetry competition.”
The covid relief fund has been used to support local charities, including Wellsprings.
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The covid relief fund continues to support local causes, Guy Wilson added:
“The Club has given away over £9000 in cash or kind to care providers and charities in need in the Harrogate area. At first the priority was ’emergency help’ but now the focus has changed to helping local charities that are coping with the longer term issues that are arising such as mental health, such as Wellspring Therapy & Training, Supporting Older People and Carers’ Resource.”
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