Prime time for poetry

Hundreds of people are expected to attend a five-day poetry festival that starts in Southwell today.

Big names from the literary world attending Southwell Library Poetry Festival include former Poet Laureate, Sir Andrew Motion, who was knighted for his services to literature last year.

Also taking part are Children’s Poet Laureate Michael Rosen, and Jenny Joseph, whose poem, Warning, was voted the nation’s favourite in a BBC poll.

Michael Rosen will be performing in Southwell Minster today, Sir Andrew will give a reading at the Minster School, Southwell, on Thursday, and Jenny Joseph will be having afternoon tea with visitors at Southwell Library on Sunday.

The Southwell Library manager, Mrs Nicola Ellis, said this year’s festival was expected to be bigger than ever before.

She said: “We’ve got some really big names.

“We know the number of people attending is going to exceed last year and we had 600 people attending events then.

“I think the popularity is going up because it’s the third year we have had a Southwell Library Poetry Festival.

“The library makes sense as a focal point for the event.

“It is really exciting and it’s going to create a buzz.”

Other activities taking place in the town include a poetry pub crawl, setting off from the library at 7.30pm tomorrow; Your Favourite Poems at the library at 2pm on Friday, when visitors can ask for their favourite poems to be read to them or ask staff for help finding a poem, and a Poetry In The Park event at the War Memorial Recreation Ground at 11am on Sunday where poetry bunting will be created.

On Saturday there will be workshops covering topics including the poetry of the Beatles’ lyrics.

Mrs Ellis said Your Favourite Poems proved popular last year.

She said: “Everyone’s got a favourite poem or a half-remembered poem.

“We had a lady who came along last year who remembered only about three or four words of a poem and we found it for her.

“It had been about 70 years since she had read it at school.

“Poetry In The Park is going to be an event for families to get them interested in poetry and words to get children into reading.”

A poetry group was set up in Southwell Library after last year’s festival. There are about 15 members.

Mrs Ellis said tickets were sold out for afternoon tea with Jenny Joseph but were still available for other events.

The programme of events is online at www.nottinghamshire. gov.uk/home/leisure/libraries/poet ryfestival.htm or from Southwell Library on 01636 812148.