Ledbury Poetry Festival

This year’s festival is rapidly approaching, and apparently ticket sales are looking a bit grim for some of the events. I think one should always look for a late surge.
I am taking part this year in a collaboration with Martin Clark of Tilley Printing. The roots of this go back a couple of years to the exhibition Jeanette McCulloch (another of my very best collaborators with Excavations of Eternity) organised under the title Unsung Heroes. I wanted one of my poems, March, to be exhibited as a poster, looking like a revolutionary broadsheet. Martin laid it out and printed it so well that it garnered a lot of comment. I thought there was scope for some more and he was up for it. We approached Tinsmiths, with whom Martin works quite closely, as they have the perfect wall and yard to produce a good visual exhibition. Phoebe agreed, but wanted to wait for a year as they were already hosting Roger Abbot in the 2010 festival.
So was born The Talking Wall, the name I thought gave a good encompassing concept to include my reading. I will be reading twice on Sunday 3rd July at 11 am and 2.30 pm, for 45 minutes each. I will not exactly reproduce the first reading with the second, although slightly more than half the poems will be repeated. These are official programme events although because they are free I do not have to wonder about ticket sales. We will have up to 12 poems on broadsheets and limited quantities of each for sale in the festival. I have also written some poems to go with this project, and will also weave in others I think work in such a presentation. As the day approaches, I am getting more fired up at the prospect, and I think it will hold its own.
I have also been asked to read at a Tree Frogs gig at the Retreat on 30th June. I am honoured that they should consider me, and I will put my mind to some appropriate material. Maybe one accompanied by some background jazzy music would work. I’d certainly like to have a go at that. I will probably try to use other poems than the Talking Wall ones, but maybe only in respect of the specific Wall material.