The 2016 Kendal Poetry Festival seems a long way away now. Pauline Yarwood and I had a fabulous and busy time putting the festival together. In fact we had such a good time, we only gave ourselves a month off before we started planning the next one!
The 2017 Kendal Poetry Festival will take place from the 16th-18th June. We’ve finalised our ‘Dream Team’ of poets, who have all agreed to come, subject to funding. This is, of course Top Secret until we get confirmation of funding, but we can tell you that the festival has an international flavour this year, and that you really should put the date in BLACK INK in your diary.
We’ve also started putting together our funding bids, and we’re waiting to hear back from the first two applications we’ve put together.
The feedback about the Dove Cottage Young Poets, a group of young writers that Kim Moore worked with last year was brilliant. We think having young people involved at the heart of the festival made it really special, and we’d like to continue that this year.
However, many of the Dove Cottage Young Poets have left to go to university, so Kim is on the lookout for some more young writers.
If you know any young people that would like to have a go at writing poetry, please get in touch. They don’t need to have any previous experience. Dove Cottage Young Poets meet every other Friday at The Brewery Arts Centre from 3.45-5.45pm. It’s completely free and members will get the opportunity to read at the festival in 2017. Dove Cottage Young Poets is open to young people from the age of 13-25.
Please share this around to any young people you know, and if you’d like any more information, please get in touch.
Sorry I missed the Festival earlier this year (due to being holiday with my family) but I’d be very glad to help out/be involved in the 2017 event. I have published 13 collections (for children & adults) have been performing and visiting festivals, schools, libraries etc for 40 years. I was Scottish Arts Council’s Poet-in-Residence in Glasgow 2008 – 2010 as part of the the 250th Robert Burns celebrations and until last Saturday I was Chair of Authors North (Society of Authors) and I now serve on their Poetry & Spoken Word Group. Came to live in Sedbergh 9 years ago and organised the town’s book/literary festivals (until the cash ran out around 2013!) On we go…
John Rice