The fourth Winchester Poetry Festival will be a celebration of the very special artistic relationship which exists between British and American poets, whether between Robert Frost and Edward Thomas or Sylvia Plath and Stevie Smith. In addition to the sparkling international line-up in October 2020, the festival will also feature major and innovative writers from America, as well as American poets who have made Britain their home.
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Performances and events are being held in Southampton as well as Winchester, and will explore the ways in which the two poetry cultures inform and nourish each other, with readings, workshops, a lecture and writers in conversation. Below we feature some of the poets we plan to feature at the festival this year.
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2020 Poets
10.00 - 10.45am
Raymond Antrobus
Poet Raymond Antrobus reads the poem "Dear Hearing World" from his poetry collection "The Perseverance" (Penned in the Margins), shortlisted for the 2019 International Griffin Poetry Prize. The reading took place at Koerner Hall in Toronto, Canada on June 5, 2019.
Poet and professor Jericho Brown, director of Emory University's Creative Writing Program, reads the poem "Stand" from his acclaimed collection The Tradition.