The school will be holding its annual Woodbridge Youth Poetry Festival from Wednesday 1 November to Thursday 2 November at The Seckford Theatre.
Following the success of our festival last year at which we welcomed the fantastic Mark Grist and Vanessa Kisuule, we are delighted to announce this year’s line-up for the 2017 festival.
Many of you will have seen Vanessa speak at Speech Day, so you will be aware of how inspiring and mesmerising she is. We can guarantee that you will find Lemn and Rebecca equally exciting!
Booking Tickets
To book tickets for the event, please visit www.ticketsource.co.uk/seckfordtheatre
Tickets are £5 each per evening, and pupils can enter for free.
Wednesday 1 November, 7.30pm
Lemn Sissay MBE
To watch Lemn performing his poetry, please click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_Jc6BlW7Qo
We are delighted and excited to invite Lemn Sissay to the festival.
LEMN SISSAY MBE is associate artist at Southbank Centre, patron of The Letterbox Club and The Reader Organisation, ambassador for The Children’s Reading Fund, trustee of Forward Arts Foundation and inaugural trustee of World Book Night, and an honorary doctor of Letters. He has been a writer from birth and foremost he is a poet.
Lemn is author of a series of books of poetry alongside articles, records, broadcasts, public art, commissions and plays. Sissay was the first poet commissioned to write for London Olympics. His Landmark Poems are installed throughout Manchester and London; they can be seen in The Royal Festival Hall and The Olympic Park. Sissay’s installation poem what if was exhibited at The Royal Academy alongside Tracey Emin and Antony Gormley. As a radio broadcaster Sissay makes documentaries for the BBC. He is a regular contributor on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live and also contributes to the BBC’s Book Panel.
Sissay received an MBE from The Queen for services to literature, and an honorary doctorate from University of Huddersfield. He is also Chancellor of Manchester University.
Thursday 2 November, 7.30pm
Vanessa Kisuule
To watch Vanessa performing her poetry, please click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b-B4G8lQdk
We are delighted to welcome back to the Festival the wonderful Vanessa Kisuule, who wowed audiences at last year’s festival and as the School’s Speech Day speaker this year.
Vanessa Kisuule is a writer and performer based in Bristol. She has performed at an array of renowned poetry events and venues such as The Royal Albert Hall, The British Library, Blahblahblah at the Bristol Old Vic, Tongue Fu and Chill Pill in London, as well as many festivals including Shambala, WOMAD, Wilderness, Secret Garden Party and Glastonbury. She has worked with the Southbank Centre, RADA, The Bristol City Council and Warner Music and had her work featured on BBC iPlayer, BBC Radio 1 and Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Gal Dem Magazine, Dazed and Confused, Blue Peter, Sky TV and TEDx in Vienna. Her debut poetry collection ‘Joyriding The Storm’ was published in April 2014 by Burning Eye Books and her second collection is due in 2017. She was the recipient of The Jerwood Micro Arts Bursary in 2017 to undertake extensive dance training, and also received the prestigious Leverhulme Arts Scholarship in 2017 from Bristol Old Vic.
Rebecca Goss
We are delighted to welcome fantastic Suffolk based Poet Rebecca Goss.
Poet Rebecca Goss grew up in Suffolk and returned to live in the county in 2013. She lived in Liverpool from 1992 – 2013, where she studied English at Liverpool John Moores University. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at Cardiff University, then taught Creative Writing at Liverpool John Moores University for some years.
Her pamphlet ‘Keeping Houston Time’, came out in 1997 with Slow Dancer Press. Her first full-length collection The Anatomy of Structures was published by Flambard Press in 2010. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals, anthologies and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Arts online. She is a previous recipient of an Authors’ Foundation Grant from the Society of Authors. Her second collection titled Her Birth was published in July 2013, by Carcanet/Northern House. It was shortlisted for the 2013 Forward Prize for Best Collection and won the Poetry category in The East Anglian Book Awards in 2013. In 2014 she was selected for The Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation Poets.
