PoetCasting at the Dylan Thomas Festival

Posted on October 29, 2009 by dylanthomascentre

PoetCasting is at the Dylan Thomas Festival – 31 October from 10am to 5pm!

PoetCasting is a poetry podcasting project which works with poets throughout the United Kingdom. The project features published, performance, emerging and established poets reading their own work online and out loud. The project has been live since April 2007. There are currently 507 poems online from 174 individual poets.
PoetCasting is the UK’s foremost poetry podcasting enterprise, and we’re delighted that it’s returning to Swansea with an innovative new literature event, where it will be in residence throughout the day alongside the Lynette Roberts Conference. At last year’s Dylan Thomas Festival, a number of poets were recorded for the project, including Aeronwy Thomas. Come this year and hear the best emerging and established poets writing in the UK today. Hundreds of poems from over 150 poets will be available on iPod Shuffles for you to listen to. All are welcome – whether you are a web wizard, or haven’t even heard of an RSS feed.
To get a flavour of the exciting work PoetCasting does, visit the website at http://www.poetcasting.co.uk

Filed under: Dylan Thomas Centre, Global Poetry System | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Dylan Thomas Festival is underway

Posted on October 28, 2009 by dylanthomascentre

and it’s been a flying start so far. We opened with readings from Dannie Abse and Peter Finch, two of Wales’ most established and well respected poets. Contrasting in style, both were gripping in their different ways; Abse with his more traditional lyrics, and Finch combining the experimental with the personal. What a hard act to follow – and who better than Cerys Matthews, former Catatonia frontwoman and successful solo artist? Her intimate set at the Dylan Thomas Centre enthralled a sell-out crowd, and her readings of Dylan Thomas’ poetry were some of the best we’ve ever heard. She also read an extract of ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’, which was both funny and moving. Afterwards, she signed not only CD cases, but also a T Shirt – and a set of crutches. Only in Swansea, someone was heard to mutter…

Next up is a new one-man Richard Burton show by Gwynne Edwards, starring Rhodri Miles. Burton’s admiration of Dylan is well documented – he made the role of First Voice in ‘Under Milk Wood’ his own, and asked to be buried with a copy of Dylan’s ‘Collected Poems’.

So three days of poetry, music and drama – and that’s just from the audience. Plenty more to come – the festival runs until 9 November, and there’ s events every day. See http://www.dylanthomas.com for the full programme.

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Poetry’s in the land in Lancashire

Posted on October 26, 2009 by Lucy Macnab

stone_jetty_3GPS is Global Poetry System, a new website from Southbank Centre that creates a user generated world map of poetry – find out more at www.southbankcentre.co.uk/gps.
Litfest, one of the country’s oldest literature festivals, has been mapping poetry everywhere – from war memorials to tattoos, from children’s nursery rhymes to public art.
Oral historian Marie-Claire Balaam has been travelling around Lancashire gathering all things poetic. She was surprised how people took to the idea – after she got past the first reaction of ‘Poetry? I don’t know any poetry’, there were fragments of it in everyone’s life. I spent Friday afternoon with Morecambe Bay Writers’ Group, as they reminisced about poems they remembered from childhood. It was great how many lines and rhymes and whole long poems were stored in their memories, emerging to comfort, or entertain, or call back a moment in time. What poems have stayed with you from childhood? What happens when you say them out loud? Global Poetry System welcomes any forgotten fragments or whole poems off by heart – upload them to our world map of poetry.

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Michael Rosen puts a Poetry Pin in Pinner

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Lucy Macnab

Where’s the poetry in waiting at a train station? Michael Rosen finds it in this new recording of his poem ‘Platform’,  filmed for GPS by the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry, and uploaded with a pin, to place it in the global map of poetry. If you’ve never been to Pinner station, take two minutes to visit there now, with Michael. We think it’ll make you feel different about waiting at train stations…

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Dylan Thomas Festival

Posted on October 13, 2009 by dylanthomascentre

This year’s Dylan Thomas Festival runs from 26 October to 9 November, and is packed with exciting events, with appearances by Peter Finch, Dannie Abse, Fflur Dafydd, Owen Sheers and many others. There’s new drama from London’s Out of Order Theatre co. Cerys Matthews is in conversation at the Dylan Thomas Centre, then in concert at Taliesin, and other events focus on Lynette Roberts and Alun Richards. The festival as a whole is dedicated to the memory of Aeronwy Thomas, and there will be two events celebrating her. (more…)

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G.P.S. launch at National Poetry Day Live

Posted on October 12, 2009 by ryan
Been tweeting lately? on Thursday 8th October ‘National Poetry Day’ was the second most popular trend on Twitter. You can probably guess why. On that very day, poetry fans gathered at the Royal Festival Hall to see Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Selima Hill, John Hegley and other poets perform their work. G.P.S. founder and Southbank Centre Artist in Residence Lemn Sissay gave a thrilling reading, captured here by fellow AIR, David Dunkley Gyimah:
David Dunkley Gyimah's film of Lemn Sissay
David Dunkley Gyimah’s film of Lemn Sissay

(more…)

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A Poetry Map / Mapping Poetry

Posted on October 8, 2009 by davidcooper1978

At the moment, I seem to be spending much of my time looking at, and thinking about, maps. Maps seem to be everywhere and play such important roles in our everyday lives: from Harry Beck’s iconic map of the London Underground, to the sat-navs that direct our journeys by road, to Google Earth which allows us to zoom in on our childhood homes.

I’ve also been thinking about the relationship between maps and poetry. Do writers, for example, use maps when writing poems of place? Do they use maps to check the accuracy of their representations of landscape? Alternatively, do poets use images of maps and mapping in their work? By extension, how do poets use these images? And what about us as readers? Do we turn to maps when reading about both familiar and unfamilar named places?

The GPS site should provide us with a great space in which to explore these ideas. Over the coming weeks and months, I hope to map poems which, in turn, are interested in maps and mapping. It would be great to hear from other people too. Do you know of any poems which feature maps? Do you know of any poets who used maps when writing? Do you, yourself, consult maps when reading poetry?

It will be great to find out and to develop a map of mapping poetry!

David

www.lancaster.ac.uk/mappingthelakes

Filed under: Global Poetry System | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

National Poetry Day Live

Posted on October 5, 2009 by amitgps

National Poetry Day Live creeps closer and closer. The gratuitously all-star line up has been confirmed; the rarest footage of our poetic heroes has been baptised by the copyright gods. The Clore Ballroom’s furniture is being tinkered with; the 19 metre wide screen designed for poetic projections is being buffed. Global Poetry System is limbered up and poised for its launch.

It’s set to be a very special day for poetry. It’s an afternoon of readings, read by some of the best poets alive today, in a public space, where all are welcome. The performances will be punctuated with interactive activities designed to activate your creative imagination. And like all truly beautiful experiences, it’s totally free…

If you have even the most lukewarm interest in words, I’m inclined to think this event is not to be missed. It’ll be a great day.

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Poetry Postcards

Posted on October 2, 2009 by Lucy Macnab

hiphop chip shop

“Until it closed, this chippie was known for showing rap/R&B videos and the men behind the counter dancing. Someone with a spray can decided to share their affection.”
Found by: Graham Isaac
Location: SA1 5JE, Swansea, Wales

The G.P.S. team are getting ready to launch Global Poetry System next Thursday 8th October - we’ve selected this post from Swansea to print a special postcard. 
We’re on the look out for great images for future postcards and print – have you got a photograph of some found poetry that could be our next one? Upload it to the GPS world map of poetry and the next poetry postcard could be yours.

Filed under: Global Poetry System | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

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