A weekend full of poems, poems on shop windows, in the free Poetry Paper, poems read and discussed by voices from all over the world.\u00a0 Voices presided over this year, it seemed, by Philip Larkin, probably polishing his glasses and adjusting his bicycle clips in disbelief at being cited as a particular favourite by the indomitable Kay Ryan. Her discussion of his poetry with Maurice Riordan was made all the more involving by the very un-English nature of Ryan and Riordan, both of whom read their chosen poems rather badly and talked about them rather well. \u00a0Larkin\u2019s own \u2018posher-than-expected\u2019 voice starting and ending the session and resonating through it.<\/p>\n
Larkin\u2019s Afternoons<\/em> was chosen by Leontia Flynn for her close reading and in fifteen minutes she managed to explain why it remains a good poem, why it continues to speak to her, why we might have misgivings about his grumpy position and why that doesn\u2019t matter. Her reading of her own poems earlier in the day beautifully edgy and intimate \u2013 the poems full of just the right details: political and personal.\u00a0 And you could see why Larkin might still be there, in the mix that helps to make her a wonderful poet.<\/p>\n For Kay Ryan it is Emily Dickinson and Stevie Smith. Of course Stevie Smith, we all said, as we squeezed ourselves into the Peter Pears Gallery for Kay Ryan\u2019s close reading of The Jungle Husband<\/em> \u2013 charmingly, Freudian slippingly, renamed \u2018The Jungle Wife\u2019 by Michael Laskey in his introduction.<\/p>\n Ryan was as witty, informal and hugely engaging talking about Stevie Smith as she had been reading her own poems the night before.<\/p>\n I seem to be remembering the women in particular, and Saturday afternoon was the triumph of the young women: Emily Berry, Helen Mort and Hannah Lowe. Confident, completely different from each other and fabulous. No orthodoxy in these 21st<\/sup> Century women poets, and a pleasing lack of wombs and moons too. As a feminist \u2013 a phrase heard too often in the Master Class on Sunday \u2013 it gladdens my heart to the point where I can almost feel sorry for the men. Especially after Luljeta Lleshanaku\u2019s poem Men<\/em> on Sunday afternoon, although they manage well enough with thoughtful young men like Christian Campbell and Luke Yates (he the cheerful recipient of Master Class criticism prefaced \u2018As a feminist\u2019 from several women who don\u2019t understand irony) and, older and wiser men, like Fergus Allen, Robert Hass and Chris Wallace-Crabbe.<\/p>\n Writing this now I\u2019m home is like looking back on a Kim\u2019s tray (mentioned by some poet or other) with some things more sparkly than others but everything worth remembering. I shan\u2019t forget Fleur Adcock\u2019s wit about the vagaries of ageing, or Luljeta Lleshanako, answering Robert Hass\u2019s question about the effect on our imaginations of a planet where there is nothing left that has not been touched by human nature, with the fact that in Albania it is hard to care about a cut tree when you are struggling to survive.<\/p>\n Another gloriously diverse Aldeburgh makes us understand a little more about many points of view. For all those who go on about it being too expensive, most tickets are less than the cost of two pints and there are ten free events. Where else can you hear, for nothing, the best poets in the world talking about poetry?<\/p>\n Alicia Stubbersfield<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A weekend full of poems, poems on shop windows, in the free Poetry Paper, poems read and discussed by voices from all over the world.\u00a0 Voices presided over this year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[135,133,134,17],"class_list":["post-1193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-aldeburgh","tag-aldeburgh-2011","tag-alicia-stubbersfield","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11284,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions\/11284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}