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29 March 2011
Simon Armitage to launch city's first poetry festival
Simon Armitage to launch city's first poetry festival
A reading from the University of Sheffield's Professor of Poetry, renowned British poet and novelist Simon Armitage, will open Sheffield Poetry Festival this week (Friday 1 April 2011).
Simon's readings from Selected Poems and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight will be the first of the official launch night of the festival (Friday 1 April – Sunday 3 April 2011).
One of the most popular and prominent poets of our generation, Simon is playing a key role at the University of Sheffield, in both a one-year HEIF 4 funded project entitled Creative Writing in the Community and the Creative Writing MA pathway run by the School of English.
Sheffield-based award winning poet Rob Hindle, Chair of Sheffield Poetry Festival, commented: "We are delighted that Simon Armitage, one of our Patrons, is leading the opening reading of Sheffield's first dedicated poetry festival. As one of the most important poets in the UK, and with his recent appointment as Professor of Poetry at the University of Sheffield, it is great that he is playing so prominent a role in the Festival."
Sheffield Poetry Festival is the first festival of its kind in the city. The event will see the different poetry communities of Sheffield coming together in a series of workshops, readings and performance events, some of which are free to the public. From small writers' groups to national voices, mainstream readings to poetry slams, the festival aims to showcase the breadth of Sheffield´s thriving poetry scene.
Professor Adam Piette from the University of Sheffield's School of English commented: "As Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Sheffield, I'm really pleased to be part of this great cultural event. The University of Sheffield is one of the major stakeholders in the new Sheffield Poetry Festival and we have worked hard to provide a good show, with readings by the new Professor of Poetry, Simon Armitage, by Creative Writing Tutor, Agi Lehoczky, plus writers from our MA pathway in Creative Writing.
"We are also very happy to have organised a reading with Sheffield poets Geraldine Monk, Ben Wilkinson and Helen Mort along with Peter Robinson, plus a conversation between George Szirtes and Simon Armitage on poetry and translation. Our poets will also 'star' in what promises to be a very entertaining event, the University Poetry Challenge."
University Poetry Challenge is one of the more unusual offerings of the festival. The University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University will pitch their brightest literary names against each other in a battle of wits, answering questions on anything from limericks and Lennon & McCartney to advertising jingles and the Bard himself. The quiz will be presided over by BBC Radio Sheffield's Rony Robinson.
Professor Piette continued: "This will be a big weekend in the history of poetry in Sheffield, for poetry is, more perhaps than any other artform, a mode of intense and emotionally charged engagement with communities at the heart of their imagination, striking each reader along lines of communication with their own language. We are proud to be involved in this great initiative, and to have forged such strong links with Bank Street Arts and other Sheffield arts organisations."
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