The 2008 Festival has now finished. It was great fun! If you weren't here, see below for what you missed and be sure to join us next year!

Friday 4th July

1. Carol Ann Duffy
5.30pm-6.30pm Community Hall £8
In the world of British poetry Carol Ann Duffy is a superstar and she returns to Ledbury to launch the Festival. Carol Ann Duffy is hugely popular, perhaps because her poetry is accessible and entertaining. Her latest collection, Rapture, is "Brilliant, beautiful and heartbreaking" (Jeanette Winterson) and won the 2005 TS Eliot Prize. She also writes books for children, including the wonderful Underwater Farmyard and Moon Zoo.

Sponsor: University of Worcester

2. David Whyte
7.15pm-8.15pm Burgage Hall

David Whyte initiates people to poetry and shows them how it can mend souls and lives! He was one of the first, and still is the most moving and inspirational speaker and reader of poetry. He weaves his own poems with those by poets such as Theodore Roethke and Mary Oliver, using them to address the great themes of change, pain, courage, personal growth and engagement. He says "Poetry is a break for freedom. In a sense all poems are good; all poems are an attempt to say the unsayable; but only a few are able to speak to something universal yet personal and distinct, to create a door".

3. Mark Gwynne Jones and the Psychicbread: A conspiracy to fuse poetry, film and music.
9.00pm-10.00pm Community Hall £6
Quirky, original and entertaining, Mark Gwynne Jones and the Psychicbread combine rhythm, roots music and vivid poetry, transforming the mundane into the magical and mixing contemporary narratives with ethnic percussion, piano, kora and flute. The sound is fresh, yet the form is an old one. It is that of the griot or bard. This show draws on an ancient tradition, yet tackles the complexities of our changing world with a beautiful and savage humour.

BYO (Bring your own drinks, we provide cork screws and glasses)
Sponsor:Butler & Sweatman

Saturday 5 July

4. Being Shelley
10.30am-11.30am Burgage Hall £6
Medieval historian, journalist and novelist, Ann Wroe uses Shelley's own manuscripts, notebooks, doodles, excisions and his crossings-out to illustrate the story of Shelley's ‘poet-self' and to create a biography of a soul. The result is "startlingly good and original…Being Shelley is not quite a biography and not quite a critical reader and not quite like anything most people will have seen before"(Sam Leith, The Spectator). Ann Wroe writes for The Economist and The Telegraph and her previous books include Lives, Lies and the Iran-Contra Affair, A Fool and His Money: Life in a Partitioned Medieval Town and Pilate.

5. John Agard
(Family Event) 10.30am-11.30pm Market Theatre £3
John Agard's poems feature on the GCSE syllabus and he has written many books for children including We Animals Would Like a Word With You, which won a Smarties Award. His next book will be The Young Inferno, a teenage take on Dante's Inferno, to be published by Frances Lincoln this Autumn. He is an excellent performer, come and hear him, ask him any burning questions and get him to sign your books.

6. Alan Gillis and Ian Duhig
12.15pm-1.15pm Burgage Hall £8
They competed for the 2007 T.S. Eliot Prize with their latest books, Hawks and Doves (Gillis) and The Speed of Dark (Duhig) and now they appear together in what will be a tremendous double act. Ian Duhig was the eighth of eleven children born to Irish parents with a liking for poetry. He has won the National Poetry Competition twice and the Forward Prize. Belfast-born, Alan Gillis is the author of Somebody, Somewhere and Irish Poetry of the 1930s.

Sponsors: Chris & Kitty Noel, David & Ann Tombs

7. Can Poetry Change Anything?
2.00pm-3.00pm Burgage Hall £8
Lithuanian poet, Marcelijus Martinaitis is an extraordinary figure, whose poems about an invented character called Kukatis, a wise fool, have entered Lithuanian folk culture and were chanted at mass political rallies in the late 80s and early 90s. After the fall of the USSR and the advent of Lithuanian independence, his hilarious poems about a former Party apparatchik who has to try to adapt to capitalism but can never quite prevent his earlier ways of thinking and speaking from leaking out, again helped shape contemporary Lithuanian national consciousness. He will appear with Latvian poet of great stature Juris Kronbergs (see event 16). Also appearing, Laima Scruoginis, poet and translator whose latest work is called Book of Portraits, represents the next generation of Lithuanian poets.

Sponsor: Books from Lithuania

8. Michael Rosen's A to Z of Poetry with Jackie Kay and Francesca Beard
(Family event)3pm-4pm Community Hall £3 (family ticket £10 for four people) All ages
Children's Laureate and poet Michael Rosen will have children and adults eating out of the palm of his theatrical hand. His warmth, energy and humour bring his verse alive. Michael Rosen's books include We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Lunchboxes Don't Fly and Quick Let's Get Out of Here. He is joined by renowned poet Jackie Kay, who has written several books of verse for children including Red, Cherry Red and a novel Strawgirl. He is also joined by Francesca Beard, who, using songs, poetry and storytelling, introduces us to characters from the Chinese horoscope in the Animal Olympics.

9. Northumbrian poetry and music
3.45pm-4.45pm Burgage Hall £8
A sense of place infuses the work of Katrina Porteous who writes many poems about the Northumbrian inshore fishing community as "a writer chronicling the life of the land through the stories of its marginalised people" (Alan Franks, The Times). Her poems often use Northumbrian dialect to rich and musical effect as in The Lost Music. She appears with Alistair Anderson, Northumbria's top folk musician, concertina player and piper. Their previous collaborations include Morpeth in Flood, a song cycle based on local memories of the Morpeth floods of 1963, and Tam Lin.

10. Poetry and Censorship: Four Syrian Poets
5.30pm - 6.30pm Market Theatre
Four Syrian poets, Hala Mohammad, Lukman Derky, Monzer Masri and Rasha Omran, travel to Ledbury for this exclusive event exploring freedom and censorship. (See event 23 to find out more about the poets.)

Sponsor: Banipal

11. Gunnar Harding and Merja Virolainen
7.15pm - 8.15pm Burgage Hall £8
Gunnar Harding has received many high honours in Sweden and is a perennial favorite with both readers and audiences. His poetry is highly appealing, accessible but many-layered, full of striking visual images (he started as a painter) but also possessed of subtle musical qualities (he is a big fan of jazz). The origins of the world, personal histories and Finnish history intertwine in the poetry of Merja Virolainen. Prize-winning poet, essayist, critic, editor, translator and tutor, she has published four collections of poetry and a book on shamanism and witchcraft.

Sponsors: Swedish Arts Council, FILI - Finnish Literature Information Centre

12. John Agard & Grace Nichols
9.00pm - 10.00pm Burgage Hall £8
Enjoy the laid-back atmosphere and a drink or two as you listen to two of the UK's leading poets and performers. John Agard and Grace Nichols were born and educated in Guyana and moved to Britain in 1977. Both have written widely for adults and children. John Agard's poems are "direct and arresting, playful, full of startling imagery, and hilarious, passionate and erotic as often as they are political." (Maura Dooley) His books include Mangoes and Bullets and his latest, We Brits. Nichols' books include The Fat Black Woman's Poems, Sunris and Startling The Flying Fish. "Grace Nichols's new book is like coming into the light. From her first collection in 1983, I Is A Long-Memoried Woman, she has been a strong presence in the linguistic interweave between the Caribbean and the UK." (Michelene Wandor, Poetry Review).

13. Barn Dance
(Family event) 8.30pm - 12 midnight Community Hall FREE
Everyone is welcome at this fun, family event. This joyful music by Silver Grass is bound to get your feet tapping and your spirits souring. There will be fiddles, uilleann pipes, mandola, dulcimer, whistles and caller. No experience is needed. Non-dancers welcome to watch and enjoy the spectacle.

Delicious ploughman's suppers and bar available.

14. The Festival on the Streets
All events are FREE
Sponsored by Ledbury Businesses

Make flags and garlands in the Walled Garden
10.00am - 4.00pm Children (all ages welcome)
Children can enjoy making raffia crowns with fresh flowers and painting colourful flags made from cotton sheeting with willow poles.

Poems Alfresco
2.30pm - 3.30pm Matt Sweet's Sandwich Bar, Fox Yard All comers welcome to read and hear poems.

Shed Man
Saturday 5 July and Sunday 6 July
Join us in celebrating that great British icon, the shed. Shedman is writer and poet John Davies who's inspired by all kinds of shed - garden sheds and aircraft hangars, shed antlers or skins, shedding tears or shedding light. Everyone has a shed story! Shedman invites anyone to come into his shed and bring poems, anecdotes, stories, drawings, memories, fantasies and photos to create a living installation and contribute to his book Round Britain by Shed.

Sunday 6 July

15. The John Masefield Walk
Meet in John Masefield High School car park
9.30am - 12 noon £6 "Then down on the mile-long green decline, Where the turf's like spring and the air's like wine."

Join Peter Carter, the Chairman of The John Masefield Society, for a walk up and over the Coneygree. There will be some uphill stretches but none of it will be too taxing. Frequent stops for readings. Wear boots or stout shoes and bring well-behaved dogs on leads.

Sponsor: The John Masefield Society

16. My Place or Yours? Pia Tafdrup and Juris Kronbergs
12.15pm - 1.15pm Burgage Hall £8
Who does own or have entitlement to the spaces and places that we inhabit, what do ideas like home and nation mean? Danish poet Pia Tafdrup and Latvian poet Juris Kronbergs reflect on these questions. The poet and translator Juris Kronbergs' parents emigrated to Sweden in 1945 to escape the Soviet occupation of Latvia. Juris Kronbergs lives in two cultures - translating both from Swedish into Latvian and from Latvian into Swedish, and writing his poetry in both languages. His first poetry collection Pazemes dzeja (Underground Poetry) was published in the form of poetry sheets and posters. His latest book is called Wolf One-Eye. Pia Tafdrup is an award-winning poet whose work has been translated into 16 languages. Her book Queen's Gate is the woman's way into the world. 'From water you have come,' writes Pia Tafdrup, creating her own myth through a sequence of highly sensual poems centred on water in all its forms.

Sponsors: Kunstradet - Danish Arts Council, Literature Across Frontiers

17. Vicki Feaver and Jean Sprackland
2.00pm - 3.00pm Burgage Hall £8
Two highly praised and award-winning poets come together for what will be a warm, welcoming and powerful event. Vicki Feaver grew up in a "house of quarrelling women". Her poems, described as "domestic gothic", create a world where jam-making, gym classes and ironing are grafted onto fairy-tales and myth. Her books include The Handless Maiden and The Book of Blood. Jean Sprackland's "extraordinary imagination is always grounded in ordinary human emotions and setting." Her latest book Tilt won the 2007 Costa Poetry Award.

Sponsor: The Weavers Gallery

18. Valerie Bloom's Children's Book Show
(Family event) 2.00pm - 3.00pm £3 children (adults free) 5 - 10 year olds
Valerie Bloom is a performer who will get everyone singing along, doing the actions and getting into the rhythm of her poems. Valerie Bloom was born in Jamaica in a town called Orange Hill and her books for children include Duppy Jamboree, Fruits, The World is Sweet and Ackee, Breadfruit, Callaloo.

19. Tom Hodgkinson: Poetry and Idleness
3.45pm - 4.45pm Burgage Hall £6
Calling all loafers, loungers, ne'er do wells, gate-leaners and layabouts! The Editor of the marvellously subversive Idler magazine, anti-work campaigner and author of books like the cult bestseller How to be Idle and How to be Free, Tom Hodgkinson arrives in Ledbury. He will draw on the words of well-known idler poets including Keats and Wordsworth, in an event will weave poetry, polemic and a call to inaction. This event will link with Slow Food Herefordshire whose manifesto states, "May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency."

20. Poetry Jukebox: Roger Lloyd Pack and Jemma Redgrave
5.30pm - 6.30pm Community Hall £6
Your favourite poems read by distinguished actors - when booking for this event you will be invited to nominate a poem you would like to hear read at the performance.

Roger Lloyd Pack has had a long and famous career in theatre, film and television. Among many highlights he is probably best known for playing Trigger in Only Fools and Horses, Owen Newitt in The Vicar of Dibley and Barty Crouch Sr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He will appear with Jemma Redgrave who has also appeared many times in film and on television, playing, among other things, Dr. Eleanor Bramwell in Bramwell, Eleanor in The Buddha of Suburbia, Francesca Rochester in Judge John Deed and Dee Stanton in Like Father Like Son.

Sponsor: John Goodwin

21. Buzzwords with Dave Reeves
7pm writing workshop
8pm open mike and guest poet
The Royal Oak £3
Buzzwords, Cheltenham's only regular live poetry event, is coming to Ledbury for the Festival. The guest poet is Dave Reeves, variously described as a performer poet, folk poet, ranter and socio-political poet. Formerly Editor of Raw Edge, Dave Reeves is always a fabulous entertainer and generous writing tutor. There will be a writing workshop and open mic spots. Open mic spots will be 3 minutes on a first come, first served basis.

22. Ledbury Community Choir
8.00pm - 9.15pm Community Hall £10, £5 (under 18)
The Ledbury Community Choir plus orchestra perform the world premiere of The Wanderer, a specially commissioned song cycle by local composer John Frith. It is a setting of eight poems by John Masefield. The poems include the famous Cargoes and Sea Feaver, as well as On Eastnor Knoll and Tewkesbury Road. There are about 100 singers and the Choir is conducted by Malcolm Hughes. If you would like to know more about the Choir, please contact Barbara on 01531 634108.

23. Syrian Poetry and Music
8.00pm-10.00pm The Barn at Hellens, Much Marcle £20
An evening of poetry and music with four Syrian poets and the renowned musician Attab Haddad playing the oud. Haddad trained with the Iraqi soloist Ahmed Mukhtar in London and at the Arab Oud House in Cairo with Iraqi virtuoso Naseer Shama and Egyptian soloist Nihad El Sayad. He will perform classical Arabic music and his own compositions. Hala Mohammad is a poet and film-maker, who has published three collections of poetry. Lukman Derky has published six collections of poetry and writes a daily column in Baladna, a Syrian paper. He is co-founder of the Syrian satirical newspaper Al-Dumery. Monzer Masri is a poet and painter. His second collection of poetry was written with his sister, the poet Maram al-Massri and the late Syrian Mohammed Sayda. Rasha Omran has published three collections of poetry and is the director of Al-Sindiyan festival of culture. Following the performance food will be served in Hellens and afterwards you are free to explore its lovely grounds.

Bar available
Sponsor: Hellens Manor

Monday July 7

24. Out Loud
1.30pm - 3.30pm Community Hall Free
Grand finale of the Festival's Poets in Schools programme, showcasing and celebrating the fabulous poetry created by local children. The pupils perform the poems they have written and some of the poets that inspired them and worked with them take to the stage. Poet and guitarist James Carter will host the event. Dub poet Moqapi Selassie will also introduce students from John Masefield High School who will perform their poems. The other poets involved are Philip Wells, Roz Goddard, Julie Boden, Matt Black and Simon Pitt.

Sponsors: Pennington Mellor Munthe Charitable Trust, Mrs J Brooks

25. Samson Agonistes
6.30pm - 8.00pm Market Theatre £10
This poem by Milton is as pertinent and provocative today as it was when he wrote it. "It gives a terrorist's eye view written by someone whose sympathies are squarely with the terrorist... To those who have formed the mental habit of associating religious violence with Muslims, Samson Agonistes provides as salutary change of perspective" (Tobias Gregory, London Review of Books). This rendition performed by Peter Hamilton Dyer includes 17th century masque music interweaving through the verse, played with a 21st century sensibility by two musicians from the Globe players.

Sponsor: Friends of the Dymock Poets

26. The Ledbury Scribes
8.00pm - 10.00pm Black Pepper Carvery Free
Ledbury's poets read their work in this enjoyable session, open to all.

27. Nick Alexander: Excavations of Eternity
8.30pm - 9.30pm Icebytes Free
Nick Alexander will read his poems that accompany Jeanette McCulloch's pictures at the launch of this exhibition.

Tuesday 8 July

28. What is Poetry? Joy Roderick
10.15am - 1pm Burgage Hall £8 per session or £20 for all 3

Poetry and War
This workshop will allow students to explore a selection of poems by First World War poets, particularly Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon.

Sponsor: WEA

29. In the footsteps of DH Lawrence
6.30pm - 7.30pm Burgage Hall £6
Geoff Dyer criss-crosses the globe in the footsteps of DH Lawrence for his remarkable, highly original and laugh-out-loud book Out Of Sheer Rage. Like Alain de Botton, WG Sebald and John Berger, Dyer has established his reputation through his innovative conjoining of specific physical journeys with voyages of intellectual discovery. His other books include The Missing of the Somme, his study of jazz But Beautiful and his apology for traveller idleness Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It. He says "Following Lawrence around the world I was struck by how quickly my reactions became blunted by the relentless grind of travel... Lawrence dragged his extraordinary responsiveness round the world, reacting to everything he encountered."

30. Yes Film by Sally Potter
8.15pm Market Theatre £6
Yes is a film about two lovers, a Lebanese man and an Irish American woman. It is written entirely in verse, which feels natural and unforced and gives the film a muscular intensity. Writer and Director, Sally Potter says "I think of the film almost like a long song." Sally Potter, whose previous films include Orlando, started writing Yes days after the events of September 11 and the themes of the film - the struggle to understand each other (East and West, Christian and Muslim), the desire to respect each other's differences and to find a way of living side by side - are as urgent as ever.

31. Homend Poets
6.30pm - 8.30pm Icebytes Free
Local poets read their work at this informal and enjoyable musical and poetry event. Come and join in, all contributions welcome.

Wednesday 9 July

32. What is Poetry? Joy Roderick
10.15am - 1pm Burgage Hall £8 or £20 for all 3 workshops

Poetry and Religion
Today's workshop will focus on a wide range of poems, investigating attitudes to religion from 17c poets including Donne and Herbert to 20c poets including Duffy and Plath.

Sponsor: WEA

33. Architecture of Ledbury  SOLD OUT
11.00am - 1.00pm Meeting Point: Tinsmiths £4 A walk led by Duncan James, an expert on timber framed buildings, looking at the architecture of Ledbury from Doomsday Book to Present Day, including buildings that are connected to local, Ledbury Poets.

Please wear good supportive footwear and be prepared for a two hour walk which may include a climb.

Please book early to avoid disappointment.

Sponsor: Tinsmiths

34. Sebastian Peake on Mervyn Peake
6.30pm - 7.30pm Burgage Hall £6
On Mervyn Peake's birthday, on the 40th anniversary of his death, Sebastian Peake will give an illustrated talk about his father, the author of the much-loved Gormenghast trilogy and one of the great originals of the twentieth century. Mervyn Peake was also a poet, painter, playwright and illustrator and this year sees the publication of his Collected Poems, which reveal the dazzling link between the fantasy world of Gormenghast and Peake's own life and turbulent times, from unemployment in the 1930s to the horrors of the London Blitz and the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen.

35. Jehane Markham Jazz Trio
8.15pm - 9.15pm Burgage Hall £6
A night of poetry and jazz with themes ranging from Frank Sinatra to Cambodia to London as poet and playwright Jehane Markham delivers original poetry whilst jazz duo Robin Phillips (piano) and Jonny Gee (electro-acoustic bass) create musical soundscapes to compliment the words.

BYO (Bring your own drinks, cork screws and glasses provided).
Sponsor: Orme Dyke and Yates

36. Ledbury Lyricists
8.00pm - 11.00pm Prince of Wales Free
A gathering of folk musicians and poets. Come and join in or simply listen and enjoy.

Thursday 10 July

37. What is Poetry? Joy Roderick
10.15am - 1.00pm Burgage Hall £8 or £20 for all 3

Poetry and Nature
This final workshop will look at the work of Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes; and then move on to investigate attitudes to nature in the poetry of Seamus Heaney.

Sponsor: WEA

38. In Search of David Jones, Artist, Soldier, Poet
4.30pm - 5.30pm Market Theatre £6
David Jones, the third child of a Welsh father and an English mother, was one of the most important British painters and engravers of his generation. He was also one of the most important poets, often compared favourably with James Joyce, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. Writer and Director Derek Shiel's film is both accessible and scholarly, with contributors that include the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Welsh poets Gillian Clarke and Owen Sheers.

Sponsor: Fine Art UK

39. Blake Morrison
6.30pm - 7.30pm Burgage Hall £8
Best-known for his two memoirs And When Did you Last See Your Father? and Things My Mother Never Told Me, Blake Morrison has also written poetry, journalism, fiction and libretti. He will talk about his writing life. His latest novel is South of the River. Previous works include Pendle Witches, with etchings by Paula Rego, The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper and As If, about the Bulger killing: "A bruised and unsettlingly honest account of the death and its implications... What Morrison does differently and bravely is what he did in And When Did You Last See Your Father? He turns his appalled gaze inwards." (Nicci Gerrard, New Statesman).

Sponsor: The English Speaking Union

40. Roger Garfitt on Frances Horovitz
8.15pm - 9.15pm Burgage Hall £6
A celebration to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of the much-loved and respected poet Frances Horovitz, who died of cancer on 2nd October 1983. Her grave has already become a place of pilgrimage and there is a memorial to her, a glass panel engraved with lines from one of her poems, in Orcop Church. Frances Horovitz's poems "have the clarity of ballads and the power of myth" and her second husband, Roger Garfitt will talk about the place of the Herefordshire landscape in her work. He will then perform The Woman's Dream, with Sue Harris on the hammered dulcimer. Frances Horovitz was the author of four collections of poetry including Water Over Stone and Snow Light, Water Light.

Friday 11 July

41. Brenda Read Brown - Flood Poems, Jacqueline Saphra and Eric Gregory Award Winners
10.30am - 11.30am Burgage Hall £6
The Gloucestershire floods of July 2007 will not easily be forgotten. Tewkesbury writer and poet, Brenda Read-Brown, visited emergency services, local heroes and ordinary people caught up in the crisis to hear their accounts of that extraordinary time. Some of the stories are captured in her evocative poems. This event will also feature Jacqueline Saphra, the winner of the Ledbury Poetry Festival Poetry Competition and the winners of the 2008 Eric Gregory Awards.

Sponsor: The Rotary Club, Ledbury

42. Norman Buller and David Hart
12.15pm - 1.15pm Burgage Hall £6
Colwall based poet, Norman Buller, was well-known before 1958 when his poetry was praised by Thom Gunn and he was part of the writing circle that included Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley. He was then silent for 22 years. He has now re-emerged with the publication of his first full collection Sleeping with Icons. A spirited, inventive and wide-ranging poet, David Hart's poetry takes on public and private themes. "Individual poems here have arisen from commissions, have won prizes, speak of the poet's life, reveal a sadness and get into experimental strangeness." His latest collection is Running Out.

Sponsor: D & J Brooks

43. Frances Wilson and Pamela Woof on Dorothy Wordsworth
2.00pm - 3.00pm Burgage Hall £6
Pamela Woof, President of The Wordsworth Trust, is the Editor of Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journals, which are the focus of a new biography by Frances Wilson, The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth. This event will explore the relationship between Dorothy and her brother William Wordsworth and the extent of the debt his poetry owed to her. It will also celebrate the role the Wordsworth Trust plays today in preserving Dove Cottage, Wordsworth's home, as well as manuscripts and artefacts in the award-winning museum and in supporting contemporary poets and poetry.

44. Is there a prize-winning formula?
3.45pm - 4.45pm Burgage Hall £6 Free to Poetry Society members
Celebrating 30 years of National Poetry Competition, judge and award-winning poet Penelope Shuttle and second prize winner Rosemary Norman will discuss this question and read a selection of winning poems from the last thirty years. Former winners of this prestigious competition include Carol Ann-Duffy and Jo Shapcott. This entertaining and provocative event is held in collaboration with the Poetry Society and Chaired by poet and Ledbury Reporter journalist Gary Bills-Geddes.

Sponsor: The Poetry Society

45. Luke Kennard and Eleanor Rees
6.00pm - 7.00pm Burgage Hall £8
For this event the Festival chucks out the rows of chairs and invites you to 'the listening lab', experimenting with different ways of listening. Ever thought you'd rather hear poetry read while you lounge in a deckchair? Then this event is for you. The festival introduces two rising stars, Luke Kennard and Eleanor Rees, both much praised and generating considerable excitement among their fellow poets. According to David Morley, who is also appearing at the Festival, Luke Kennard's The Harbour Beyond the Movie is scintillating, funny and often moving. "Reading it reminded me of how I felt when I first read Muldoon, tuning into a new frequency." Andraste's Hair, by Eleanor Rees, in the words of Carol Ann Duffy, "introduces an ambitious, experimental voice, vibrantly charged with the energy of city life." Both poets were short-listed for the Forward Prize and Luke Kennard has the distinction of being the youngest poet ever short-listed.

Sponsor: The Friends of the Festival

46. Jackie Kay
7.30pm - 8.30pm Community Hall £8
Jackie Kay is one of Britain's best-known poets and a funny and compelling performer, appearing frequently on radio and TV programmes. She burst onto the scene with the famous Adoption Papers, charting the experience of being an adopted child of Scottish/Nigerian descent brought up by white parents in Glasgow. She is a poet for whom the personal is political and "one of her greatest strengths is the way she locates individual experience in the collective." Other works include, Other Lovers, Off Colour, Life Mask and her latest, Darling: New and Selected Poems. Her novel Trumpet is a curious and haunting story about mixed-race jazz trumpeter Joss Moody, who turns out, on his death, to have been a woman all along.

Sponsor: The Feathers Hotel

47. Polarbear and John Berkavitch
9.00pm - 10.00pm Burgage Hall £6
Funny and compelling, Polarbear is one of Britain's foremost performance poets. He creates 21st century story-poems with their roots in the rhythms of hip-hop, combining fantasy and hard reality. His Birmingham twang and subject matter have led to comparisons with Mike Skinner, but Polarbear's hero is Charles Bukowski. John Berkavitch's performance style is a mix of rap, ironic wit, sensitive social observation, unrequited love, beatbox and a passionate distaste for authority. His poems are packaged together with a sense of urgency and at times breathtaking speed and lyrical dexterity.

BYO (Bring your own drinks - we provide corkscrews and glasses).

Saturday 12 July

48. The Future in Publishing
10.30am - 11.45am Market Theatre £6
Two films celebrating two great publishers: Bloodaxe Books and Five Seasons Press. Neil Astley presents In Person, a DVD-book that is "a new concept in publishing: your own personal poetry festival brought to your home." In Person is a collaboration between Bloodaxe Books, (which is celebrating 30 years of pioneering poetry publishing), and award-winning film-maker Pamela Robertson-Pearce.

Glenn Storhaug, Five Seasons Press Editor and Publisher, presents another very different film which focuses on the pages themselves and illustrates his commitment to creating beautiful and individually designed books.

49. Poet to Poet: Gerard Manley Hopkins and Hart Crane
12.15pm - 1.15pm Burgage Hall £8
Two contemporary poets, Samuel Menashe and Maurice Riordan, introduce two poets of the past, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Hart Crane. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express, Samuel Menashe and Maurice Riordan offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to two great poets. Hart Crane's most famous work, The Bridge, is "a love song to the myth of America and its optimism encapsulates the excitement and energy of the jazz age."

50. Poetry Today
2.00pm - 3.00pm Burgage Hall £6
William Sieghart and Cressida Connolly discuss the State of the Poetry Nation.
Should the next poet laureate be a woman? Do poetry prizes do more harm than good? What is the point of poetry festivals? William Sieghart, founder of National Poetry Day and Forward Poetry Prize, will discuss these hot topics with author and journalist Cressida Connolly, daughter of the late Cyril Connolly. Cressida Connolly's books include The Happiest Days and The Rare and the Beautiful - Art, Loves and Lives of the Garman Sisters.

Sponsor: Simon and Margaret Payton

51. Improvisation in Poetry: The Big Chill vs John Masefield High School
2.00pm - 4.00pm Market Theatre Free
John Masefield High School pupils have worked with The Anomalies, a Hereford based hip-hop group, to produce a 3 minute rap. The Big Chill Festival is also, for the first time, supporting an Education and Outreach Programme involving workshops at John Masefield High School led by two spoken word artists Martin Stannage (AKA Visceral) and Shane Solanki (creator of D1 Archytypes).
The performers will also appear at The Big Chill Festival, Eastnor Castle, 1 - 3 August.

52. Under the Microscope: Poems and short stories
3.45pm - 4.45pm Burgage Hall £8
Gerard Woodward's latest work is a collection of short stories, Caravan Thieves, where everyday lives slip into the surreal with outcomes that are funny and disconcerting. He also writes poetry, including We Were Pedestrians and Island to Island. Jane Weir's poems are "made and measured dreamcoats. They are exquisite garments which clothe and enfold us in her imagination." (Simon Armitage) A lot of Jane Weir's poems, in collections such as Alice and The Way I Dressed During the Revolution, are narrative-driven and she is inspired by the poetry in Katherine Mansfield's short stories. This event will explore the similarities, differences and overlap between poems and short stories.

53. Growing Up an Alien
5.00pm - 6.00pm Community Hall £10
Intimate, enchanting and funny, Growing Up An Alien is the new show from captivating Irish writer and performer Aoife Mannix. In the company of mesmeric accordionist Janie Armour, Aoife revisits her nomadic childhood, exploring the relationships that bind all families together and the secrets that pull them apart. Born in a snowstorm in Stockholm on the stroke of midnight, Aoife reveals a wondrous coming-of-age tale about searching for a place to belong.
Produced by: Apples and Snakes

54. Samuel Menashe and Christopher Ricks
6.30pm - 7.30pm Burgage Hall £8
Born in 1925 in New York City Samuel Menashe belongs in the generation that produced such outstanding poets as Allen Ginsberg and Adrienne Rich. He has recently received a Neglected Masters Award from the Library of America and his importance as a poet is now being rediscovered and celebrated. Menashe has always had champions in poets such as Derek Mahon and Stephen Spender, as well as the brilliant Critic Christopher Ricks, well-known for his enthusiasm for Bob Dylan. Christopher Ricks edited the recent publication of Menashe's Selected Poems. They will reflect upon Menashe's work and a lifetime dedicated to writing poems of unsurpassed artistry.

Sponsor: The National Endowment for the Arts

55. Poetry Slam
6.30pm - 8.30pm The Market Theatre £5
A fast-paced, fun-filled performance poetry competition. Leading UK slampresarios Marcus Moore and Sara-Jane Arbury host proceedings as fifteen diverse versifiers vie for the slam champ accolade. Random judges mark the quality of the writing, quality of performance and warmth of applaudience. Three three-minute rounds narrow the field and heighten the tempo. More tense than Tennyson, keener than Keats, huger than Hughes and, yes, poetry in motion!

To find out just what are Words Worth - or to enter the slam (first come, first served) - contact Marcus on 01285 640470 or at info@spiel.wanadoo.co.uk

56. Leafcutter John
9.00pm - 10.00pm Burgage Hall £6
Musician and artist, Leafcutter John's latest album The Forest and The Sea, is a "striking hybrid of pastoral songcraft, glitch, field recording and traditional Greek instrumentation". Pushing at the boundaries, words become sounds and "the fragments of sound hang together with the inviolable conviction of a fine haiku." Leafcutter John also plays with the much feted avant jazzers Polar Bear, formed by drummer Seb Rochford, whose vocalist Alice Grant, a singer with a very distinctive, punky, deadpan, English-accented vocal style, will also be appearing. This will be an imaginative and unique event.

BYO (Bring your own drinks - we provide corkscrews and glasses.)
Sponsors: RWA Environmental Ltd.. The Tourism Company

57. Extreme Workshop: The Dark Write of the Sole
11.15pm Meet in front of the Burgage Hall, Church Lane £15
If you want to write those special poems you have to do the legwork because, as we all know, the greatest rewards come to those prepared to walk the extra mile. Writing can be soul destroying: tonight it gets sole destroying too. Raw Edge has organised Extreme Writing Workshops for two years now, including a workshop in a mediaeval castle dungeon. Participants will walk along the ridge back towards Ledbury with writing stops along the way. The night will be led by writer, editor and publisher Dave Reeves, with support and navigation from Lucy Lomas. Both are experienced hillwalkers and Lucy is a first aider and holds an outdoor leaders award.

The walk is a maximum of 10 miles and walkers will need to have a reasonable level of walking fitness. It will end at around 6-7.00am depending on the participants themselves.

Sunday 13 July

58. Poetry Breakfast with Peter Wyton and Emily Wills
9.30am - 10.30am Under the market house
"Wills and Wyton are like Gilbert and Sullivan - an immensely enjoyable combination of talents that leave you entertained, informed, surprised and often deeply moved." (UA Fanthorpe) Come and enjoy croissants and coffee under the market house and relish the poetry. Emily Wills combines part-time General Practice with poetry and parenting. Her first collection is called Diverting the Sea. Peter Wyton's work has appeared on Radio 4's Poetry Please and Something Understood. Most recently, he reached the final of Radio 4's first Poetry Slam. He is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently The Ship In The City, which features the history and architecture of Gloucester Cathedral and Not All Men Are From Mars.

Sponsor: The Woodhouse Farm Cottages

59. Seeds of Fire: Contemporary Poetry from the Other USA
11.00am - 12 noon Burgage Hall £8
Jon Andersen and Martín Espada are both poets who bear witness, as Pulitzer Prize finalist Martín Espada says, "I saw no contradiction being both a lawyer and a poet, since both, for me, involved advocacy." Their poems speak out on behalf of those without an opportunity to be heard, in the great tradition of Walt Whitman and Woody Guthrie. "Some poems call us to the barricades, some to despair. Some detail the way capitalism can poison even the most intimate aspects of our lives, while others record the bloody consequences of the American Way, from Palestine and Iraq, Vietnam and Chile to the beggars on the streets of Washington."  Martín Espada is a major award-winning poet. He has published 14 books including Crucifixion in the Plaza De Armas, The Republic of Poetry, A Mayan Astronomer in Hells Kitchen and City of Coughing and Dead Radiators. Jon Andersen's first collection is called Stomp and Sing. (Fred Voss also features in this anthology, see event no. 64)

Sponsor: Smokestack Books and Norton UK

60. Buzzing!
10.30am - 11.30am Market Theatre £3 (adults go free) all ages
"Edutainment for all the family!"
Each of the poems in Buzzing! introduce you to one of the extraordinary tiny creatures that live in our gardens. This fun celebration of garden creepy crawlies, by Anneliese Emmans Dean, is performed to a backdrop of photos, with especially composed music by acclaimed viola player John Rayson. It's amazing, it's amusing, it's Buzzing!

61. Gillian Allnutt and Janet Sutherland
12.45pm - 1.45pm Burgage Hall £8
Gillian Allnutt started out as a feminist but as time has passed hers has become a spiritual quest, "pushing English mystical nature poetry a few inches into the next millennium." Her spiritual concerns are tested against a hard edged reality of "dirty England", "a land of blown plastic bags." Gillian Allnutt has published seven books including her latest, How The Bicycle Shone: New and Selected Poems (2007). Janet Sutherland's Burning the Heartwood is a first collection of lyric and pastoral poems.

62. Luke Wright Poet and Man
2.00pm - 3.00pm Market Theatre £6
Luke Wright oozes verse from every pore. He made a name for himself with his Luke Wright for Poet Laureate campaign. He emerged less scathed than Robbie Williams from Britain's first poetry boy band, Aisle 16 and he now arrives in Ledbury with his new show. Mortgaged and married at 25, Luke Wright looks at what it takes to be a proper grown-up man in the 21st century. The result is "electrifying. He's like John Hegley crossed with Mike Skinner" and the verse is "visceral, poignant and riotously funny."

63. Poetry and Myth: David Morley and Marina Warner
3.30pm - 4.30pm Burgage Hall £8
Marina Warner is a hugely significant writer and thinker whose topics include myths, fairy tales, ghosts, monsters, the supernatural, women and childhood, explored across books and lectures such as From the Beast to the Blonde, No Go the Bogeyman and Managing Monsters: Six Myths of Our Time. She joins poet David Morley whose latest collection, The Invisible Kings, "is made up of the conflicts and mythologies of Morley's own Romany heritage, its various dark gods and underworlds." As Tim Liardet writes "Any universe is bound together by language; and Morley brings Romany vocabulary fizzing and crackling into our consciousness."

64. Matthew Sweeney and Fred Voss
5.15pm - 6.15pm Burgage Hall £8
Award-winning poet and superb reader of his poetry, Matthew Sweeney returns to Ledbury with a new, highly acclaimed collection Black Moon, described by Sean O'Brien as "ambitious and troubling, linking Ireland to the Black Sea and madness to history, grim as death and very funny". This collection was nominated for a T.S.Eliot Prize and may well be Sweeney's best collection yet. Fred Voss's influences include Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and Jim Morrison of The Doors. He lives in Long Beach California and has been a machinist for twenty years. His collections include Carnegie Hall with Tin Walls, Goodstone and the prize-winning Love Birds, a collaboration with his poet wife Joan Jobe. He also features in the collection Seeds of Fire: Contemporary Poetry from the Other USA (see event no. 59).

65. The Odyssey
6.45pm - 9.00pm Market Theatre £8
Having wowed Ledbury with Beowulf, Hugh Lupton and Daniel Morden return with the story of Odysseus' ten year journey from Troy and describe the systematic stripping away of a hero's wealth and warrior bravado until, at last, he returns home 'alone, unknown and under a strange sail'. Buffeted by the Fates, helped by indomitable owl-eyed Athene, Odysseus' voyage is the journey of Everyman from the cock-sureness of youth into the wisdom of age, from male ego into feminine mystery. This compulsive performance, by two of Britain's leading storytellers, is true to the momentum of a rattling good tale, the wry humour and poetic reflection, and the profound human observation of the Homeric vision.