Summer Events at Dove Cottage - New Writing Cumbria

DISCOVER
W O RD S W O RT H
Summer Events
at Dove Cottage
April to
November
2012
TALKS • POETRY • FAMILY ACTIVITIES • WORKSHOPS • WALKS • READINGS
The Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, Cumbria,
www.wordsworth.org.uk

Welcome
Welcome to the Wordsworth Trust’s Summer Events
Programme. This year sees the introduction of some
new types of event, many of which are family friendly,
as well as the return of established favourites. Whether
you are a newcomer or a long-standing friend, you are
assured of a warm welcome.
For those seeking a contemporary perspective, our
poetry events offer something for all levels of interest
– those new to poetry, dedicated poetry lovers and
practising poets. We aim to make contemporary poetry
accessible to everyone, so we hope that you will find
something to your taste, or that you would like to try.
For the first time, our museum-based programme
includes a daily ‘Glimpse behind the Scenes’. Dove
Cottage and Town End will be brought alive by living
history re-enactors, and our family activity room will be
transformed into the ship of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s
Ancient Mariner.
This year’s brochure is divided into two sections.
Events related to the Museum and the Wordsworth
Trust collection are in the first section and everything
connected to contemporary poetry is in the
second section.
Don’t forget to look for the pages about events for
families and glimpses behind the scenes.
We look forward to welcoming you to Dove Cottage
and the Wordsworth Museum this summer.
Michael McGregor
The Robert Woof Director

A Glimpse
Behind the
Scenes &
Spots of
Poetry
1 May – Friday 28 September,
2.30pm every weekday
On Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays
and Fridays, get a 15 – minute glimpse
behind the scenes, and see some of the
65,000 artefacts from the collection
not normally on show. See the beautiful
library of 200-year-old books, come
close to the manuscripts, and hear
about the personal favourite artefacts
of the Trust’s staff and interns.
On Wednesdays hear contemporary
and classic poetry, from new poems
written at the Wordsworth Trust to
old favourites. These readings will take
place at the rear of the Wordsworth
Museum, or in the Jerwood Centre if
the weather is poor.
Saturday 14 April, 4.30 – 5.30pm
Bindman Talk: Women,
Learning and Lore.
A talk by Professor Gary Kelly.
The Jerwood Centre.
FREE.
During Wordsworth’s lifetime,
modernisation instituted some
knowledges as “learning” and
marginalized others as “lore,”
restricting the former to upperand
middle-class men and assigning
the latter to the “folk,” to women, and
to “primitive” peoples. How did some
women of the Romantic period elude,
assail, modify, and negotiate this
unjust knowledge revolution
Gary Kelly is a Distinguished University
Professor, University of Alberta, Canada,
and author of books on Romantic
literature, culture, and politics. This
event is held in association with the
University of Newcastle, and will see
the launch of the Wordsworth Trust’s
online resource of letters written by
women 200 years ago.
Saturday 5 May, 4.30 – 6.00pm
Bindman Talk: In the Footsteps
of the First Tourists. Talks by Dr
William Roberts, Dr David Cooper,
Kevin Hamel and Katharine Langley
Hamel, and David Stewart
The Jerwood Centre.
FREE.
This event marks the beginning of
our special exhibition for 2012, Pen,
Paint and Pixels, which illustrates
Thomas Gray’s tour of the Lakes in 1769
with engravings by Joseph Farington
and modern photographs by John
Murray. Dr William Roberts, author of
an annotated edition of Gray’s tour,
will provide a commentary on Gray’s
experience, and Dr David Cooper will
describe an innovative mapping project
being undertaken by the University of
Lancaster, which will lead to a fresh
interpretation of the tour. Kevin and
Katharine Hamel will preview their
forthcoming DVD, which tells the
story of entertainers and entrepreneurs
responding to the growth of tourism
to the Lakes in the late eighteenth
century, and David Stewart of
www.walkingworld.com will
discuss the rituals of walking in
the landscape.

ROMANTICISM
FOR THE TERRIFIED
Were you put off Wordsworth and
poetry at school Are you completely
new to the subject but are not sure
where to start Does the word
‘Romanticism’ fill you with fear
Then join us for ‘Romanticism for the
Terrified!’, a series of free sessions
designed to give an introduction to
Wordsworth, his circle and some of
the poetry that has been written in
his shadow, in a relaxed and informal
setting. Take a risk and come along – try
something you’ve never
done before!
Monday 14 May, 11.00am – 12 noon
Reading Wordsworth Aloud
Tuesday 15 May, 11.00am – 12 noon
Wordsworth and Coleridge
Wednesday 16 May, 11.00am – 12 noon
Contemporary Poetry in the
Footsteps of Wordsworth
Thursday 17 May, 11.00am – 12 noon
Wordsworth and his Manuscripts
Friday 18 May, 11.00am – 12 noon
Byron, Keats and Shelley
Wordsworth
Walks
This event will combine a guided
five-mile walk through ‘Wordsworth
County’ (the Grasmere and Rydal area)
with an introduction to the poet’s life
and site-specific readings of his poetry.
The low-level walk through what the poet
called ‘the loveliest spot that man hath
ever found’ will last for three hours.
The walk will be led by either Professor
Simon Bainbridge or Dr Sally Bushell,
both of Lancaster University and
internationally-renowned experts in
Wordsworth’s writing.
The walk will leave from Stock Lane
car park. Please come equipped with
appropriate footwear (ideally walking
boots), waterproofs and refreshments.
Tuesday 22 May 10.00am – 1.00pm
Tuesday 22 May 2.00pm – 5.00pm
Tuesday 10 July 10.00am – 1.00pm
Tuesday 10 July 2.00pm – 5.00pm
Tuesday 11 September 10.00am – 1.00pm
Tuesday 11 September 2.00pm – 5.00pm
Adults £10, under – 16 and students £5.
Saturday 9 June, 4.30 – 5.30pm
Bindman Talk: Fern Fever in the Fells.
A talk by Dr Sarah Whittingham
The Jerwood Centre.
FREE.
Dr Sarah Whittingham, author of a
new book: Fern Fever: The Story of
Pteridomania, will trace the tale of the
Victorian fern craze in the Lake District.
Beginning with the Wordsworths’
early appreciation of the plant, it
encompasses fern tourists, fern books,
fern albums, fern guides, and fern
nurseries, culminating in the founding
of the British Pteridological Society in
Kendal in 1891.
Monday 11 June, 1.00 – 3.00pm
Wordsworth goes West!
Allerdale COSC, Maryport.
FREE.
Join us for an informal gathering in
Maryport to discover Wordsworth’s
connections with this part of Cumbria.
As well as a short talk, there will be
readings and discussion, including
contributions by local groups with
which the Trust has been working.
Saturday 23 – Sunday 24 June,
10.00am – 5.00pm both days
Knitters, Vagabonds and Beggars:
Living history days at Dove Cottage
Across the site.
Free with admission to Dove Cottage
and the Museum.
NOTICE: On Saturday the 23rd of June,
and Sunday the 24th, the Terrible Knitters
of Yorkshire beg leave to inform the
Public, that they will be in attendance
at the house of Mr. W. Wordsworth. The
Knitters will demonstrate their humble
Art; hand-spinners will be trailing clouds
of fleece as they come. It is entirely likely,
between the hours of ten and five, divers
vagabonds and beggars, as described in
the Grasmere Journals of Miss Dorothy
Wordsworth, may also appear.
Saturday 23 June, 7.30 – 9.30pm
A Merry Meet
Grasmere Village Hall.
Small admission charge.
Calling all Terrible Knitters! Prick Your
Finger invites you to a “Merry Meet” to
preview the republication of The Old
Hand Knitters of the Dales. Clues of
garn, pricks and goose thropple rattles
provided, for wapping, swaving and
making fair music. Re-visit and re-invent
the songs of the knitters, whilst knitting
a trust in nature and faith in the future…
Please come a sitting, and tell us
your stories.

Saturday 7 July, 4.30 – 5.30pm
Bindman Talk: Radical Footsteps:
Walking, Romanticism and the Tradition
of Trespassing. A talk by Conohar Scott.
The Jerwood Centre.
FREE.
Walking in the Lakes today is a
recreational experience; however, what
visitors often overlook is the radical
history of the walk itself. Conohar
Scott charts the history of walking as a
performative and political act, relating
Wordsworth’s intentional trespassing
and The Ramblers’ struggle for access
to open countryside, to his own
photographic practice documenting
pollution. Conohar Scott is a
photographer, environmental activist and
Researcher at Loughborough University.
Thursday 6 September and
Friday 7 September,
11.00am and 2.00pm both days
Heritage Open Days:
Treasures of the Wordsworth Trust
The Jerwood Centre.
FREE.
The Jerwood Centre houses the
Wordsworth Trust’s collection of
over 65,000 manuscripts, books and
art, including Wordsworth’s working
notebooks, Dorothy Wordsworth’s
famous Grasmere journals, letters to
and from the family and their circle, rare
first and early editions of the Romantics,
early paintings of the Lake District, and
much, much more. Discover more about
this collection, including treasures not
normally on show to the public, with the
Trust’s curatorial team.
Saturday 15 September, 4.30 – 5.30pm
The Annual Thelwall Lecture –
John Thelwall and Radical Medicine.
A talk by Dr Gordon Bottomley
The Jerwood Centre.
FREE.
John Thelwall, the foremost radical
orator in the 1790s, and influence on
Wordsworth and Coleridge, was also an
active member of Guy’s Medical Society,
and had close friendships with radical
surgeons, such as Sir Astley Cooper.
For the first Annual Thelwall Lecture,
Dr Gordon Bottomley will discuss John
Thelwall’s medical connections, how they
complemented his radical politics, and
how they led to his subsequent career
as the first speech therapist. Dr Gordon
Bottomley is Secretary of the newlyformed
John Thelwall Society, and is a
Patron of the Wordsworth Trust.
Saturday 13 October, 3.00 – 5.00pm
Poetry, Disability and Wellbeing
The Jerwood Centre.
FREE.
This event will bring together the
work of several groups with which the
Trust has enjoyed working through the
year. It will be introduced by Professor
Michael Bradshaw of Edgehill University,
speaking on disability and Romantic
writers. This will be followed by
responses from groups and individuals
to Dorothy Wordsworth’s lines, written
in her older age: ‘No prisoner am I on
this couch / My mind is free to roam’.
Saturday 3 November, 3.00 – 4.00pm
Bindman Talk: Walking North
with Keats – A different route.
A talk by Professor Nicholas Roe.
The Jerwood Centre.
FREE.
Professor Nicholas Roe will look at John
Keats’s 1818 walk through the Lake District
to the Scottish borders and on to the
Highlands and Islands. Drawing on his
biography of Keats, he will explore the
tour’s significance for Keats’ life as a poet
in his encounters with different landscapes,
with ruined priories and abbeys in
Dumfriesshire, and with poets living and
long dead. Nicholas Roe is Professor of
English at the University of St Andrews,
and is a Trustee of the Wordsworth Trust.
Saturday 17 November, 3.00 – 4.00pm
Bindman Talk: Walking with Wordsworth.
A talk by Michael Broughton.
The Jerwood Centre.
FREE.
Drawing on Wordsworth’s writings and
his response to the sister art of painting,
Michael Broughton will discuss the
inspiration of nature, imagination and
evocative landscape. Michael is Chairman
of the WW Spooner Charitable Trust and a
Patron of the Wordsworth Trust.

FAMILY ACTIVITIES
31 March to 15 April,
10.00am – 5.00pm every day
Family activities for Easter
The Foyle Room, opposite Dove Cottage.
FREE.
Come and join in with our Easter themed
activities. Make your own Easter cards
using the Wordsworth family’s decorated
pace eggs for inspiration, and much more!
Saturday 7 April, 10.00am – 5.00pm
Wordsworth’s Birthday
The Foyle Room, opposite Dove Cottage.
FREE.
Help us celebrate Wordsworth’s 242nd
birthday with a special day of poetry and
activities. Make Wordsworth a birthday
card, and write him a birthday poem!
Friday 18 May and
Saturday 19 May, 7.00 – 9.00pm
Museums at Night:
An Evening with the
Wordsworths for Families
Dove Cottage.
FREE. Places are limited to 15 each
evening, so please book in advance.
See Dove Cottage after the
crowds have all gone home, at
our special candlelit evenings
of family activities. Not only will
there be games and activities,
but you will also be able to
try cakes, biscuits and drinks
made to recipes used by the
Wordsworths and their friends!
2 – 10 June,
10.00am – 5.00pm every day
Family activities for half term
The Foyle Room, opposite
Dove Cottage.
FREE.
Try out arts and crafts linked to
our special exhibition Pen, Paint
and Pixels: Touring the English
Lakes across 250 years. More
details will be available on our
website nearer the time.
Saturday 21 July to Sunday 2 September,
10.00am – 5.00pm every day
Family activities for the summer holidays:
‘There was a ship…’ -
Exploration and Discovery
The Foyle Room, opposite Dove Cottage.
FREE.
Join us for a voyage of discovery during the
summer holidays. Our family activities will
transport you to ‘the land of ice and snow’,
where you will explore worlds both real
and imaginary, past and present, and share
stories of your own journeys. Pick up our
site trail and become like one of the early
explorers of the Lake District and beyond,
by discovering hidden clues and boldly
going where few tourists have gone before.
Monday 22 October to Friday 26 October,
10.00am – 5.00pm every day
Family activities for half term: The Big
Draw
The Foyle Room, opposite Dove Cottage.
FREE.
Come and join in our art and craft activities
for half term as part of the national Big
Draw campaign. Activities will tie in with
our special exhibition, Pen, Paint and Pixels:
Touring the English Lakes across 250 years.
For further details please check
our website.

The
Wordsworth
Family and
Friends at
Allan Bank
Tuesday 26 June, from 2.00pm
Tuesday 24 July, from 2.00pm
Tuesday 21 August, from 2.00pm
Tuesday 18 September, from 2.00pm
There is no need to book for
these drop-in talks.
In 1808, the growing Wordsworth
family moved from Dove Cottage to
the much larger Allan Bank, on the
opposite side of Grasmere village.
This summer, Allan Bank, now a
National Trust property,
will open to visitors.
On four Tuesdays across the summer,
members of the Wordsworth Trust’s
curatorial team will spend the
afternoon at Allan Bank, sharing
stories of the Wordsworths, their
extended family and their friends’
during the time that the family lived
at the house. There will also be a
chance to see original artefacts from
the Wordsworth Trust’s collection.
POETRY
SEASON
2012
Friday 20 – Sunday 22 April
The Dorothy Wordsworth Festival
of Women’s Poetry
In association with Poet Laureate
Carol Ann Duffy
A three day showcase of women’s
poetry in Grasmere
Readings • Talks • Workshops
• Discussions
Featuring Carol Ann Duffy • Gillian
Clarke • Liz Lochhead • Ann Gray •
Vicki Feaver • Sarah Maguire • Esther
Morgan • Carola Luther • Kim Moore
& International Poet in Residence
Jane Hirshfield
See separate programme for
full details
Special offer 3 for 2 on Tuesday Readings
Book 2 get a 3rd (marked with an asterisk) free.
To qualify for this offer all 3 readings must be
booked at the same time. Only readings marked
with an asterisk can be booked as a free reading.
Season ticket for all Tuesday readings £56.00
(13 readings for the price of 8 – only available
prior to 1 May)
LISTEN
Tuesday 1 May 6.45pm
Poetry reading: David Morley
& Sasha Dugdale*
St Oswalds Church, Grasmere
£8.00 (£7.00 if booked and paid in advance)
Two poets drawing on history and folklore.
David Morley’s recent poetry, culminating
in his acclaimed collection Enchantment,
draws on his Romany ancestry to reinvent
the oral tradition of poetry. In myths of
origin and the natural world, history and
folk wisdom, he weaves spells of Romany
and circus language and invents forms
and shapes. Listeners will be drawn into a
magical and mysterious world.
Sasha Dugdale’s new poems evoke the
ghosts and presences that stay on the
margins of our lives, crossing Europe to
the chalk downs of Sussex and the edges
of towns. Her new collection Red House
draws on folksong, lament and the lyric
tradition.
David Morley
Sasha Dugdale
Clockwise from top left: Jane
Hirshfield, Carol Ann Duffy, Liz
Lochhead and Gillian Clarke

WRITE
Saturday 12 May
10.30am – 4.00pm
Workshop: Nature
and the Landscape with
Gerry Cambridge
Allan Bank, Grasmere
In association with the
National Trust
£35.00
Join us for a walk around
the beautiful landscape
that so much inspired
Wordsworth, guided by the
National Trust, and return to
Allan Bank, Wordsworth’s
later home, for a writing
workshop based around
your experiences.
Gerry Cambridge is a poet,
critic and magazine editor.
He worked as a wildlife
photographer before
beginning his writing career.
He was Writer in Residence
at Brownsbank Cottage,
home of Hugh MacDiarmid,
from 1998 – 2000. While
there he published Nothing
but Heather a collection of
poems accompanying his
own wildlife photographs.
In 2006 he published Aves,
a collection of prose poems
expressing his lifelong
fascination with birds. He
edits The Dark Horse and his
latest collection is Notes for
Lighting a Fire.
LISTEN
Tuesday 15 May 6.45pm
Poetry Translation Centre Persian Poets
Tour 2012:* Farzeneh Khojandi, Reza
Mohammadi and Partaw Naderi with
translators Jo Shapcott & Nick Laird (tbc)
The Wordsworth Hotel, Grasmere
£8.00 (£7.00 advance booking and payment)
A rare opportunity to see three of the
foremost poets writing in Persian today,
with two acclaimed British poets as
translators.
Farzeneh Khojandi, is regarded as
Tajikistan’s foremost living writer. Her
playful and witty poetry draws on the
rich tradition of Persian literature in a
subversive and humorous way.
Reza Mohammadi was born in Afghanistan
in 1979 and is one of the most exciting
young poets writing in Persian today. He
is also a prolific journalist and cultural
commentator.
Partaw Naderi is one of the leading
modernist poets in Afghanistan, the lyrical
intensity of his work coupled with his bold
use of free verse distinguishing him as a
highly original and important poet. He was
imprisoned by the Soviet-backed regime
in Afghanistan in the1970s, shortly after he
began to write poetry. After years in exile
he recently returned to Kabul where he is
president of Afghan PEN.
Farzeneh Khojandi
READ
Thursday 17 May 2.30pm – 4.00pm
Poetry Reading Group: Mimi
Khalvati Child: New and Selected
Poems 1991 – 2011
The Jerwood Centre
Free but booking essential
Join Wordsworth Trust’s Literature Officer Andrew
Forster to read and discuss the work of Mimi Khalvati
prior to her reading in Grasmere in a lively and informal
session. Regular poetry readers and those new to
poetry are all welcome.
LISTEN
Saturday 26 May 2.30pm
Poetry Reading: The Poetry Business
Book & Pamphlet Competition
Hosted by Ann and Peter Sansom
The Jerwood Centre
Free but booking essential
Now in its 26th year, the Poetry Business Competition
has discovered some of the most exciting talents in
poetry, including Mimi Khalvati, Michael Laskey, Daljit
Nagra and Catherine Smith. This year’s competition
is judged by Carol Ann Duffy, who will choose four
pamphlet winners.
This event features readings from those as yet mystery
poets, launching their winning collections.
It will include a bookstall of titles (including
The North magazine) – one of which is free
for every member of the audience!

LISTEN
Tuesday 29 May 6.45pm
Poetry reading: Mimi Khalvati
& Mike Barlow*
The Wordsworth Hotel, Grasmere
£8.00 (£7.00 advance booking and payment)
A welcome return to Grasmere for two
poets whose work crosses the divide
between the familiar and the strange.
The figure of the child stands at the
centre of Mimi Khalvati’s work: the poet
as a schoolgirl on the Isle of Wight, or
in half-remembered later years living
with her grandmother in Tehran; her two
children, now grown up; children in art;
and an enduring sense of oneself as a
child that is never left behind. Her poems
are nuanced, formally accomplished,
Romantic in sensibility, rapturous and
tender.
Mike Barlow will read from his new
collection Charmed Lives: charmed
as in surviving, getting away with it,
possessed, fortunate. Whether drawing
on direct or imaginary experience,
works of art, literature or myth, Mike’s
new poems are about being vulnerable,
getting by and sometimes finding
yourself, surprisingly, at one with
the world.
Mike Barlow
READ
Thursday 31 May
2.30pm – 4.00pm
Poetry reading Group:
Reading Wordsworth
Out Loud
The Jerwood Centre
Free but booking essential
How do you approach
the challenge of reading
Wordsworth’s poetry out
loud How might he have
sounded Do you favour
meaning or metre
Come and join Curator
Jeff Cowton and Literature
Officer Andrew Forster for a
relaxed exploration of these
and other questions. Come
prepared to read out loud!
WRITE
Saturday 2 June 10.30am – 4.30pm
Poetry Workshop:
Poetry and Music with Fiona Sampson
In association with the Poetry School
The Jerwood Centre
£35.00 Booking in advance essential
Is poetry “musical” Has musical form
anything to teach us about how a
poem works Can we borrow musical
strategies to build and enrich poems
This workshop will explore some of
the possibilities music offers poetry
and poets. Participants will look at
some poems and write others: and,
of course, no musical knowledge is
necessary!
Fiona Sampson edits Poetry Review.
Music Lessons, a series of lectures
exploring the relationship between
music and poetry, was published last
year. Her latest collection Rough Music
was shortlisted for both the Forward
and Eliot Prizes, and Beyond the Lyric,
her survey of contemporary British
poetry, is published this autumn by
Chatto.
Fiona Sampson
LISTEN
Tuesday 12 June 6.45pm
Poetry Reading:
Daljit Nagra & Helen Farish*
The Wordsworth Hotel, Grasmere
£8.00 (£7 advance booking and payment)
Two poets giving voice to a multitude
of characters.
Daljit Nagra, one of the most
distinctive poets and performers
to emerge in recent years, will read
from his new collection Tippoo Sultan’s
Incredible White-Man-Eating Tiger-Toy-
Machine!!! In his vivid and sometimes
surreal poems, Daljit creates his own
inimitable linguistic bhaji, where
Shakespeare meets the Indian
subcontinent in a range of forms
from English sonnets to spectacular
displays of ‘bollyverse’.
There’s also a return to Grasmere for
former Poet in Residence Helen Farish,
reading from her long-awaited second
collection Nocturnes at Nohant, a
narrative of the love affair between
Chopin and the novelist George Sand,
with a rich cast of supporting characters,
many of whom debate, in a humorous
and often surprising way, the relationship
between place and creativity, and the
nature of the creative process. Helen will
also give a taste of a new collection of
Cumbrian poems due in 2013.

READ
Thursday 14 June 2.30pm – 4.00pm
Poetry reading Group: Penelope Shuttle
Sandgrain and Hourglass
The Jerwood Centre
Free but booking essential
Join the Wordsworth Trust’s Literature
Officer Andrew Forster to read and discuss
the work of Penelope Shuttle prior to her
reading in Grasmere. A lively and informal
session for regular poetry readers and
those new to poetry.
LISTEN
Tuesday 26 June 6.45pm
Poetry reading: Penelope Shuttle &
Samantha Wynne Rhydderch*
The Wordsworth Hotel, Grasmere £8.00
(£7.00 advance payment and booking)
Two poets with great imaginative versatility.
Rescheduled from last year, Penelope
Shuttle will read from her latest collection
of poems Sandgrain and Hourglass and
the forthcoming Unsent: New and Selected
Poems 1980 – 2012. Her recent work charts
her continuing experience of loss and
healing, communicating with her husband
Peter Redgrove and remembering their
shared past, in her uniquely inventive way.
READ
Wednesday 27 June
10.30am
Poets on Poets: Penelope
Shuttle on Peter Redgrove
The Jerwood Centre
£6.00 (£5.00 advance payment
and booking)
Penelope Shuttle’s husband
Peter Redgrove was
one of the most prolific,
energetic, original and
visionary poets of his time.
His work blended the
erotic, the terrifying, the
playful, the strange, and
the strangely familiar. To tie
in with the publication of
Peter Redgrove’s Collected
Poems and Neil Roberts’
biography A Lucid Dreamer
Penelope Shuttle will read
from Redgrove’s poems
and share her own unique
perspective on his life
and work.
READ
Thursday 28 June 2.30pm – 4.00pm
Poetry Reading Group:
Wordsworth and Lyric Poetry
The Jerwood Centre
Free but booking essential
Would you like to read Wordsworth but
don’t know where to start Our relaxed,
informal reading group sessions are the
perfect taster. The Wordsworth Trust’s
Education Officer Catherine Kay will guide
you in reading and discussing the ‘Lucy’
poems and various sonnets.
WRITE
Saturday 30 June 10.30am – 4.30pm
Poetry Workshop: Content and Form
with Clare Pollard
in association with the Poetry School
The Jerwood Centre
£35.00 Booking in advance essential
What can a poem be about What are your
poems about And when you’ve had an idea
for a poem, how do you find the right shape
for it This one-day course aims to make you
think about the relationship between content
and poetic technique - how metre can create
the ‘sound of sense’, the different effects of
rhyme, and why certain forms suit certain
subjects.
LISTEN
Tuesday 10 July 6.45pm
Poetry Reading:
Simon Armitage
St Oswald’s Church, Grasmere
£8.00 (£7.00 advance payment
and booking)
Simon’s annual visit to
Grasmere is one of the
highlights of his year and
ours.
With his streetwise
humour, his inventive use
of conversational speech
and his eye for the ordinary
detail, Simon Armitage
has brought a whole new
generation to poetry. His
latest book is The Death
of King Arthur, a new
translation of a medieval
poem which follows on from
his acclaimed version of
Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight, drawing parallels
between Arthur’s age and
ours. Simon’s Grasmere
readings ALWAYS sell out
so book early to avoid
disappointment.
Samantha Wynne Rhydderch will read
for the Wordsworth Trust for the first
time, to mark the publication of her third
collection Banjo. The new book centres
on a celebration of the centenary of
Captain Scott’s arrival at the South Pole. It
reimagines the lives of the early Antarctic
pioneers, exploring on the extraordinary
role of music in surviving the long winter.
Clare Pollard latest collection The Changeling
was a Poetry Book Society recommendation.
She has also written plays and documentaries
or television and radio. She was a Royal
Literary Fellow at Essex University, and
teaches for Arvon, The Poetry School and
The City Lit. She is on the editorial board
of Magma poetry magazine.
Simon Armitage

READ
Thursday 12 July 2.30pm – 4.00pm
Poetry Reading Group: Ruth Padel
The Mara Crossing
The Jerwood Centre
Free but booking essential
Join the Wordsworth Trust’s Literature
Officer Andrew Forster to read and discuss
Ruth Padel’s new book prior to her reading
in Grasmere in a lively and informal session.
Regular poetry readers and those new to
poetry are all welcome.
LISTEN
Tuesday 24 July 6.45pm
Poetry Reading: Ruth Padel & Judy Brown
St Oswald’s Church, Grasmere
£8.00 (£7.00 advance payment and booking)
A sensuous exploration of the
physical world.
Ruth Padel is one of our most startlingly
original poets and a remarkable reader. She
will return to Grasmere to read from her
new book The Mara Crossing, a collection
of poems with prose interludes that weaves
science, nature, myth and human history
to explore the way the world is created
and sustained by migration on all kinds
of levels. Ruth’s last Grasmere reading
sold out fast, so book early to avoid
disappointment.
Judy Brown is an outstanding and original
new voice, reading at the Wordsworth
Trust for the first time. Many of her poems
are edgy, unsettling narratives, filled with
exact observation and sudden modulations
of tone and register and featuring exangels,
spontaneous combustion and other
mysterious phenomena. Loudness was
shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best
First Collection.
READ
Thursday 26 July
2.30pm – 4.00pm
Poetry Reading Group:
Wordsworth and Place
The Jerwood Centre
Free but booking essential
Would you like to read
Wordsworth but don’t know
where to start Our relaxed,
informal reading group
sessions are the perfect
taster. The Wordsworth
Trust’s Literature Officer
Andrew Forster will look at
Wordsworth’s relationship
with Grasmere, using ‘Home
at Grasmere’ and ‘Poems on
the Naming of Places’ as a
starting point.
Ruth Padel
WRITE
Saturday 4 August 10.30am – 4.30pm
Poetry Workshop: Reading Poetry
with Mimi Khalvati
In association with the Poetry School
The Jerwood Centre
£30.00 Advance Booking essential
All poets should read as much as they
can. This is a special event for poets,
poetry lovers and for those new to
reading poetry. Mimi will lead the group
in reading and discussing selected
poems from contemporary and canonical
writers, finding out what gives us pleasure
or puzzlement, teasing out tangles,
investigating ‘meanings’ and also looking at
how figurative language and poetic forms
add to our understanding and appreciation
of modern and classical poetry.
Jane Griffiths
LISTEN
Tuesday 7 August 6.45pm
Poetry Reading: Jane
Griffiths and Jonathan
Davidson*
The Wordsworth Hotel,
Grasmere
£8.00 (£7.00 advance payment
and booking)
Finding the extraordinary in
the everyday.
Jane Griffiths’ work
explores people and places.
The poems in her new
book Terrestrial Variations
include elegies for friends,
relations, dead selves, and
unrealised lives, but despite
the shadow of loss they find
delight in the daily business
of being in the world. Her
previous book Another
Country: New & Selected
Poems was shortlisted for
the Forward Prize for Best
Collection
Jonathan Davidson’s Early
Train is her first book of
poems in 14 years. Rooted in
family and domesticity, they
are quiet, clear and graceful,
finding something universal
and lasting in the ordinary
details of daily life, such
as watching your children
sleep just before you leave
the house in the morning.

READ
Thursday 9 August 2.30pm – 4.00pm
Poetry Reading Group: Julia Copus
The World’s Two Smallest Humans
The Jerwood Centre
Free but booking essential
Join Wordsworth Trust’s Literature
Officer Andrew Forster to read and
discuss Ruth Padel’s new book prior
to her reading in Grasmere. Lively and
informal. Regular poetry readers and
those new to poetry are all welcome.
LISTEN
Tuesday 21 August 6.45pm
Poetry reading:
Jamie McKendrick and Julia Copus*
The Wordsworth Hotel, Grasmere
£8.00 (£7.00 advance payment and booking)
Poems that are finely-tuned and
unflinching.
Jamie McKendrick’s reading in Grasmere
will tie in with the publication of his sixth
collection. His poems spring out from
their starting points into all kinds of
imaginative directions, but are repeatedly
concerned with the weight of history
on the individual, whether he is writing
about the miners’ strike or classical Italy.
The poems are rich, allusive and carefully
textured.
Julia Copus’ poems bring humanity
and light to some of our most intimate
and solitary moments. In her eagerly
anticipated third collection The World’s
Two Smallest Humans, the poems are
the fruit of her upbringing in a musical
family, an affinity with the Classics, a
fascination with the arc of time, and an
unflinching scrutiny of love and personal
relationships.
READ
Thursday 23 August
2.30pm – 4.00pm
Poetry Reading Group:
Wordsworth & Childhood
The Jerwood Centre
Free but booking essential
Would you like to read
Wordsworth but don’t know
where to start Our relaxed,
informal reading group
sessions are the perfect
taster. The Wordsworth
Trust’s Education Officer
Catherine Kay will lead
the group in reading and
talking about some of
Wordsworth’s stunning
evocations of childhood
from The Prelude.
Julia Copus
WRITE
Saturday 1 September
10.30am – 4.30pm
Herding Cats: Capturing
Creatures in Poetry with
Antony Dunn
In association with the
Poetry School
The Jerwood Centre
£35.00 Advance booking
essential
Animals prowl in every
corner of poetry. Wild or
tame, real or metaphorical,
they’ve surely been written
into the work of every
single poet. Antony Dunn
will explore ways in which
we can use animals in our
own poems to do more
than merely describe them;
to give them a voice, and
through them to tell stories
of our own triumphs and
tragedies. Fun, informal
and encouraging, Herding
Cats will guide you towards
the creation of some new
poems through a series
of reading, writing and
conversational challenges.
Antony Dunn has published
three collections of poetry,
Pilots and Navigators
(Oxford Poets 1998), Flying
Fish (Carcanet Oxford Poets
2002) and Bugs (Carcanet
Oxford Poets 2009). He is
currently working towards
completion of a fourth.
LISTEN
Tuesday 4 September 6.45pm
Poetry Reading: Andrew Motion
St Oswald’s Church, Grasmere
£8.00 (£7.00 Advance payment and booking)
Former Poet Laureate’s welcome return
to Grasmere.
Andrew Motion will read from a new
collection of poems The Customs House.
His recent work includes Laurels and
Donkeys, a profoundly moving sequence
of war poems referring to 20th and 21st
century conflicts that have involved
British forces. Andrew’s lyric poems are
graceful and musical and his readings are
elegant and stylish. Book early to avoid
disappointment.
READ
Wednesday 5 September 10.30am
Poets on Poets: Andrew Motion on
Edward Thomas
The Jerwood Centre,
£6.00 (£5.00 Advance booking and payment)
Former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion will
read the poems of Edward Thomas and
talk about Thomas’ enduring legacy.
Andrew Motion

READ
Thursday 6 September 2.30pm – 4.00pm
Poetry Reading Group: Andrew Greig As
Though We Were Flying
The Jerwood Centre
Free but booking essential
Join the Wordsworth Trust’s Literature
Officer Andrew Forster to read and discuss
Ruth Padel’s new book prior to her reading
in Grasmere in a lively and informal session.
Regular poetry readers and those new to
poetry are all welcome.
WRITE
Saturday 15 September 10.30am – 4.30pm
Poetry Workshop: Nature and
the Landscape with Colin Will
Allan Bank, Grasmere
In association with the Natural Trust
Booking essential £35.00
This is the second of two nature and
landscape workshops. As summer slowly
gives way to autumn, join us for a walk
around the landscape that so inspired
Wordsworth, guided by the National Trust,
and return to Wordsworth’s later home to
write poetry from your experiences.
Colin Will is a poet and publisher. He
worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens ,
Edinburgh. He is passionate about nature
and the landscape and this finds its way
into his poetry. He runs Calder Wood Press.
His latest book is Floor Show at the Mad
Yak café, with a new collection out
later this year.
LISTEN
Tuesday 18 September
6.45pm
Poetry Reading: Andrew
Greig & Graham Mort*
St Oswald’s Church, Grasmere
£8.00 (£7.00 advance booking
and payment)
Two poets with instinctive
compassion and warm
humanity.
Scottish poet Andrew
Greig will read in Grasmere
for the first time, from
two new collections of
poems: Getting Higher: The
Complete Mountain Poems
and As Though We Were
Flying. Andrew’s poems
can be playful or serious,
colloquial or formal, and
celebratory or elegiac.
Whether set in Orkney,
Spain, coastal Fife or
Edinburgh, they are acts of
attention, when the mind
wakes up and the world
snaps into focus.
Graham Mort’s first reading
at the Wordsworth Trust is
long overdue. He will read
from his new collection
Cusp, his first since Visibility:
New and Selected Poems.
His poems are distinguished
by keen observation, a
feeling for the natural world
that echoes and enhances
the human interactions in
his poems, and the sense of
the individual as part of a
larger society of which we
are implicitly responsible.
READ
Thursday 20 September 2.30pm – 4.30pm
Poetry Reading Group:
Wordsworth and Narrative
The Jerwood Centre
Free but booking essential
Would you like to read Wordsworth
but don’t know where to start The
Wordsworth Trust’s Literature Officer
Andrew Forster will lead a reading and
discussion of two of Wordsworth’s best
known narrative poems, ‘Michael’ and
‘We Are Seven’, in a relaxed and friendly
atmosphere.
LISTEN
Saturday 29 September 2.30pm
Poetry Reading: Former Poets
in Residence Gerard Benson &
Emma Jones with Carola Luther
The Jerwood Centre
£5.00 Booking essential
The Wordsworth Trust has been hosting
Poets in Residence for nearly twenty
years. Gerard Benson, the Wordsworth
Trust’s first Poet in Residence, will read
from Memoirs of a Jobbing Writer, a
new e-book. Emma Jones will talk about
her experiences at the Trust and read
new poems. Chaired by current Poet in
Residence Carola Luther.
Andrew Greig
LISTEN
Tuesday 2 October 6.45pm
Poetry Reading: Kathleen
Jamie & Rachael Boast
The Wordsworth Hotel,
Grasmere
£8.00 (7.00 advance booking
and payment)
A fitting finale!
One of our finest poets
makes a welcome return to
the Trust to close the 2012
readings. Kathleen Jamie’s
poems consider Scottish
identity, gender politics
and, more recently, our
relationship with the natural
world. She will read from
her first collection of poems
since her award-winning The
Tree House.
Rachael Boast won the
Forward Prize for Best
First Collection for her
remarkable debut Sidereal.
She is a Romantic poet
for the 21st century,
utterly contemporary but
picking up the legacy of
Coleridge: both lyrical and
philosophical.

LISTEN
Saturday 20 October 2.30pm
Poetry reading:
In Your Own Time
The Northern Poetry Workshop
Anthology with Sean O’Brien,
WN Herbert, Tony Williams
and Joan Hewitt
Hosted by Gerry Wardle
The Jerwood Centre
£5.00
20 years ago Sean O’Brien
formed the Northern Poetry
Workshop as a means of support
for poets who had already
published books. The workshop
is still running and over the years
it has counted some of our finest
poets among its members. Join
Sean and some of its current
members for readings from a new
anthology of poems from the
workshop, and a discussion of the
way the workshop works and how
it has benefitted members.
W N Herbert (top)
and Joan Hewitt
Left-right from top:
Jonathan Davidson,
Graham Mort, Sean
O’Brien, Tony Williams,
Jo Shapcott, Mimi
Khalvati, Partaw Naderi
and Judy Brown

Museum Events Order Form
Poetry Season Order Form
COST TICKETS TOTAL
14 April Women, Learning and Lore FREE
5 May In the Footsteps of the First Tourists FREE
14 May Reading Wordsworth Aloud FREE
15 May Wordsworth and Coleridge FREE
16 May Contemporary Poetry after Wordsworth FREE
17 May Wordsworth and his Manuscripts FREE
18 May Byron, Keats and Shelley FREE
18/19 May An evening with the Wordsworths for Families FREE
22 May Wordsworth Walks (am) £10/5
22 May Wordsworth Walks (pm) £10/5
9 June Fern Fever in the Fells FREE
11 June Wordsworth goes West! FREE
23 June A Merry Meet £3
7 July Radical Footsteps FREE
10 July Wordsworth Walks (am) £10/5
10 July Wordsworth Walks (pm) £10/5
6/7 September Heritage Open Days FREE
11 September Wordsworth Walks (am) £10/5
11 September Wordsworth Walks (pm) £10/5
15 September John Thelwall and Radical Medicine FREE
13 October Poetry, Disability and Wellbeing FREE
3 November Walking North with Keats FREE
17 November Walking with Wordsworth FREE
PHOTO CREDITS: Allan Bank Jan 2012 by Ward, Andrew Motion by Stuart Leech, Fiona Sampson
by Kitty O’Sullivan, Jane Hirshfield by Robert Hatch Photography, Joan Hewitt © Mark Husmann, Liz
Lochhead by Norman McBeath, Sean O’Brien © Caroline Forbes, W N Herbert by David Williams
COST TICKETS TOTAL
1 May David Morley & Sasha Dugdale £7
12 May Nature and the Landscape £35
15 May Persian Poets Tour £7
17 May Reading Group: Mimi Khalvati FREE
26 May Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Competition FREE
29 May Mimi Khalvati & Mike Barlow £7
31 May Reading Wordsworth Out Loud FREE
2 June Poetry and Music £35
12 June Daljit Nagra & Helen Farish £7
14 June Poetry reading Group: Penelope Shuttle FREE
26 June Penelope Shuttle & Samantha Wynne Rhydderch £7
27 June Penelope Shuttle on Peter Redgrove £5
28 June Wordsworth and Lyric Poetry FREE
30 June Content and Form with Clare Pollard £35
10 July Simon Armitage £7
12 July Poetry Reading Group: Ruth Padel FREE
24 July Ruth Padel & Judy Brown £7
26 July Wordsworth and Place FREE
4 August Reading Poetry with Mimi Khalvati £30
7 August Jane Griffiths and Jonathan Davidson £7
9 August Poetry Reading Group: Julia Copus FREE
21 August Jamie McKendrick and Julia Copus £7
23 August Wordsworth & Childhood FREE
1 September Capturing Creatures in Poetry with Antony Dunn £35
4 September Andrew Motion £7
5 September Andrew Motion on Edward Thomas £5
6 September Poetry Reading Group: Andrew Greig FREE
15 September Nature and the Landscape with Colin Will £35
18 September Andrew Greig & Graham Mort £7
20 September Wordsworth and Narrative FREE
29 September Gerard Benson & Emma Jones with Carola Luther £5
2 October Kathleen Jamie & Rachael Boast £7
20 October In Your Own Time £5

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