First Youth Fringe day on Saturday 29 June

Thanks to the generous support from the Arts Council and the Co-operative Community Fund, Headingley LitFest was able to host its first major event specifically targeting young people in our community with a wide-ranging programme of events.

We started with a well-attended especially commissioned performance of ‘The Woodhouse New Woman’ by Theatre of the Dales, first performed at the main LitFest in March.  Focussing on Mary Gawthorpe, local suffragist, it both entertains and informs as it follows her journey from dutiful daughter into radical politics.  It is expected to tour to local schools in the autumn.

A creative writing workshop – to find your inner poet – was a delightful couple of hours in the company of James Nash, local published poet, assisted by Ruth Middleton from the Headingley Writers Group, run by the WEA at Heart.  Although a small audience, the quality of work produced was high – and the young people have given us ideas about how to recruit more of them in the future.  That’s what pilots are for!  As one participant said, “I brought my daughter to this event, and ended up participating myself!  It was a fabulous experience for my daughter, who has shown promise in her writing, and reads avidly, but is reticent about making her voice heard publicly. The session was skilfully and sensitively run.  Excellent.”

The film We Are Poets was again shown to a healthy audience that was both moved and uplifted by the story of six young Leeds poets, none with an easy backstory, who go off to an international ‘slam’ in Washington called Brave New Voices.  And get to the semi-final.  Beating forty other teams. But as Alex Ramseher-Bache, director, in the informative Q&A session afterwards, said “Points aren’t the aim; the point is the poetry.”  And it was – affecting, engaging, emotional.  For more information, check out We Are Poets.  Watch out for it on DVD soon.

Finally, Alex Rushfirth put together a great evening of local young musicians playing their own songs and poems to their original music.  As Seas-of-Green sang,

‘We're mutually in harmony/ all programmed by a man with a pocket full of pens’

Le Servo de Spock backed this up with some very original numbers where the music was definitely only illustrating the poetry. A shame we had to call time at 10.30 pm!

Were we happy with the programme of events?  Yes.  It would have been better to have had more young people involved, but we have learned a lot from this pilot, and will take the ideas from our contributors and audiences to our next venture for young people.

 

Society of Young Publishers

The Society of Young Publishers North and Midlands would like to invite anyone interested in the art of writing and publishing to a special event in Leeds

The Society of Young Publishers North and Midlands would like to invite anyone interested in the art of writing and publishing to a special event in Leeds at 7pm on the 18th June at The Outlaws Yacht Club. There will be discussions and networking opportunities alongside free food and drink.

The evening will feature talks and readings from:

Robert Williams, Faber & Faber Author
Mathew Headley Stoppard, Valley Press Poet
Louise Swingler, Arachne Press Author and Proofreader

The Outlaws Yacht Club is situated at 38 New York Street, Leeds. LS2 7DY. Doors are at 7pm and entry is free.

Established in 1949, The SYP is open to anyone in publishing or a related trade – or is hoping to be soon. Our aim is to help assist, inform and enthuse anyone trying to break into the industry or advance within it.

You can find out more and RSVP on Facebook and follow @SYPNorth on Twitter

Time Passing in HEART

TIME PASSING - a free poetry and song evening at HEART café - Wednesday 5 June 7.30 - 9.30pm featuring Lis Bertolla with Doug and Maria Sandle

A Headingley LitFest  Between the Lines event

Regarding Lis Bertolla’s book of poetry the reviewer in the current Green Spirit Magazine writes – a glorious jumble of laughter and lust, beauty and poignance, compassion, wisdom and whimsy                    

We Are Poets - on Youth Fringe Day at HEART

We've had plenty of enquiries about Alex Ramsayer-Bache's film We Are Poets, so here's a set of links which might help you. Why not start with this YouTube interview in which Alex is interviewed? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hkqtBYlIVs

Keep Saturday 29 June free! The day starts at 1pm.

USEFUL LINKS:

Official website: www.wearepoets.co.uk  

Twitter: http://twitter.com/WeArePoets

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/We.Are.Poets.Film

Brave New Voices & Youth Speaks: http://youthspeaks.org/

ARTICLES / REVIEWS:

Little White Lies: http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/theatrical-reviews/we-are-poets-20950

Screen International: http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/-we-are-poets/5043646.article?blocktitle=Latest-Reviews&contentID=1479

The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/apr/04/leeds-young-authors-wearepoets-poetry-slam-arts-council?CMP=twt_gu

Front Row Reviews: http://www.frontrowreviews.co.uk/reviews/we-are-poets-review/17446

Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/julian-benson/we-are-poets_b_1632672.html

Bradford Film Festival: http://itpworld.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/biff-2012-1we-are-poets-uk-2011/

We Are Poets talking points for schools/education: http://englishpgcme.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/we-are-poets.html

http://baroqueinhackney.com/2012/12/09/we-are-poets/

Cineuropa: http://www.cineuropa.org/nw.aspx?t=newsdetail&l=en&did=222815

Zofia Walczak: http://zofiawalczak.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/documentary-film-review-we-are-poets-alex-ramseyer-bache-daniel-lucchesi-2011/

Congratulations, George Szirtes!

Hungarian-born poet George Szirtes’ In the Land of Giants, illustrated by Helen Szirtes and published by Salt, has won the 2013 Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) Poetry Award.
The annual award, established in 2003, encourages and celebrates outstanding new poetry for children.

In the Land of the Giants, which includes poems translated from Hungarian, centres on a series of poems in which characters feel small and insignificant in a big world.

George was a contributor to the recent LitFest. In the picture, he is talking to poet Kim Moore. Read the review here.

Big Fish - Hyde Park Picture House

Martin Grund writes:
Tim Burton’s adaptation of Daniel Wallace’s novel fitted the ‘Lives and Loves’ theme of this year’s Headingley Litfest perfectly. The film tells of a son trying to learn more about his dying father’s life through the fantastic stories he has been told over the years.

From the start, the line between fiction and fact, between man and myth, becomes blurred.  The son is a writer, the father a teller of tales.  Storytellers both.  A child is entranced by fantasies and tall tales; an adult is merely embarrassed and angered by lies.  This film weaves the threads of the story, from past to present, from truth to embellishment, into a delightful fairy tale that takes you with it from what you do believe to way past the point where you suspend your disbelief – because you want to enjoy the feelgood effect. Tim Burton uses his unique style to give the look of the film an almost carnival feel, adding to the increased level of the fantastic that makes the stories so compelling. I’m not sure that the willingness to suspend disbelief would be so easy if it had been another director behind the camera.

Dad was fearless, faithful and philanthropic in his enthralling fables, his only son embarrassed, irked and estranged by the fabrication and deceit.  “You’d better talk whilst I’m here,” says the son, recalled to his father’s sickbed, and trying to find out something of his father’s real life. He wants all the facts, none of the flavour.

“No, you’d better talk whilst I’m here!” says the father to the son, aware he is close to death but still relishing the magic of mystery tales. The tale of the elusive big fish, caught only with a golden ring, serves as a metaphor for ‘who dares, wins’ throughout the film.   The father talked of a lot of exciting things he never did, but did a lot of good things he never talked about.  And we finally see the son embrace his father’s life with the telling of a tall tale to take his father peacefully through to death; literally a happy ending as each acknowledges the love between them. 

Thanks to the Hyde Park Picture House (http://www.hydeparkpicturehouse.co.uk/) for hosting our first partnership event.
Read more about the Film Festival at: http://www.leedsyoungfilm.com/