Wirral Poetry Festival showcases features two distinguished Welsh poets: Pat Edwards and Ness Owens at the reading: “Changing Hats”!

This year’s live weekend offers a feast of poetry starting on National Poetry Day. The festival promotes the appreciation and creation of poetry and the spoken word both on the Wirral and beyond. Tickets are on sale now, and the full programme is available on the festival website.

The Festival’s penultimate poetry reading is an ensemble reading “Changing Hats”, on Sunday 6th October at 5.30pm at the Bridge Inn, Port Sunlight, Wirral, CH62 4UQ, featuring three people who are not only very distinguished poets in their own right, but also important nurturers and facilitators of the UK poetry scene. This is a special opportunity to hear three distinctive poetic voices for the price of one! Tickets: £6. Poets’ books will be available to buy.

Anna Saunders is a Wirral born and bred poet who has migrated to Cheltenham where she founded and now directs the annual Cheltenham Poetry Festival. Despite being a very busy teacher, mentor and festival director, Anna has published many poetry collections. Anna’s latest collection is The Prohibition of Touch (Indigo Dreams, 2022). “Anna Saunders’ poems reach back to the very origins of who we are, and, in their contact with the ancient things, they transform themselves into freshness, newness, life. Dripping with myth, they sing, they mourn, they celebrate. There is magic in these poems—not the superficial magic of illusion but the deep magic of being.” (Joseph Fasano).

Reading with Anna Saunders is Pat Edwards, a poet reviewer and workshop leader from Mid Wales. Pat also hosts Verbatim open mic nights and curates the Welshpool Poetry Festival. Her poetry has appeared in Magma, Prole, IS&T, Atrium and others. Her debut pamphlet, ‘Only Blood’, was published in 2019 by Yaffle Press. Pat’s latest pamphlet is Hail Marys (Infinity, 2022). “This thought-provoking and brilliantly varied book celebrates a range of women – real and imagined, dead and alive – who all happen to share the same name: Mary.”

The third member of the ensemble is Ness Owens, who lives on Ynys Môn in Wales where she writes poetry in between lecturing and farming. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies. Ness’ first collection Mamiaith (Arachne press, 2019) broke new ground in being partly bi-lingual. Her latest collection is Naming the Trees which will be published by Arachne Press in February 2025. “This is a deep-dive into the human relationship with trees and how trees have shaped folklore and literature. Sparked by a campaign to save the ancient forest of Penrhos, an SSSI on Ynys Môn, from being turned into a holiday camp, Ness explores Welsh folklore of trees and her own love for and engagement with the trees and other wild aspects of her home, as well as more common garden flowers, which should be treated with respect (Daffodils are Dangerous). Ness has an ongoing conversation with her native language and some poems are presented bilingually: there is a link to be made between the disregarding of native language and the disregarding of native habitat.”

Advance online booking is recommended for this reading.
For links to booking page, social media and website please go to: https://linktr.ee/wirralpoetryfestival