“The Rose of Time” - UK Poetry Day at the 5th Pearl River International Poetry Festival

UK enjoys a great poetry legacy. Over the past ten years, the Pearl River International Poetry Festival has been bringing about surprised encounters between the general public and poetry, seeking the feeling of breathing on higher ground with the purest sounds of poetry, against the tupsy-turvy backdrop of the commercial era and poetry writing. A decade is the renaissance of classics, and the once-again blossom. UK is chosen by the Poetry Festival as the first country of honour in their 10-year’s history. In partnership with the British Council, the Poetry Festival will organise UK Poetry talk & Sino-UK Poetry Seminar on 23 September 2011, as well as participating in the Poetry Festival Award ceremony on 24 September 2011. Chinese poets and poetry translators from all over China are invited to join the dialogues of poetry and cultural exchange.

Registration:
Limited seats available for each event, book you tickets now!
Closing date: 22 September 2011

• Registration hotline: 020-87561172, 930am-6pm, Monday-Friday
• Email：send your name and contact details to zjpoetry@163.com
• Weibo text messenger:
  t.qq.com/zjpoetry
  weibo.com/zjpoetry
  my.tianya.cn/53708890#app=t

1) UK NEW POETS TALK
Time: 14:30, Friday 23 September 2011
Venue: Multifunction hall, Library, Guangdong University of Foreign Study,

• Luke Wright
• Francesca Beard
• Aoife Mannix

2) SINO-UK POETRY SEMINAR
Time: 19:30, Friday 23 Sept 2011
Venue: Multifunction hall, Library, Guangdong University of Foreign Study
Rundown:

• 19:30 - 21:00 Sharing & Discussion
• 21:00 - 21:30 Q&A

Topic:

-The development of cross-over poetry in the UK and China
-The diverse backgrounds and features of poetry in the UK and China
-The gender identity and body language in poetry

Chair: Hu Xudong (professor, Beijing University)
Discussion panel:
UK: LUKE WRIGHT, FRANCESCA BEARD, AOIFE MANNIX
China: Xu Xi（Macao）, Luo Lemin（Hong Kong）,Shu Dandan (Guangzhou), Tan Chang(Guangzhou)

3) Pearl River International Poetry Festival Award Ceremony
Time: 19:30, Saturday 24 September 2011
Venue: Pearl River Town, Conghua, Guangzhou

Chengdu Stop

Chinese and English in Between – UK China Poetry Salon
Chengdu 26 & 27 September 2011

Media Interview/Poetry Workshop (with translator)
Time: 20:00 – 21:30, 26 September 2011
Venue: Chengdu White Night Bar
Address: Kuanzhai Ally, Zhai ally NO.32

Poetry Reading (with translator)
Time: 20:30 – 22:00, 27 September 2011
Venue: Chengdu White Night Bar
Address: Kuanzhai Ally, Zhai ally NO.32

Luke Wright  
www.lukewright.co.uk/

Born in Hackney in 1982 Luke Wright was adopted as a baby and moved to North-Essex where he was raised.

Inspired by Martin Newell and John Cooper Clarke he began writing and performing poetry aged 17, whilst still at sixth form college in Colchester. He soon met fellow teenage poet Ross Sutherland and the two of them formed a strong bond. In 2000 Wright moved to Norwich and joined Sutherland as a student University of East Anglia. Disillusioned with the poetry scene in the city the two soon formed their own club - [Aisle16]. Over the next two years "Aisle16" became a collective of like minded writer/performers and by 2003 number seven people (Wright, Sutherland, Ian "Yanny Mac" Mckenzie, Paul McJoyce, Joel Stickley, Chris Hicks and Tom Sutton).

Since 2006 he’s launched his own curve-ball bid to become Poet Laureate, programmed and hosted Latitude’s poetry arena (the largest poetry event in Europe) and has become one of the poets-in-residence on BBC Radio 4′s Saturday Live. He has five solo poetry stage shows: Poet Laureate, Poet & Man, A Poet’s Work Is Never Done, and The Petty Concerns of Luke Wright. All of which played to sold out audiences at The Edinburgh Fringe, got five star reviews and have completed extensive national tours. His fifth - Cynical Ballads – is touring throughout 2011, including a trip to Melbourne and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

He has also started writing poetry for films. In 2009 he took contemporary poetry onto primetime TV, writing all the poetry for Channel 4’s The Seven Ages of Love, a 30 minute documentary that gained ‘pick of the day’ in 8 national publications and was broadcast to over a million people, it was later nominated for a prestigious Grierson Award. In 2010 he wrote and provided the voice-over for a 30 minute film on Channel 4 called The Bed, directed by Toby Paton.

His first book, Who Writes This Crap?, co-written with Joel Stickley, was published by Penguin in 2007. A live show based on the book enjoyed a sell-out run at Edinburgh 2008. Joel and Luke have also written verse for an animated shorted directed by Jon Dunleavy, – Crash! Bang! Wallow!, the story of a suicidal stuntman, won the NFBC short film competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

He has two books of poetry published by Nasty Little Press. A short collection called High Performance (2009) and a single long, narrative poem entitled The Vile Ascent Of Lucien Gore And What The People Did (2011).

• “The best young performance poet around.” The Observer
• “One of the funniest and most brilliant poets of his generation.” Johann Hari, The Independent
• “Visceral, poignant and riotously funny.” The Scotsman
• “Performance poetry’s key revivalist.” Metro
• “He must be on some kind of dope.” John Cooper Clarke

Francesca Beard
www.francescabeard.com/

Francesca Beard (b. 1968 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) is a writer and performance poet. She has been based in London for much of her adult life and cites the city as a major inspiration in her work. She has represented contemporary British Literature all over the world, from Azerbaijan to Bulgaria to Colombia, in all sorts of venues, from a Moscow Library to a Melbourne jazz club.

She has a one-woman show, ‘Chinese Whispers’. 'Chinese Whispers' is produced by Apples and Snakes, Britain's foremost performance poetry organisation, directed by Arlette Kim George, with lighting by Flick Ansell, costumes by Hardy Bleckman of Maharishi and original visuals by Jason Larkin.

Francesca Beard runs regular workshops and masterclasses in schools and organisations in Britain and abroad. She has been writer-in-residence at the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace and the Metropolitan Police, and run workshops for many institutions, including the British Library, the National Theatre and the Natural History Museum. In May 2005, her first radio play, ‘The Healing Pool’ was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and London Live.

As a playwright, her work was showcased in Pentabus Theatre's production of Open White Spaces at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She has had a short play on at the Royal Court and was one of The Fifty 'most promising new writers in Britain' currently on attachment to the Royal Court and the BBC. She is currently developing a new project, working title, ‘London Tales’, with B3 Media, supported by the Arts Council, England.

Francesca Beard has been called 'brilliant' by the Scotsman, 'spine-tingling' by the Independent and 'The Queen of British performance poetry.... One of our finest cartographers of the human heart' by London Metro.

She has performed her poetry all over the world, from a Colombian prison to Namibian Bush Schools to Bangkok Book Fair with the British Council and all over the UK, in theatres, arts centres, festivals and clubs. She has taken seven shows to the Edinburgh Fringe and toured her one woman shows, 'Chinese Whispers' and children's show 'Animal Olympics' nationally and internationally. In 2008, she was on attachment to the Royal Court as one of the country's most promising emerging writers. She has been a writer in residence at the BBC White City, the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, the Natural History Museum and the Metropolitan Police. As a workshop facilitator, she runs sessions in schools, galleries, libraries and theatres across the the UK for many agencies, including BookTrust, Creative Partnerships, Apples & Snakes, the National Theatre, the Arvon Foundation and with the British Council internationally. She is currently developing an interactive story-telling programme for live and digital platforms with Marc Boothe and B3 Media, supported by ACE, with a recent digital residency at The Banff Centre, Canada.

Aoife Mannix
www.aoifemannix.com

Aoife Mannix is an Irish writer and poet based in London.  Her first novel Heritage of Secrets was published in 2008.  She is the author of four collections of poetry; The Trick of Foreign Words (2002), The Elephant in the Corner (2005), Growing Up An Alien (2007) and Turn The Clocks Upside Down (2008).  She regularly features on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live and the BBC World Service’s World Today.  She has been writer in residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Poetry School, Spread the Word, All Change and Apples & Snakes.  She has performed throughout the UK including at Latitude, the Big Chill, and Ledbury Poetry Festival.  She has toured internationally with the British Council to Nigeria, Turkey, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Norway and Austria.