Our final news round-up of the week take a look at this years Ledbury Poetry Festival, the winner of the Trillium Book Award and the new poet in Residence at Keats’ House.

Ledbury Poetry Festival 2019

This year’s line-up for the Ledbury Poetry Festival is proving to be a rather popular one, and ticket sales for some of the events have already sold out. Tickets sales for other events are also up on 2018 and the organisers believe this is due to the “stellar line-up”. Tickets for Simon Armitage sold out in record time because he was so recently announced as the new poet laureate.

Some of the big names who will be in attendance include Margaret Atwood the writer of the Handmaid’s Tale, Simon Armitage, the newly appointed Poet Laureate, Roger McGough, Carol Ann Duffy, the former Poet Laureate, and host of other well-known poets both international and from the UK.

The winner of the Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize will be announced on the opening night of the festival.

Former poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy will be reading from her latest collection and Andrew motion will be talking to a winner of the T.S Eliot prize, Hannah Sullivan. The Margaret Attwood event promises to be something very special for festival-goers, as she will be in a small auditorium with limited numbers. She normally reads to crowds of over 800 and requires a video screen so that people at the back of the room can see properly.

Dionne Brand Wins Trillium Book Award for Poetry

The Toronto poet Dionne Brand was announced as the winner of the Ontario poetry award yesterday for her work “The Blue Clerk”.

Brand is a former poet laureate for Toronto and has previously won the $20,000 prize before in 1998.

The Ontario Trillium Book Award was established by the government in 1987. It is awarded for the best English language title in the province.

The Award also includes a $20,000 French-language book prize which this year went to Lisa L’Heureux and a $10,000 children’s literature award, which is also for French language. There are also prizes for the publishers of the winning titles to help them promote the books.

Authors can submit up to three items in the poetry category.

Previous winners of the prize include the author Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro and Michael Ondaatje.

New Poet in Residence at Keats House

For the next three months, the Welsh writer Anthony Hett will be the poet in residence at the former Hampstead home of the poet John Keats.

During his time there, he will be holding drop-in poetry sessions and also writing his first collection of poetry, which will be based on photographs of himself at the house.

Hett’s appointment coincides with Keats200. This is a programme of celebration which will mark the bicentenary of the date when the poet lived at what was known as Wentworth Place. Both the Keats Foundation and the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association (named for the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley), will be marking the occasion. There are a number of events planned until February 2021.