Poetry workshop that turned into a literary festival

You can picture the scene: it's May 2009, a poetry workshop has finished, the poet and the organiser are sitting in a room on the top floor of Sewerby Hall, looking out over the sea.

"I think we looked at each other and at the same time said, 'This would be the perfect place for a poetry festival'," says Antony Dunn, assistant director of the first Bridlington Poetry Festival.

John Wedgwood Clarke is the director of the festival which is being held this weekend.

He runs Wordquake project, which receives regular funding from Arts Council England and East Riding Libraries and was set up to promote creative writing and reading throughout the East Riding of Yorkshire.

He is also the man behind the Beverley Literature Festival.

Poet Antony Dunn says: "Through Wordquake, John asked me to run a poetry workshop and we held a day at Sewerby Hall. It was the end of the day, we'd had about 15 people and it was a really nice event. It just seemed the perfect place to have a poetry festival."

In recent years, the Beverley Literature Festival has become more and more focused on prose, with poetry being pushed further out of the programme.

Clarke, who is also the UK and Ireland poetry editor for Arc Publications, says: "Poetry is my first love and I wanted to find a way to celebrate it with a dedicated festival."

And the idea of the Bridlington Poetry Festival was born.

Dunn says: "From the start, we wanted to secure a big name. There are around 70 literary festivals around the country and so a new one, if it is going to have any chance of standing out and surviving, needs a big draw.

"We decided to contact Simon Armitage and he got back in touch with us almost immediately to say he would love to be involved."

Armitage is the star turn and Dunn and Clarke hope that having his name on the bill will help to make sure this weekend's event is the first of many.

Huddersfield-based Armitage says: "I spent many holidays in Bridlington, most of them walking between the town and Sewerby along the cliffs, looking enviously at those who went past on the model train. I liked the zoo; a hyacinth macaw would come and sit on your shoulder, and a llama once spat at my dad. It was a lifetime ago, another country, and I'm looking forward to being there again."

Dunn says that once Armitage was on board, it was easy to land the other people at the festival.

"When you call someone to ask if they will appear at a festival that they've never heard of, it's always a little difficult. Being able to say that we had Simon already appearing meant other people jumped at the chance," he says.

"I'm sure he could fill his diary with six or seven gigs every day, but I think it was the fact that he had this personal connection to Bridlington that meant he was happy to find a space

for us.

"It also means, importantly, that it sets us up well for the future. Looking at this year's programme, I would be happy to send it to any poet in the world and ask them to come to events in the future."

Headlining the Saturday evening of the weekend – and squeezed into the programme at the last minute – is the highly acclaimed Irish poet, Paul Durcan.

Other highlights include three Poetry Doubles events, in each of which a major poet reads with his or her own choices of "Double" – a poet at first-collection stage.

Poetry Doubles was first staged at Friargate Theatre, in York, in 2003, when then-Poet, Laureate Andrew, Motion launched the series with his choice of Colette Bryce as "Double". Seven years later, Bryce will return to headline the first of Bridlington's Poetry Doubles readings, now with her own choice of Katharine Kilalea as "Double". Katharine, whose debut collection, One Eye'd Leigh (Carcanet), was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award 2009, was born in South Africa and now lives in London.

Another event taking place during the festival is a reading of the work of Dorothy Molloy.

Her first collection, Hare Soup, was published just days after her death in 2004.

Colette Bryce will read her work and discuss it with Dunn.

Dunn says: "Since I first read Dorothy's poetry, I've wanted to do something to help give it a voice, particularly as she had so rarely performed her own work. I'm a great admirer of these poems, and when I discovered Colette's a big fan, too, I knew I'd found the right partner for this event.

"I've been wanting to present her work for some time, but it would be a nonsense for me to read her work – she was an Irish woman and my voice just wouldn't work.

"Having Colette, who happens to be Irish, reading her work and discussing it will be a great way to bring her work to life."

Dunn and Bryce will be reading from Hare Soup and from the two posthumous collections of poems assembled from her papers, Gethsemane Day (Faber 2006) and Long-distance Swimmer (Salmon Poetry 2009).

Jacob Polley, author of two acclaimed collections, The Brink (Picador 2003) and Little Gods (Picador 2006), will be announcing the results of the East Riding Open Poetry Competition, whose hundreds of entries he has judged. Polley will afterwards be reading from his own poems.

Other poets and academics performing, giving talks and leading seminars include Martha Kapos, CL Dallat, Mario Petrucci, Anne-Marie Fyfe, James Byrne, Nigel Forde, David Wheatley, Cliff Forshaw and Kath McKay.

The festival runs from today until Sunday.

For complete festival listings, visit www.bridlington-poetry-festival.com

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

TODAY

Pat Borthwick: writing workshop – Beachcombing the Line, 2-4.30pm.

The Global Poetry System (GPS): poetry reading – Hear poems about the East Riding written as part of a collaboration with the Southbank Centre, London, 5.45-6.30pm.

Colette Bryce and Katharine Kilalea: A Poetry Doubles reading, 7pm-8pm.

Simon Armitage: poetry reading, 8.30-9.30pm.

SATURDAY

We're going to the Zoo! with Vicki Hackett (7-11yrs]: Watch the animals, be the animals, write the animals. Join Vicki for a fun session of drama and word play, 10am-noon.

Ambit: The 200th edition: A celebratory reading by contributors to one of the UK's leading poetry magazines, 11am-12.30pm.

East Riding Open Poetry Competition Adjudication: with Jacob Polley and prize-winners, 2.30-4.15pm.

Paul Durcan: poetry reading, 8.30-9.30pm.

SUNDAY

CL Dallat: writing workshop – the art in the everyday: 11am-1pm.

Prof James Booth: talk – Larkin's Rhymes, noon-1pm.

Daljit Nagra & Heather Phillipson: A Poetry Doubles poetry reading, 4.30-5.30pm.