Sally Jenkinson at GlastonburySally Jenkinson at Glastonbury
Sally Jenkinson at Glastonbury

Doncaster woman takes central stage at Glastonbury Festival

When Doncaster woman Sally Jenkinson first started writing she could never have dreamed she would be sharing a festival with Shania Twain and Coldplay.

She only began performing in 2008 but now has such a following that she was delighted to be invited to be the poet in residence at the Glastonbury Festival.

“I never imagined such a thing,” said the 37-year-old who grew up in Hexthorpe, Wheatley and Sprotborough.

“But I am thrilled to be here. The invitation came out of the blue but it was so welcome.

“It is so exciting. I will spend a day observing and writing before I perform on Sunday at 4.17pm. I have no idea why it is such a precise time but I will be reading for about 25 minutes.

“I enjoy festival writing. It is good to eaves drop on people and get some lines. It is a strange sort of time capsule but it seems to work for me.”

She is not yet sure what her performance will focus on but it may be totally devoted to festival poetry.

Ms Jenkinson now lives in the Forest of Dean but has a large family still in Yorkshire. She is a foster carer and helps manage arts programmes but admits poetry is taking up more of her time.

She arrived at Glastonbury on Thursday and has already met a lot of her poetic friends among the estimated 200,000 visitors to the Somerset event.

“It is a fabulous festival but I could quite happily spend all my time in the poetry tent,” she said.

“It is so rewarding and interesting for me even though I know I could find no end of things to interest me elsewhere in the festival.”

She said that while the general public might regard Glastonbury as a music event, it is popular for a whole range of arts including comedy, theatre, circus and poetry.

“The calibre of poetry here is so exciting,” she said. “I was really excited last year to meet the poet in residence who was Katie Hale. To be invited to be this year’s poet in residence blew my mind.”

She has also written and performed internationally in Sweden, Iceland, and Australia and she working towards her MA in Creative Writing from the University of Gloucestershire.

She was inspired to write by her father Mick Jenkinson who is a songwriter, musician, poet and arts facilitator in Doncaster.

She recently wrote a chapbook, a type of small printed booklet. It is called Pantomime Horse, Russian Doll, Egg, published by Burning Eye Books, and is a poetry cycle exploring labour and childbirth.

Her work has also recently been featured in Lighthouse Journal, Emerge Literary Journal, The Morning Star, and on BBC Radio 4’s Power Lines.

She will perform in the Poetry and Words Tent, Theatre & Circus, on Sunday at 4.17pm.

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