StAnza Poetry Festival: Where Page Meets Stage

As StAnza Poetry Festival welcomes Louis de Bernières, Paul Muldoon and other leading lights, we speak to Festival Director Eleanor Livingstone about where page meets stage, and ask Michael Pedersen, Ross Sutherland and others to preview their shows

Feature by Bram E. Gieben | 03 Mar 2014

StAnza Poetry Festival is a five-day celebration of the written and spoken word focusing on poetry, or as the festival's director Eleanor Livingstone would have it, "all of the poetries" that exist. This year, the festival's prgramme reflects both a boom in spoken word and performance poetry, and a resurgence of interest in published poetry, popularised again by figures such as UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy (who features this year), and Scotland's own Makar, Liz Lochhead (who charmed audiences in 2013).

As tempted as she is to launch into a celebratory romp through this year's programme, Eleanor Livingstone wants to address a few misconceptions about poetry first. "The word 'poetry' is a bit misleading – it's a bit like saying 'music' or 'visual art.' It's just so plural and multiple, such a wide spectrum," she says. "A single word really doesn't cover it. If people say to me 'I'm not really into poetry,' I always ask 'What kind of poetry are you not into?' I think it would be extremely difficult to find somebody who would say they were not into music of any kind, or visual art of any kind. Poetry ought to be the same, but people often shut themselves off. They encounter one kind of poetry and base their opinions on that, and have no idea of poetry's true diversity." 

That diversity is one of the things she seeks to address each year at StAnza, not least by taking on the often-discussed notion of 'page versus stage.' With the increasing popularity of performance poetry and poetry slams, some are keen to preserve the distinction between supposed 'page' and 'stage' poets. But Livingstone, and many of the poets performing this year, see this distinction as largely academic. "An awful lot of the poets who are known as performers have some kind of engagement with poetry on the page as well, and I definitely think that what makes a poetry festival special is that every poet who reads their work is giving a performance," she says. 

One of StAnza's biggest coups this year is the return of novelist Louis de Bernières, author of the much-loved Captain Corelli's Mandolin. His first appearance, in the festival's In Conversation strand, was as a poetry afficionado, rather than a poet. "During the event, he admitted that he did write poetry himself, and was convinced to read one or two," Livingstone recalls. "We are absolutely delighted that ten years on, he has published his first collection of poetry – it really feels like a lovely circle coming round, to have him coming back as a published poet. We like to feature poets at every stage in their career – it is as important to have new voices as it is to have the big headliners. It's lovely to have someone who is both a big headliner, but also in poetry terms, a new voice."

Two of the new voices featuring this year are Marion McCready and Andrew Sclater, both of whom have received the Book Trust's New Writers' Award. Both Sclater and McCready are full of praise for the mentorship they received, and the opportunities it has subsequently opened up for them. "They treat you as a serious person," says Sclater, "doing something that is a valid cultural activity." McCready is grateful for the support she received: "It gave me the validation, the permission I needed to go ahead and write the poems I really wanted to write," she says. Her work explores "the natural world as a way of exploring personal experiences, relationships and general themes of love, death, faith and violence," while Sclater says his work is "language and rhythm-driven."


"Stanza understands the need for page and performance poets to meet, mix, learn from each other, challenge each other" – Sophia Walker


Appearing at StAnza for the first time this year is Neu! Reekie! ringleader Michael Pedersen, a writer who gloriously straddles the imaginary line between performance and page poets, as he demonstrates in his flamboyant readings and the studied precision of his finely-tooled debut collection, Play With Me. He's looking forward to his StAnza debut. "It's such a phenomenal thing, that there's a festival happening in Scotland entirely dedicated to poetry."

A stalwart of the spoken word scene and now a respected published poet, his appearance is overdue: "I'd held off, and I thought I'd try and go for the first time as a performer. Saying that, if I'd hit 30 and still not been, I might have reconsidered, because I'd be missing out on so much!" He is looking forward to seeing Paul Muldoon read, and to the final-night blowout with King Creosote. He sees an increasing fluidity in the borders between the 'page' and 'stage' camps at StAnza: "Traditionally, other literary festivals have kept them very separate. Now that they are coming together, it's the halcyon days. It's a great happening, and I for one am empowered by it."

Another respected performance poet attending StAnza this year is Ross Sutherland. "Everyone talks about StAnza as being the best poetry festival in the UK," he says, also excited to make his debut there. "StAnza is more of a community affair: poets don’t just parachute in, do a reading, then immediately leave again. The writers hang around, go see stuff, enjoy the city." He is also looking forward to Paul Muldoon's reading: "I got to interview Paul Muldoon when he first took the poetry editor post at the New Yorker. Paul described his poetry as 'a house party, where the host has escaped through the bathroom window.' That’s stayed with me ever since." Sutherland is touring Scotland in July, and coming back for this year's Edinburgh Fringe too.

One of the spoken word hits of last year's Fringe, Sophia Walker's Around The World in Eight Mistakes comes to StAnza this year. Her show explores her peripatetic existence, taking her from Russia to the UK, from Uganda to Vietnam and onward again. "It's been interesting touring a show about cultural differences and modern history," she says. "I didn't realise how anti-American the show was til the first time I performed it there!" On the question of page versus stage, she is in favour of cross-pollination. "StAnza understands the need for page and performance poets to meet, mix, learn from each other, challenge each other," she says. "Poets need that, even though in my genre all performances are interactions, many aspects of poetry are still very solitary."

Walker's show is just one that touches on the festival's two major themes, Words Under Fire, which according to Livingstone examines not just the centenary of "one of the most influential bodies of poetry in contemporary times," the work of the First World War poets, but also "looks at poetry as a record of what happens during periods of war." Events addressing this theme include a reading from Dan O'Brien, author of War Reporter, and touch on conflicts as historically diverse as the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as far back as the medieval Battle of Maldon. Jenny Lewis presents two events exploring both the historical roots of the Iraq conflict and the poetry of Wilfred Owen and others of the period: "The key to all good war poetry," she believes, is that "it must somehow humanise its subject matter so the reader is moved, and if enough readers are moved there’s a tiny chance that something outside the poetry might change, even if it’s only to shift public opinion slightly so that a few less bombs are dropped or lives ended."

Another theme is A Common Wealth of Poetry, which engages with the concept of 'home,' and speaks directly to the themes of Homecoming Scotland. "I've been inviting poets who I'm calling 'new' Scots and 'travelling' Scots," explains Livingstone. "Some of the poets I have invited came to Scotland and settled here, others have lived elsewhere and then come back to Scotland." One such 'settler' is Luminate Slam winner Graeme Hawley, whose performance will feature projected poems, live music and readings, taken from his album as 56n, entitled Sleeve Notes. "You get the text, and you get the music, and you can hear it in your own head, how you want to," says Hawley, eschewing some of the performative aspects of his work for this event. "I'm trying to make it as free for the audience as possible."

With other events including a poetry slam hosted by Rally & Broad, aka respected Edinburgh performance poets Jenny Lindsay and Rachel McCrum, and with leading poets from around the world in attendance, StAnza remains a beacon; a place where traditional and experimental approaches collide and intersect. With the festival, like many, facing potential budget cuts, lovers of poetry can only hope that the festival continues to be a melting pot of ideas, styles and traditions. "Whatever else is happening in the field affects you, and affects your work," says Eleanor Livingstone. "If everything becomes more experimental, then even at the formal, mainstream end, you will be influenced as well. Festivals like StAnza give an amazing opportunity for engagement and interaction."

StAnza 2014 runs from 5-9 Mar at various venues in St. Andrews – see website for full listings. The Skinny will publish our full interviews with all the poets featured in this article on our website as the festival unfolds – keep an eye on theskinny.co.uk/books http://stanzapoetry.org