An Evening with Philip Gross
18th September 2015, 7:30pm - 10:00pm, The Swan Hotel, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire BA15 1LN
Poetry reading by award-winning poet Philip Gross, including work from his September-published collection, Love Songs of Carbon and from A Fold in the River, his latest collaborative work with Welsh artist-letterer Valerie Coffin Price. Also featuring readings from local poets (with many well-know names among them!) who took part in an ekphrastic poetry workshop with Philip at the Bradford on Avon Arts Festival Sculpture Gardens in July.
The evening was tremendously enjoyable, not least because one of the workshop participants, Trisha Waters, who was also on the Sculpture Garden committee, volunteered to produce a PowerPoint so that we could project images of the sculptures behind the poets as they read their poems inspired by that particular art work. Trisha then added the written versions of the poems to the PowerPoint for permanent display on the Bradford on Avon Arts Festival website. See http://www.boaartsfestival.com/past-events/2015-2
Feedback about the event included the following comments:
Wonderful to listen to Philip Gross reading from his new collection Love Songs to Carbon last night at The Swan Hotel in Bradford on Avon. The event was part of the Arts Festival and the reading included local poets like me reading poems we created during a workshop with Philip back in July. Philip is a great teacher and inspired us as we walked around the sculpture garden in BOA. Last night the audience were able to see a projected image of the sculptures as each poet read a poem that engaged with it in some way. Some very interesting and moving work emerged from this that will soon be available via BOA website. I'll post a link once this is up and running. The event was organised by Dawn Gorman who works very hard at promoting poetry in the area.
Sue Sims (via Facebook)
Dear Dawn
That was a really fabulous project for those of us who took part. And what a magnificent evening. Thank you so much.
All good wishes
Sue Boyle
Dear Dawn,
Thank you for superb organization on Friday evening, and for giving us inspiration, a space in which to work with it, and a platform. The whole event was great, and it was a very good evening!
Your poem about the raku piece was superb, and very beautiful. Thank you for that.
Warmest
Lindsey Shaw-Miller
Philip Gross is a poet, a playwright, librettist and writer for children. He won the T.S.Eliot Prize 2009 with The Water Table, and Wales Book of The Year 2010 with I Spy Pinhole Eye. Recent collections Deep Field and Later dealt with his Estonian refugee father's final years and loss of language. Philip leads the MPhil/PhD in Writing programme at the University of South Wales.
This event was brought to you by Words & Ears, in conjunction with the Bradford on Avon Arts Festival and supported using public funding by Arts Council England.
To see photos of the evening's performance event, use the following link:
