Dead poets rose again during the StAnza festival in St Andrews.

As part of this year’s Body and Soul theme StAnza invited guests from both sides of the Atlantic to read poems by favourite late poets.

Love, loss and longing were themes that united the choices of Mark Doty and W. N. Herbert at a dead poets’ session at St Andrews University’s Younger Hall conference room.

Doty read the work of Constantine Cavafy, while Dundee-born Herbert— now residing in a former lighthouse on the Tyne— opted for W. S. Graham.

Translated poets also played their part yesterday, with Californian Jane Hirshfield and Gaelic poet Christopher Whyte choosing two exiles whose writing reflects the turbulent times they lived in. They focused on Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz, who died only last year and was a Polish political activist who eventually settled in America; and Luis Cernuda, a contemporary of Lorca, forced out of Spain to end his days in Mexico.

Adding in particular to the festival’s international emphasis is the “translated poets” series of events. In partnership with The Goethe Institute in Glasgow two German poets, Wulf Kristen and Volker Braun, along with their translators, Tessa Ransford and David Constantine, gave readings from their work in the Crawford Arts Centre studio theatre.

Yesterday’s programme opened with a poetry panel open discussion in the burgh ghambers when poets and poets translators debated the pitfalls of interpretation.

Later in St John’s House, Kenneth Steven and Paula Jennings launched the festival’s Voices of Scotland series.

The Parliament Hall was the setting for the StAnza lecture by anthologist Neil Astley, who argued that the poetry establishment is so out of touch with the grassroots readership that it is in danger of losing some of its audience.

His address was entitled Bile, Guile and Dangerous to Poetry.

Last night’s programme included readings by W. N. Herbert and Colette Bryce, who is fellow in creative writing at Dundee University, in All Saints Church Hall; and a two-hour session of readings by Doty and Hirshfield in the Byre Theatre.