Scotland’s International Poetry Festival is well versed to showcase what it described as an outstanding line-up of talent next year.
Among the headliners of StAnza’s 2019 programme unveiled on Friday are Forward Prize winner Liz Berry.
The five-day event will bring internationally acclaimed poets from across the world and other performers to venues across St Andrews in March.
Festival director Eleanor Livingstone said: “We are delighted to be announcing details of our 2019 programme and thrilled that once again StAnza will be showcasing some of the biggest names in poetry alongside some of the brightest new and upcoming talent.
“In just a few months we will be setting the stage to celebrate the spoken and written word in all its forms with a diverse and vibrant festival over five days in the beautiful Fife town of St Andrews.
“We look forward to revealing more details in coming weeks.”
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The festival will open with a gala performance of headline poets reading and performing, intertwined with music, film and art.
Others entertaining will include poet, artist and film-maker, Imtiaz Dharker, awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry in 2014.
Award-winning Jamaican poet and essayist Ishion Hutchinson, and Welsh poet, playwright, columnist and editor Menna Elfyn are also on the bill, alongside Caroline Bird, who was shortlisted for both the TS Eliot Award and the Ted Hughes Award in 2017.
Other poets will include JO (CORRECT) Morgan, Fiona Moore, Alan Spence, George Mario Angel Quintero, Gerda Stevenson and Matthew Stewart.
The 2019 themes will be Off the Page and Another Place, exploring poetry’s relationship with the medium it is written on and exploration of new places and ideas.
There will be a spotlight on poetry from the Mediterranean and beyond and the event will form part of A Year of Conversation, a Scottish initiative celebrating conversation through the arts.
Mairi Kidd, of Creative Scotland, one of the funders of StAnza, said: “StAnza has a superb reputation for its programming and deservedly so; the poets on the 2019 programme again represent an exciting and vibrant mix of well-established names and up-and-coming talent.”
Paul Bush, VisitScotland director of Events, said: “We are delighted to be supporting StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival; one of Scotland’s finest literary events.
“Eleanor and the festival team have once again created a fantastic programme, bringing some of the very best emerging and world renowned poets together in the beautiful, historic town of St Andrews, demonstrating just why Scotland is the perfect stage for events.”
