Two poets who burst on to the poetry scene as young men in the 1960s and are still live and kicking today will be appearing at the Aldeburgh poetry festival next month.

Brian Patten, pictured, was one of the three Liverpool poets, with Adrian Henri and Roger McGough, featured in The Mersey Sound collection which has proved an all-time poetry bestseller. He subsequently became a bestselling children’s author as well, and will be taking part in a Q&A session, as well as giving a solo reading.

Tom Pickard launched the famous Morden Tower poetry readings in Newcastle as a teenager in the 1960s, rescued Basil Bunting from obscurity, became a filmmaker, had a brush with the law, and this year has published his collected poems with Carcanet. At Aldeburgh he will be discussing “poetry and disobedience”, as well as reading with Selima Hill and Dan O’Brien.

Creator Hannah Silva, and producer Tom Chivers, of Penned in the Margins, will be talking about Schlock!, a new work commissioned for performance at the Aldeburgh festival. Bloodaxe’s Neil Astley will be joined by Brian Patten in looking back at the forgotten poet Rosemary Tonks, who died in obscurity earlier this year, and in celebrating the publication of her collected poems.

Other stars in a packed programme at Aldeburgh include renowned US poet Thomas Lux, Kathleen Jamie, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Jen Hadfield, and performance poet Jonny Fluffypunk. More details 

 

PHOTOGRAPH: GREG FREEMAN / WRITE OUT LOUD 

 

OCTOBER

Dylan Thomas in Fitzrovia festival, London, 20-26 October

Tears in the Fence festival, Dorset, 24-26 October 

Ted Hughes festival, West Yorkshire, 24-26 October

Black Huts film and poetry festival, Hastings, 29 October - 2 November

 

NOVEMBER

Black Huts film and poetry festival, Hastings, until 2 November

Wimborne literary festival, 1-9 November

Aldeburgh poetry festival, 7-9 November

Reading poetry festival, 7-9 November

Humber Mouth festival, 7-17 November