Latitude Festival 2008

For those who're interested, included below are links to the reviews, articles and interviews I wrote whilst at the Latitude Festival this year, held in the beautiful grounds of Henham Park, Suffolk.

I may edit this post at some point to give a blog-style insight into the goings on at the festival, including the bands, comedians, writers and artists I saw outside of reviewing commitments.

As one happy and half-cut festival goer put it: Pimms me up to the power of two!

Thursday ~ Poetry and Literary Arenas

Rosie and the Goldbug ~ Sunrise Arena

Friday ~ Poetry Arena

The Go! Team ~ Obelisk Arena

Friday ~ Literary Arena

Saturday ~ Poetry Arena

Rich Hall ~ Comedy Arena

Daljit Nagra ~ Interview

Tim Turnbull ~ Interview

Saturday ~ Literary Arena

Sunday ~ Poetry Arena

Comments

BarbaraS said…

Enjoyable reading - you've had a busy and productive July :)

2:37 pm

Emerging Writer said…

All your links are broken. Such is the way of the internet, ever moving, ever changing. Anyway, how does a writer/poet such as myself, go about getting a gig at Latitude? I did Electric Picnic and want to do more.

11:39 am

Ben Wilkinson said…

Thanks for the heads up EW; links duly fixed.

Couldn't tell you how to go about getting a gig at Latitude - not involved in that side of things. I think Luke Wright books most - if not all - of the poets for the fest though; you could probably find his contact details online somewhere and take it from there.

B

12:24 pm

Way More Than Luck: 27.2.18 - the launch

Poetry in Motion

POETRY IN MOTION
Why one Reds supporter is committing his love for Liverpool FC to verse

Liverpool FC and poetry have a lot of previous – from John Toshack’s Gosh It’s Tosh collection in the late 70s, to the verse of Dave Kirby and Peter Etherington in the fanzine Red All Over the Land, to the lines written by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, a University of Liverpool graduate, in the aftermath of 2012’s Hillsborough findings. Now there’s Ben Wilkinson, Reds fan and book critic for The Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement, who’s compiling a series of poems commemorating the club’s legends. “Football is part of the fabric of life, and anything that’s important to people finds its way into poetry,” he says. “Wilfred Owen’s poem 'Disabled' describes a soldier who loses the use of his legs, meaning he can never play football again. Philip Larkin’s 'MCMXIV' compares boys queuing to join the army to fans outside Villa Park. These poems have stood the test of time because t…

Way More Than Luck (Seren Books, 2018)

From the thumping heartbeat of the distance runner to the roar of football terraces across the decades, Ben Wilkinson’s debut confronts the struggles and passions that come to shape a life. Beginning with an interrogation of experiences of clinical depression and the redemptive power of art and running, the collection centres on a series of vivid character portraits, giving life to some of football's legends. By turns frank, comic, sinister and meditative – ‘the trouble with you, son, is that all your brains are in your head’ – these poems uncover the beautiful game’s magic and absurdity, hopes and disappointments, as striking metaphors for our everyday dramas. Elsewhere there are tender love poems, political satire and strange dream worlds, in an urgently lyrical book of poems that take many forms and modes of address: pantoum, sonnet, sestina; epistle, confession, dramatic monologue. All are united by a desire to speak with searching clarity about matters of the heart. Way More …

Ben Wilkinson

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