The Cambridge Poetry Festival, founded by
Richard Berengarten
Richard Berengarten (born 4 June 1943) is an English poet. Having lived in Italy, Greece, the US and the former Yugoslavia, his perspectives as a poet combine English, French, Mediterranean, Jewish, Slavic, American and Oriental influences. His ...
(also known as Richard Burns), was an international
biennale for
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
held in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
, England, between 1975–1985.
The festival was founded in an attempt to combine as many aspects as possible of this form of art. Thus
Michael Hamburger
Michael Peter Leopold Hamburger (22 March 1924 – 7 June 2007) was a noted German-British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic. He was known in particular for his translations of Friedrich Hölderlin, Paul Celan, Gottfried Benn and ...
could, for example, recite his English interpretations of
Paul Celan's poetry in the presence of
Gisèle Lestrange and a surprisingly large audience at an art gallery bestowed on her engravings. The last biennale in 1985 included a number of events to mark
Ezra Pound's centenary, including the exhibition
''Pound's Artists: Ezra Pound and the Visual Arts in London, Paris and Italy'' at
Kettle's Yard
Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England. The director of the art gallery is Andrew Nairne. Both the house and gallery reopened in February 2018 after an expansion of the facilities.
Kettle's Yard galleries, shop and caf ...
(later also shown at the
Tate Gallery
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
) and was accompanied by a special issue of the magazine ''
PN Review''.
[''PN Review'' 46 November - December 1985, http://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?toc=2;volume=12]
Literature
* Richard Berengarten
"The Cambridge Poetry Festival: 35 years after" ''Cambridge Literary Review'', I/1 (Michaelmas, 2009)
*
Martin Booth: ''British poetry 1964 to 1984: driving through the barricades'' (
Routledge
Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...
, 1985).
*
Rolf Dieter Brinkmann
Rolf Dieter Brinkmann (16 April 1940 – 23 April 1975) was a German writer of poems, short stories, a novel, essays, letters, and diaries.
Life and work
Rolf Dieter Brinkmann is considered an important forerunner of the German so-called ''Pop-Li ...
: ''The Last One: Readings / Autorenlesungen, Cambridge Poetry Festival 1975''
udio-book D 59 min. (Intermedium Records, 2005)
References
External links
Elizabeth Thomas and Richard Burns, 'Cambridge Poetry Festival', ''The New York Review of Books'', October 3 1974Rat Palace by Tom Pickard, 19 April 1977
Recurring events established in 1975
1985 disestablishments in England
Festivals in Cambridge
Literary festivals in England
Poetry festivals in the United Kingdom
{{UK-festival-stub