Three of the twelve poets shortlisted for this year’s Keats-Shelley Prize Awards are published by Templar Poetry. Pat Winslow, Pat Borthwick and Judy Brown, all previous winners of the Templar Poetry Pamphlet & Collection Award stand alongside Simon Armitage, last year’s winner, Buddhist poet Maitreyabandhu and Chris Edgoose, Charles Evans, Annemarie Austin, Gill Learner, Victor Tapner, Maitreyabandhu, Martyn Crucefix, and Emma Harding.

The Awards ceremony will take place at the British Academy in central London on Wednesday 13th October. Chairman of the Judges, scholar and poet Jack Mapanje, will present the prizes and give a reading from Keats and Shelley combined with his own work. Catherine Payling, Curator of the Keats-Shelley House, will show photographs of recent activities in Rome

The prize was established to encourage talented poets and essayists of all ages and walks of life to write on Romantic themes: poems of modern relevance and Romantic inspiration, and essays on Keats, Shelley, Byron or Mary Shelley.

These collections are all available online post free along with the rest of our list of excellent poetry published in beautiful books.

www.keats-shelley.com

The Derwent Poetry Festival is a  landmark in the poetry calender; a poetry publishing festival where excellent new poetry is launched and published in superbly designed and produced books, offering a unique opportunity to listen to a range of  live poetic voices.  Eight new titles are launched at the fourth Derwent Festival,  opening on Friday 12th November with a free Reception and  Awards event for the 2010 Pamphlet Award winners; Olive Broderick, Matt Bryden, Hilary Menos and Ian McEwan. This is followed by readings from Pat Winslow,  the 2010 awards Judge, and Paul Maddern launching his debut collection, The Beachcomber’s Report.

On Saturday we are delighted to welcome five guest poets from Northern Ireland who will feature in three readings during the Festival. There is a rare opportunity to hear Ciaran Carson, Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queens University,  reading on saturday evening,  and  Howard Wright, Jean Bleakney, Francis O’Hare and Martin Mooney, published by the  Lagan and Blackstaff Presses in Northern Ireland, are featured in lunchtime readings on Saturday and Sunday.

Over the weekend the four Pamphlet Award winners will launch their new pamphlets and  three events are dedicated to poets whose individual poems were selected from this year’s excellent range of pamphlet submissions. Award winning Anglo Italian writer and designer Jane Weir launches a new edition of her acclaimed  first collection, The Way I Dressed During the Revolution, and Maggie O’Dwyer reads from her first collection, Laughter Heard from the Road, shortlisted in the 2010 Rupert & Eithne Strong Awards for best First Collection by an Irish Poet earlier this year.

The festival continues until Sunday afternoon, closing with a reading and talk by Jane Weir from Walking the Block,  her ground breaking poetic biography of the creative lives of the modernist textile designers and printers Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher, which has toured the British Isles since it was first published.

The full range of Templar Poetry titles will be available at the Festival Bookshop throughout the weekend.

Festival Tickets will be available online from 1st October and are available now by post as detailed below.

Full Festival Ticket: Entry to all Events throughout the Festival: £10 & Concession £6

Individual Event Tickets: £3 Concession £2

The Full Festival Programme is set out below. If you wish to purchase Tickets by Post please send Cheques or Postal Orders Payable to Templar Poetry for the appropriate amount, indicating the event which you wish to attend if you are not booking a Full Festival Ticket, along with a self addressed and stamped envelope, if you wish us to return the tickets to you. We can also hold tickets purchased by post at the door for you and acknowledge your booking by email or telephone.

DERWENT POETRY FESTIVAL 2010: Masson Mills, Matlock Bath

Friday 12^th Sunday 14^th November

FRIDAY 12^th NOVEMBER

Derwent Poetry Festival Opening Readings

6.00 – 7.00pm Free

Festival Reception & Pamphlet Awards Presentation

Reading by 2010 Judge Pat Winslow

7.00 – 7.30pm

Templar First Collection Launch

Paul Maddern reading from

The Beachcomber’s Report

7.30 – 8.00pm

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SATURDAY 13^th NOVEMBER

The Morning Readings

Templar Anthology Poets

Poets reading from Snap, the Anthology of selected poems from the 2010 Pamphlet & Collection Awards.

9.45 – 10.30am

Templar Pamphlet Poets

Two Templar Award winning poets launching their 2010 pamphlets.

Olive Broderick reading from Darkhaired

Matt Bryden reading from Night Porter

11.15am – 12.00

Lagan & Blackstaff Press: Lunchtime Showcase

Belfast based Lagan Press and Blackstaff Press publish some of the best contemporary Northern Irish poets. The Guest Press readings will feature two poets at each event from the Northern Irish poets attending: Howard Wright, Jean Bleakney, FrancisO’Hare and Martin Mooney.

12.15-1.00pm

SATURDAY 13^th NOVEMBER

The Afternoon Readings

Templar Pamphlet Poets

Two Templar Award winning poets launching their 2010 Pamphlets

Ian McEwan – The Stammering Man

Hilary Menos – Wheelbarrow Farm

2.00 – 2.45pm

Templar Collection Poets

Maggie O’Dwyer and Jane Weir reading from their Templar Poetry Pamphlets and Collections.

3.30 – 4.15pm

Templar Anthology Poets

Poets reading from Snap, the Anthology of selected poems from the 2010 Pamphlet & Collection Awards.

4.45 – 5.30pm

The Evening Reading

Ciaran Carson

7.00 – 8.00

SUNDAY 22^nd NOVEMBER

The Morning Readings

Templar Anthology Poets

Poets reading from Snap, the 2010 Anthology of selected poems from the 2010 Pamphlet & Collection Awards.

10.30 – 11.15am

Lagan & Blackstaff Press: Lunchtime Showcase

Belfast based Lagan Press publish some of the best contemporary Northern Irish poets. This reading will feature two of the four guest poets from Northern Ireland.

12.15-1.00pm

Templar Poetry Showcase

Jane Weir reads from Walking the Block and talks about this innovative poetic biography.

1.30 – 2.30pm

Admission to the opening reception and readings of the Derwent Poetry Festival on Friday 12^th November is free.

Individual events on Saturday 13^th &  Sunday 15^th November are £3.00 and £2.00 Concession. An Open Ticket for the entire Festival is £10. Tickets may be purchased online from 1^st October 2010. Postal Bookings are available now from:  Derwent Poetry Festival, c/o Iota, PO BOX 7721, Matlock, DE4 9DD.

Many of the poets present are reading from work published by Templar Poetry and titles published by Templar Poetry are available throughout the festival at the Festival Bookshop. Lagan Press and Blackstaff Press from Belfast are the guest Independent publishers.

We are also delighted to welcome Ciaran Carson, Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre in Belfast, our Saturday Evening guest poet.

Thanks to the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for assisting in developing the Northern Ireland presence at the festival.

Further information about Templar Poetry is available from the website at www.templarpoetry.co.uk

Iota Magazine, published by Templar Poetry, is available at the Festival and from the Iota website at www.iotamagazine.co.uk

All Events are in the Arkwright Suite, above the Working Textile Museum, Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, DE4 3PY