Acclaimed poets headline annual StAnza festival

Five-day event to showcase leading lights and new upcoming talent

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 festival over five days in St Andrews. We look forward to revealing more details in coming weeks.”

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 Morgan, Fiona Moore, Alan Spence, George Mario Angel Quintero, Gerda Stevenson and Matthew Stewart.

Forward Prize winner Liz Berry is to perform in StAnza.