Ever looked at a Poetry Festival programme and wished you could be there to hear some of the readings? Well, here’s a festival you can attend, even though the readings take place as far apart as Tblisi, Geneva, St Andrews, Stavanger, London, Mumbai, Vicenza, Skye, New York City, Amsterdam, Ghent and Sacramento.
This Saturday 14th November from 1pm, Distant Voices: StAnza’s Virtual Poetry Festival can beam in – live – to your computer screen (details at the link). The readings won’t be available after the time of broadcast though – you need to watch in real time. You can tune in throughout the day to a huge variety of sounds, styles and languages: major literary figures and recent award winners, teenage slammers, sound poets, poetry in English and also in a range of other languages. Scottish poet and publisher, Colin Will, has an impressive post on the festival programme, complete with poems, photos and interesting links.
It strikes me that this is a highly ambitious project and could so easily go wrong! But, as the organisers say, “It might be smooth, it might be bumpy, it will definitely be different.” If any of you tune in, whether for nine minutes or nine hours, I’d be interested to know what you think.
