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 Biennale (), Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popularis ...

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 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. Cambridge bec ...

, 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 Paul Celan (; ; 23 November 1920 – c. 20 April 1970) was a Romanian-born German-language poet and translator. He was born as Paul Antschel to a Jewish family in Cernăuți (German: Czernowitz), in the then Kingdom of Romania (now Chernivtsi, U ...

's poetry in the presence of

Gisèle Lestrange Gisèle Lestrange or Gisèle de Lestrange, and after marriage, Gisèle Celan-Lestrange (19 March 1927 – 9 December 1991), was a French graphic artist. Biography Born in Paris, Lestrange studied drawing and painting at the Académie Julian in ...

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 Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

'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 Launched as ''Poetry Nation'', a twice-yearly hardback, in 1973, ''PN Review'' - now an A4 paperback - began quarterly publication in 1976 and has appeared six times a year since 1981 (PN Review 21). Two hundred and twenty-five issues of the magaz ...

''.''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 Martin Booth (7 September 1944 – 12 February 2004) was an English novelist and poet. He also worked as a teacher and screenwriter, and was the founder of the Sceptre Press. Early life Martin Booth was born in Lancashire England, the son of ...

: ''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, and ...

, 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 1974

Rat 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