The urge of the heart: Ideas of home, belonging, isolation and resilience are explored in this year’s festival
At Wise Words, we believe in poetry and stories as more than entertainment. We believe in their ability to act as agents for change: reaching across differences, inspiring a sense of social responsibility, bearing witness to the diversity and complexity of human experience and helping us to imagine a better world. It felt important to us for this year’s festival to identify themes that respond to the global and local challenges we currently face.
Whether it be refugees who have left the homes, families, communities and cultures they know with the hope of finding a new home and sense of belonging in an alien culture; whether its young people who have demonstrated the most tremendous resilience in the face of the most challenging experiences or those with mental health issues, we all deserve and long to feel welcomed and celebrated, rather than isolated within the communities we live.
At this year’s Wise Words Festival, we invite you to join national, international and local poets, writers, artists, journalists and musicians as they come together to share their stories and explore ideas of identity, of belonging, of who we are and how we define ourselves.
From Finnish poetry and folk-songs to the experience of being inviting to Buckingham Palace whilst still technically an illegal immigrant in this country, from literary portrayals of the incredible courage of care-leavers to the deeper significance of battling anorexia, ideas of what is home, what love is and what it means to feel isolated lie at the beating of heart of Canterbury’s literary festival, which starts on Friday 30th April.
Local writing group, the Canterbury Yarners will explore some of these ideas, as will Canterbury Poet Laureate John Siddique, whose poetry is fuelled by a fierce quest to find the truths at the heart of human experience. The fearless Patience Agbabi, shortlisted this year for the Ted Hughes Prize for New Work in Poetry, will explore ideas of pilgrimage in her Re-Telling of the Canterbury Tales and in Love Beyond Barriers, Fiona Sinclair will share her daughters experience of falling in love with an illegal immigrant.
The Gruffalobit sees Elle Payne offering a personal insight into the journey from anorexia through to recovery, that anorexia is about so much more than getting thin – about feeling isolated and a desire to belong.
The term Lapland is a word foreigners gave to Sámiland, a huge area in the north of Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia. Since the spread of Christianity in the west, Sami and non-Sami have clashed. The Swedish government used incentives to lure its citizens to settle in Sami lands, and forcibly sterilised Sami women they deemed problematic. The Norwegian government launched a systematic effort to wipe out Sami culture and made it illegal to sing joiks, or Sami folk songs. Sámiland is being eroded in the name of development, with some areas being transferred over to the army for anti-terrorist training grounds, and conservationists who are passionate about protecting the eagles, lynx and wolverines are protecting the predators that kill the Sami’s reindeer. Niillas Holmberg, a poet, musician, actor and activist, will explore issues of cultural identity and share traditional yoiks (Sámi songs) in his mother tongue.
In collaboration with the Marlowe Theatre, this year’s festival will celebrate the resilience of young people who have faced tremendous adversity. On the morning of Saturday 7th May between 10 - 12:30 we are inviting you to come and join us for a relaxed conversation over tea, coffee & biscuits to explore and celebrate the tremendous resilience of young people who have faced adversity in their lives - whether this be through ill health, arriving in the UK as an unaccompanied young person seeking refuge or growing up within the care system. Lemn Sissay will also perform a short Secret Set for those who attend this session.
Our festival headliner, Lemn Sissay will show that so many of the fictional characters we idolise were brought up in care and will address the disparity between our admiration for them in juxtaposition to the widespread disregard for their real-life counterparts. In his headline performance, Lemn will share his own story, exploring what home means to someone brought up within the care system.
Inua Ellams will talk about the series of midnight walks he curates in cities across the world and how through taking time to observe and connect to the world around us we redefine city spaces and rediscover a sense of place. Inua Ellams will close the festival by offering our Wise Words audience an insight into his childhood - brought up in Nigeria he escaped Islamist extremists before resettling in England. During this performance he will explore his childhood through British poetry; by re-setting their work in his childhood immigrant background. He will be reading a selection of the British poems he chose and his poetry in response.
Each of our lives is made up of thousands of stories and Wise Words is about celebrating and sharing these with the hope that they offer different perspectives, greater understanding and a stronger sense of empathy for others. We hope to offer the opportunity for you to take a few moments out of your busy life to pause, reflect and enjoy the stunning surroundings of Canterbury’s Secret Gardens.
The Well-being of others but also our own sense wellbeing is very important and at Wise Words we hope you leave feeling inspired, invigorated and refreshed. To support this we will be offering Indian head massage and relaxation sessions throughout the festival.
Join us at Wise Words at the end of the month, and discover anew that not all who wander are lost, and to explore through poetry, music and shared stories, what it means to be human.