The Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, is to lead a once-in-a-lifetime line-up of award-winning poets in Edinburgh later this month to raise funds for the Haiti earthquake disaster appeal (a survivor holds a sign “We are Haitains” in protest over a lack of tents and food aid).
Twenty of the UK’s foremost poets will perform at the Queen’s Hall on February 28.
The event was inspired by Glasgow-born Ms Duffy and Dundonian Don Paterson, who next month will receive the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.
Poets reading on the night include Alasdair Gray, Douglas Dunn, Jackie Kay, Kathleen Jamie and Sean O’Brien (the only writer to take the UK’s top two poetry awards - the Forward Prize and TS Eliot Prize - in the same year); as well as four UK poets laureate - Liz Lochhead (Glasgow), Ron Butlin (Edinburgh), Gillian Clarke (Wales) and Ms Duffy, who said: “Poetry has the power of prayer and is the place in language where we are most human. The people of Haiti need our humanity right now.”
The evening will be a finale to the Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Carry A Poem campaign, run in collaboration with the Scottish Poetry Library, which is highlighting the power of poetry in people’s lives - in schools, communities, projected onto buildings in the capital and more.
www.thequeenshall.net
T: 0131 668 2019.
