Posted By: Katy Carr, 22 June 2011
The Worlds whirlwind started this Sunday evening as this years participating writers all gathered together for a meal at UEA. Having flown in from all corners of the world there were various stories of travel dilemmas and lost connections, but these were soon drowned out by the enthusiastic salutations of old friends or the to-ing and fro-ing of shared backgrounds as new connections began to form.
Worlds has been running for seven years, and is a hard beast to describe; literary festival doesn’t quite cover it. It is partly a literature festival featuring great events yes, but what is often harder to convey publically is really what’s at its soul - the discussion and sharing of ideas at the three round-table morning sessions called the Salon as well as the insights the writers gain into various writing cultures through listening to and discussing each others writing both formally during the daily sessions and informally into the evening.
Worlds cements ideas, friendships and working relationships between the 40 odd writers that attend, even if at the beginning, as one writer said, it initially appears a bit like a school trip. Polish your apple! someone quipped on twitter. Yet, this school trip has no particular school teacher in charge and no hecklers at the back of the bus; so far.
And whilst hard to measure formally, the fruits of this particular outing always turn out to be rich, unexpected and various. At the very least the writers emerge with a reading list and a buzzing head. But normally they’ll come out with much more than that – an enlarged understanding of new ways of thinking; new working connections, and endless fizzing trails leading into the future that will lead to who knows what.
Going back to Sunday evening - as the group settled themselves at two long tables for dinner the chatter settled down to an attentive silence as American poet
C.K. Williams stood up to read.
Charlie has been to Worlds before and was enthusiastic about returning. He read a few poems, the final one ‘Whack’, relating being ‘whacked’ again and again by the brilliance of other writers. It was the perfect introduction to the week’s theme of Influence:
“Every morning of my life I sit at my desk getting whacked by some great poet or other.
Some Yeats, some Auden, some Herbert or Larkin, and lately a whole tribe of others—
oy!—younger than me. Whack!”
And as
Xu Xi stood up to read from an enticing novel, she thanked Jill Dawson for her help with the text; evidence of a former worlds connection that moved into friendship and a strong working relationship.
Then the evening got on its way, as did Worlds. So far it’s been intense, stimulating and exhausting. When asked how it was going on Tuesday, Gwyneth Lewis said "I couldn’t sleep last night. So many ideas going round my head."
I feel the same trying to write this blog. There’s too much to say and I haven’t yet mentioned the events or the afternoon readings, all of which have been corkers. We just need a bit more time to digest them, but soon we’ll get blogs, podcasts, and clips up from these events as well as content from the Salon sessions.
For now Hisham Matar’s just been asking when he’s to be picked up
for tonight’s Refugee Week event up at the Playhouse with Tahmima Anam and Philo Ikonya. If you’re around then please beat the rain back and come and join us; I sure it’s going to be another thought-provoking and lively evening.
