Poetry and Motion at Ripon Spa Hotel

Sir Andrew Motion is reading from his new collection of poetry at Ripon International Festival today, Thursday.

The Customs House opens with a sequence of war poems, Laurels and Donkeys, which draws on soldiers’ experiences from the First and Second World wars, through to the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The event at Ripon Spa Hotel at 7.30pm will also see the former Poet Laureate reads from The Cinder Path, which was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.

President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England and co-founder of The Poetry Archive, Motion recently published The New World, the second in his Treasure Island trilogy.

This weekend’s highlights at Ripon International Festival, which runs to September 24, also include baroque trio, Fantasticus from Amsterdam who perform at medieval manor, Markenfield Hall tomorrow, Friday and The Escher String Quartet from New York who play Mendelssohn, Ravel and Beethoven in an afternoon concert at St Andrew’s Church in Aldborough this Sunday.

For more information, visit www.riponinternationalfestival.com

For tickets, call 01423 502116 or visit www.harrogatetheatre.co.uk