fahrenheit451:344

The explicit stated aim of #WakeyLit19 is to put locally based authors and poets at the centre of the litfest. And that the primary aim and purpose of a lit. fest bearing the name of the city,is to firstly promote wider public awareness of locally based authors and poets.

Unless someone,somewhere knows any different,clearly Wakefield -its elected representatives and relevant Council departments and officials ought to adopt a positive,pro-active strategy of an on-going,enhanced promotion of local authors and poets across its libraries ,schools and the city’s leading cultural venues.

This is the third of four blog posts on the topic of Wakefield LitFest. This one is  “The Upside” ,yet to come ,”The Downside” be warned names shall be named.There will be payback. 

The putative Wakefield Literature Festival aka Wakefield LitFest 2019 rebranded as #WakeyLit19 held its media launch on September 2nd. at Destiny Christian Church, with guest of honour, the Mayor Of Wakefield, Cllr. Charlie Keith.

The undoubted jewel in the crown of the week long, unfunded grassroots organised #WakeyLit19 was the series of Writers’ Showcases events hosted at the Mocca Moocho cafe  which featured a strong line-up of locally connected Authors from a broad range of literary genres:-

Joanne Brandon, Sarah Connell, Sue Featherstone, Dale Brendan Hyde, Barbara Phipps, Stephen Place and Neil White.

None of whom had ever been invited to take part in the now,moribund and defunct predecessor Wakefield Literature Festival.

#WakeyLit19 received practical support and expressions of solidarity from many well-wishers.And despite some relatively minor hiccups in the week,#WakeyLit19 most definitely “flew”, on schedule and to budget; which of course was £0.00.

fahrenheit451:343

It’s Monday 16th. September 2019 and #WakeyLit19 the ersatz  litfest is getting underway.

No funding, no charges ,no fees ,no tickets ,next to no admin. A radical, quasi-improvised grassroots alternative to absolutely no litfest whatsoever following the demise back in 2017 of what was the  ” official ” Wakefield Literature festival. The Merrie City’s version of the some 400 off – the  -shelf lookalike characterless litfest templates where only the geographically specific prefix is all that’s locally authentic and distinctive about them.

Being the UK’s 11th.largest city by population – @330k.- counts for diddly squat in Wakefield’s  case when it comes to the pecking order of venues queueing up to get their snouts in the trough of Publicly funded Arts Council monies.

That said, for every £8 per head of Arts Council funding that Greater London alone gets ; the entire rest of the UK gets £1 per head!!

Still, what can the city expect when you’ve had now more than a decade of indolence and indifference exhibited by elected political representatives toward advocating / campaigning for anything other than the prestige projects favoured by the local coterie of metropolitan cultural elitist toadies?

Back in March 29 ,2014 I posted the following in this here And So It Goes  Blog #452.

Here’s something I’ve WikiLeaked from my very own archives :- This validates my assertion,long held,that Wakefield would be better off being obliterated by a meteorite than what it has endured from its own City leaders over the years.

Public Correspondence : ARCHIVE MATERIAL : 18 / 04 / 2005 : Yorkshire Evening Post

New schools’ venture for city is well-versed

Updated on the18April 2005 10:44

Published 18/04/2005 09:21

By ALAN YORK

A NEW joint venture aimed at bringing poetry into schools across the Wakefield diocese was being launched today.

Poetry Wakefield is the idea of Cathedral poet-in-residence Louis Kasatkin, the Cathedral Poets and the Black Horse Poets, and is sponsored by Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency.

It takes the form of a quarterly booklet of poems and information about poetry and has won the full support of the Bishop of Wakefield, the Right Rev Stephen Platten, who has even written a verse which is included in the first issue. It goes:

There was a young man of Cleckheaton

Whose verses were not worth repeating

For first he would swear

Then fly into the air

With rhymes that were no’but expleting.

He said: “This is the sort of writing that Poetry Wakefield: City and Diocese will not encourage! But my doggerel limerick does draw attention to the need to encourage young poets in schools throughout the Diocese of Wakefield.

Encourage

“This, Louis Kastakin, the Cathedral Poets and others intend to encourage. Yorkshire Forward has given us financial support and so we hope to be given further support by other bodies too.

“The production of a quarterly periodical will allow us to bring together the poetic talents of West Yorkshire and to encourage others to write. Who knows – even I may improve my versing if I become a regular reader.”

The launch was being carried out at Treacy Hall at the Cathedral.

Mr Kastakin, who has been poet-in-residence at the Cathedral since 2001, said: “This is another very real and tangible step in awakening the sleeping giant of poetry within schools and the local community.”

The two poets’ groups have set a goal of establishing an annual ‘Gissing Prize for Schools’ named after Wakefield-born George Gissing, one of England’s leading 19th century writers.

He was born in 1857 in Wakefield city centre in Thompson’s Yard, off Westgate.

He died in 1904 having written 23 novels, one of which, A Life’s Morning, is set in a thinly-disguised Wakefield and was re-published in a limited edition by the Gissing Trust last yea r to mark the 100th anniversary of his death.

In his hey day, Gissing was a literary superstar and his work still attracts devoted attention from academics, writers and readers around the world.

Galleries

Letters supporting a bid by the poets for Arts Council funding have been sent by Bishop Platten, former Wakefield MP David Hinchliffe, Wakefield Local Education Authority and the Wakefield Diocesan Board of Education.

Local museums, galleries, libraries, the Cathedral and Ottakar’s bookstore will all stock the quarterly.

Addendum : and of course the funding ran out.