An absolutely packed Burley Fisher bookshop on Kingsland road, this event had its own character entirely, with a completely different tone and energy to the previous festival events. It was really distinct, the bookshop brought everyone into such proximity, it insisted on attention. The project itself was brought into being by the deeply welcome enthusiasm of the Latvian Literature staff, Inga Vareva and Ildze Jansone especially, and we had the luxury of four new collaborations driving the event. I had tried to make this event more literary, more communal, more local, and to open with short solo readings by lots of the visiting poets, as it was also the sendoff to London for the festival after a really rapid and brilliant seven days. All told, it couldn’t have gone better. Every reading and more pics are available here https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/latvia
