Ilkley Literature Festival and Simon Armitage have come together to revisit their Stanza Stones collaboration as part of the ‘Bradford is LiT’ celebrations of light taking place across the District this weekend.
The Stanza Stones poems were originally written in 2012 before being carved into rocks across the moorland landscapes between Ilkley and Marsden. The new project reimagines them in a film combining light projections with video and stunning time-lapse photography.
Filmed during lockdown in early 2021, the new work takes the six poems – Mist, Beck, Snow, Rain, Puddle and Dew – and transposes them to new locations around Ilkley, including the Cow and Calf, White Wells Spa and the Ilkley Manor House.
Screenings will take place on Saturday 6 November 2021 between 4.30pm and 6.30pm every 15 minutes on big screen outside All Saints’ Church, Ilkley. The screenings are free to attend and no booking is required, just turn up and enjoy the film at your preferred time.
The film is one of many events taking place at Ilkley’s Heritage Quarter this Autumn. Starting this Thursday, the Ilkley Manor House is hosting Dovetailing Responses, an exhibition combining film, music and mobile sculpture with visual arts, poetry, dance, live music and interactive soundscape. For more information visit www.dovetailing.co.uk
Ilkley Literature Festival Director Erica Morris said: “It’s been a pleasure to work with Simon Armitage again and to have the opportunity to revisit his wonderful Stanza Stones poems. We’re looking forward to sharing them in a new medium, enabling people to see them literally in a new light.”
The project has been funded by Bradford Metropolitan District Council and produced by Double Take Projections.
For more information, visit www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk or call 01943 816714.