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at the StAnza Poetry Festival in St Andrews in March 2005 and I can't compare
it to anything I've experienced before or since. It was a great piece of
programming (the late-night slot after a day's straight poetry readings) and we
copied it shamelessly for the 2005 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in November,
even though I had some concerns about whether the Aldeburgh audience
would be up to the challenge.
Relentless, fast, energising, mesmerising - there's no polite response possible
(nor would Ginsberg ever want one!). Happily, it was a risk hugely worth taking,
and proof that festival directors should never underestimate people's capacity
and desire to be stretched.
Tickets sold well and 160 people filled Aldeburgh's historic Jubilee Hall (home
to Benjamin Britten's original Festival of Music and the Arts in 1948) and set out
on the HoWL journey with palpable excitement and some trepidation -
how loud was it going to be? would we be able to decipher the words?
Soon everyone abandoned themselves to this words-and-music rollercoaster.
From cacophony to lyricism, from fury to love, Tromans' Howl (delivered in the
to-die-for Northern Irish voice of Sid Peacock) leaves audiences breathless and
exhilarated in equal measure. And certainly at Aldeburgh, foot-stamping and
whistling and yelling for more.
- Naomi Jaffa, Director, 2005 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival