StAnza 2022:
Stories like starting points

Stories and narrative have always played an important role making sense of what it means to be human, to live in our communities and environments, and in negotiating how this might look. In 2022, Scotland’s ‘Year of Stories’, we took a line from Holly Pester’s collection Comic Timing –  ‘Stories like starting points’ – as StAnza’s own starting point in proceeding to investigate the role of narrative in contemporary poetry.

StAnza 2022 explored the opportunities and the pitfalls of stories, ranging over narrative poetry, prose poetry, re-writing old stories and imagining new ones. There were poets who contested the power of narrative or of stories conventionally told, and those who experimented with it. Readings and discussions were grouped according to themes, with poets exploring The Contemporary Epic, Process and Chance Narratives, Long Form versus Short Form Narratives, the rewriting of Scottish ballads, and much more (see below for the full listings)! Under the new Directorship of Lucy Burnett, the festival included familiar strands such as Round Tables and Past and Present talks (this year exploring the relevance of modernist poets to contemporary writing), plus new events such as the Round the World series of recorded readings (featuring poets from every continent) and more discussion sessions than in previous years. In total, 165 poets and other artists, from 39 different countries, participated in a bumper festival!

Following our award-winning virtual festival in 2021, we were thrilled to be able to return to St Andrews for live events. However, we also offered 64 events in digital format, to enable those who weren’t able to attend in person to engage. This was important both for accessibility reasons, and to ensure that Stanza continues to be recognised as a festival with not only an international focus, but also with an international reach.

Over the coming years, Stanza aims to become an ‘intervention’ in poetry, which annually explores questions that are fundamental to the writing and reading of poetry and will engage poets and audiences alike. This was our 25^th year, our starting point was narrative, and the story of the 2022 festival began right there…