The next stop on our round-the-world poetry tour is the United States, with fresh poetry from Carl Phillips and Camille Dungy. Phillips and Dungy are both leading figures in contemporary American poetry, and it’s a true pleasure to be welcoming them to the festival this year. Phillips is a classicist by training, and his poetry often employs classical formal structures and references; he found his voice as a poet, however, by rendering these influences into his struggle to express himself as a gay man in the early 1990s. His many honours include fellowships from the Guggenheim and the Library of Congress. Dungy is a trailblazing nature writer, taking on historical norms that kept writers of colour from contributing to a vital American tradition, and making space for those erased by history. To that end, Dungy edited the crucial anthology Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry in 2009. It is a rare blessing to have these poets with us, and a wonderful way to start Saturday’s programme.