Type: Book Reading
Author: Lemn Sissay
Event; World Book Night
Book: Excerpt from Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Location: London, England
Year: 2011

World Book Night 2011 was a celebration of important and much-loved writing, and participating writers and performers read works that mattered to them. Tennyson’s “Ulysses” is a natural choice for Lemn Sissay: it is written as a dramatic voice, building toward a powerful declaration of endurance, curiosity and continuing to seek experience despite age and hardship. Sissay is an exceptionally energetic spoken-word performer, and the poem gives him something expansive and theatrical to interpret.