IT'S the 16th Aldeburgh Poetry Festival this weekend ' thirty events in three days in a beautiful east coast fishing town.

Sounds like bliss, but if you can't make it down, the organisers are kindly giving you a taste of the festival with this 'Lines on the Road' touring event.

Three poets from this year's Aldeburgh Poetry Festival will perform in London, Southampton, Birmingham and Manchester.

One of these is North Carolina born writer Tony Hoagland. His 2003 collection, What Narcissism Means to Me (Graywolf Press) is an exploration of the self and a blunt appraisal of American culture. Here he'll be reading from his just-released Selected Poems (Bloodaxe).

Joining him will be Michael Rosen, whose works for children have been switching young people onto words in verse for decades.

His adult collections include Carrying the Elephant: A Memoir of Love and Loss (Penguin) in which, through 72 prose poems, he unfolds the events that have shaped his life, including his Jewish upbringing, the break down of his marriage and the death of his 18 year-old son.

The final poet in the trio is Henry Shukman, whose first collection In Doctor No's Garden (Cape Poetry), published in 2002, was nominated for the Forward Prize. Varied in theme, the poems are bonded by Shukman's assured, original voice and clarity of imagery.

It's quite an enticing line up. Okay it's not thirty events in three days, but three poets in one night should give you a good idea what Aldeburgh is all about ' and might persuade you to hit the road yourself, next year, to experience the festival in full.

Lines on the Road is on at the Dancehouse Theatre on Thursday, November 11. Tickets are '8 Call 0161 237 9753.