"Can Poetry Change Anything?" Burgage Hall, Ledbury.

Full marks to Ledbury Poetry Festival director Chloe Garner for taking the bold step of featuring a poet who writes in a language few outside his own country will understand and then serving up a treat.

Lithuanian Marcelijus Martinaitis is an eminent and influential literary figure within his own country, and in the programme "Can Poetry Change Anything?" he demonstrated how effective oblique satire can be at challenging an authoritarian regime, in his case the Soviet one.

Seemingly the innocent musings of a simpleton called Kukatis, his chosen work is witty and cutting, his targets obvious to anyone with a sense of humour, yet unrecognised by the very apparatchicks he was lampooning.

Mellifluous to listen to, especially as read by the poet himself in the original language but also in Laima Scruogini's brilliant English translation, Martinaitis's work revealed the paradox that nothing fosters artistic endeavour so effectively as censorship and oppression. Great stuff.

Before introducing us to Martinaitis, Laima Scruogini presented some of her own poetry. This is much more personal and introspective, concerned largely with the condition of womanhood and at times curiously involved in the processes of personal ablutions.

The language was concise, the imagery vivid, the delivery impeccable, yet, as a mere male, I found myself left out on a limb of indifference.

John Rushby-Smith.