October at Kulturá

September at Kulturá

July at Kulturá

May at Kulturá

Spotlight on Bob Horne

Each month at Kulturá we feature one of our Open Mic poets on the blog.
September's Spotlight fell on Bob Horne.

 'Bob Horne has an MA in Poetry from Huddersfield University. He has been writing poems seriously for a couple of years and has a collection, Knowing My Place, coming out in 2016. He helps to organise Puzzle Hall Poets in Sowerby Bridge and regularly attends sessions of the Albert Poets in Huddersfield and Gaia Holmes's Igniting the Spark workshops at Dean Clough in Halifax. He has also started a small publishing concern, Calder Valley Poetry. Its first pamphlet is currently in preparation.

Bob has played in a rugby team which beat Wasps, hooked a West Indian fast bowler for six, and finished ahead of an Olympic gold medallist in a World Championship race.'

White-Tailed Eagle 

I cross the trackless Parph.
Behind me indifferent Atlantic waves
break along the length of Sandwood Bay,
with its red-haired mermaid,
its bearded sailor still knocking at night
on the windows of the broken bothy.
Beneath the dunes, shepherds say,
wrecks of longship and galleon
have been smothered for centuries.

Massive tussocks make for hard going.
I rest on my stick, face north
towards the oldest rocks there are
then nothing but cold seas
to the Pole and beyond.

Like a sheet of white shadow
close enough to disconcert
it climbs from the cottongrass,
iolaire sùil na grèine -
eagle of the sunlit eye -
smoulders for a moment,
still as a Stone Age carving,
until it rises, in its own time,
above this wilderness, the bay, the ocean,
leaves me at best
a fleck of a far-off star
whose gleam may never reach
this earth.

 © Bob Horne

Spotlight on Keith Hutson

Each month at Kulturá we feature one of our Open Mic poets on the blog.
August's Spotlight fell on Keith Hutson.















Keith has written for Coronation Street and many well-known comedians. Since starting to submit his poetry a couple of years ago, he's been in several journals including The Rialto, The North, Butcher's Dog, Pennine Platform, and has work forthcoming in Stand, The Interpreter's House and Magma. This year he won a Poetry Business Yorkshire Prize, judged by Billy Collins. Keith used to co-edit the online journal Hinterland, and he runs a creative writing class at the Square Chapel in Halifax, where he also hosts the monthly WordPlay spoken word and music event. He delivers poetry and performance workshops for Children And The Arts (Prince's Trust). He coaches boxing too.

The Observer’s Book of Ships 

Wet again in Devon. Plastic macs
drip shallows on the café floor.
Everyone’s fed up, but facts are facts:
there’s no return, till after four,

to Mrs Frigate’s guesthouse. Someone
tells him not to slurp his milkshake –
can’t be done. Dad and Uncle aren’t on
speaking terms. Mum and Auntie fake

a smile, beaming at the pepper pot,
the rain hats on their laps, his egg
and chips. He’d like to raise a laugh, but
that’s not easy with your leg red

from a recent slap. The damp and heat
steam from his betters’ flattened hair,
casting family as an aging fleet
decked out in Co-op leisure wear.

There’s treasure in his pocket, untouched
till another pot of tea heaves
to. He shifts and fidgets just enough
to sneak it out and thumb the leaves

below the tablecloth. Nobody knows
he’s spent his spends, the lot, on one
compendium of tonnage, tankers, bows
and port sides, plimsoll lines and trim.

Hold hard me hearty until hammock-ho!
– safe waters for a boy’s delight
in flags and funnels, brig and ballast. Stow
that cargo! Keep it covered. Sail at night.

© Keith Hutson

August at Kulturá

Spotlight on Andrew Smith

Each month at Kulturá we feature one of our Open Mic poets on the blog.
July's Spotlight fell on Andrew Smith.


















Andrew is resident of Queensbury on the Halifax/Bradford border. A diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome at the age of 41 has not stopped him from pursuing a love of writing poetry, monologues and short stories. He is a regular performer on the Calderdale poetry circuit and combines his love of writing with a love of fell running.

I Run

Because the sun shines high in a clear blue sky

Because leaves rustle in the cooling breeze
Awaken sleepy birds from their daydream

Because dew raising through the morning mist
Moistens my dry lips and I can breathe again

Because the cat meows making the dog bark
And the mouse runs under the skirting board

Because the children play in parks and fields
Unaware that I am even there or even exist

Because the gravestones stand to attention in formation
All proudly displaying names, dates and family history

Because the artist does not care as he paints with madness
The blue sky black and the stream running into the sky

Because cars stop and start, go left, go right
Backwards and forwards in a multicolour ribbon of metal

Because they are there, everywhere I go, every single day
Every single night, wherever I go they are there

Because girls stand on street corners smoking and drinking
While boys ride motorbikes down back alleys

Because four walls encase me leaving me lifeless,
Soulless, motionless, breathing in stale air drenched with sweat
Through walls thick with yesterday’s newspaper headlines

Because every hour of every day it is there and I am here
Listening intently as it calls me constantly, never ending
Like a wolf howling in the night for me to come and kiss it
And feel its breath enter my body and touch my soul.

© Andrew Smith

July at Kulturá

Spotlight On Eileen Earnshaw

Each month at Kulturá we feature one of our Open Mic poets on the blog.
June's Spotlight fell on Eileen Earnshaw.

Eileen Earnshaw photograph by Pyramid Arts

Eileen is a Rochdale writer and poet who facilitates the Weaving Words Creative Writing Group at Rochdale Central Library and appears frequently at poetry and spoken word events across Lancashire and Yorkshire.  She is a leading member of Rochdale Co-operative Members Group and spearheaded the Reading The Century series of poetry projects and events to mark the Gallipoli Centenary.

Saddleworth Moor

The devil rides over Saddleworth Moor.
Rocks melt with the pain of his passing,
turn brackish, mud sucks, claggs, clings to trouser legs.
Trees are stunted, moss and lichen blackened.
Heather, lifeless lies in putrid swathes,
an infected haematoma.
Oblivious, the curlew calls,
sheep huddle close, draw warmth from each other,
lifting their heads, crying.

The devil rides over Saddleworth Moor,
thunder roars, pounces, valley to ridge
to bruised black clouds that strike
with electric intensity, pissing their contents
on sodden ground. Moor grime slides,
schemes its way into hearts, minds.
Sinews stiffen, muscles slacken, resolution dies.
There are no dreams on Saddleworth,
just desires that crash, burn in unseen chasms.

Visions, a childish form lost beneath the earth,
a wind that screams its agony
against evil, the cruelty of men.
The devil rides over Saddleworth Moor.
He has left his mark, diminished us.

© Eileen Earnshaw November 2014.

Spotlight On Sheila Wild

Sheila Wild gave the Kulturá Poetry Lecture in June.



Sheila is a poet from Littleborough. Her work has been published in a range of magazines including The North, Orbis, and Obsessed with Pipework. She has won a number of awards, including the Manchester Cathedral International Religious Poetry Competition 2012, and, most recently, she was runner up in the 2014 British Haiku awards. Sheila’s first collection Equinox will be published by Cinnamon Press in 2016.

"the hind so silent
that when she startles,
you hear the cold sound of frost"

Spotlight On Michael Conley

Michael Conley was our feature poet in June.

Michael Conley is a teacher from Manchester. His work has been published in a variety of magazines, including Magma, Rialto, Interpreters House, Bare Fiction and New Welsh Review. He came third in he 2014 Bridport Flash Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the 2015 Melita Hume Prize.

Aquarium, published by Flarestack, is his first pamphlet.

Elizabeth Bishop Knew 

how love lurks behind everything
the way a vague ache might squat just behind the eyes
of a longshoreman who woke at four-thirty
and has spoken to nobody all day
the tips of his fingers glowing white
as he grips crate after crate
dreaming that the sea breeze
at the back of his neck is the breath of a sleeping lover;

that there is tenderness even
in the cold slap of fish guts
hitting the bottom of a bucket
in the cathode-ray light
of a Northeastern midwinter morning
a volley of herring-gulls flickering overhead.

Spotlight on Michael Crowley

Michael Crowley was our guest lecturer in May.

Taking as its staring point quotes from Elizabeth Fry and Simon Schama's 'Landscape and Memory', Michael Crowley's lecture focusses on the First Fleet in 1788. Michael's lecture merges historical fact with the voices of historical characters like Jane Fitzgerald, James Ruse and the aborigine Bennelong, to poeticise the experiences of people who are ill-served by dry historical enquiry, or who are barely mentioned in the literature of 18th Century Australia. Michael's humane and ambitious project is a collection of poems to give space to these voices, and his lecture argues forcibly and passionately their right to be heard.

 Michael's lecture is available at £2 for those who could not make the evening.

A performance of some of Michael's First Fleet poetry can be heard (46 minutes in) on the podcast below.

The Makeshift Broadcast # 3 by Makeshiftbroadcast on Mixcloud

Evan Jones

Evan Jones was our Guest Poet in May.

"Canadian poet Evan Jones has lived in Manchester since 2005. He is the author of Paralogues (Carcanet, 2012) and was co-editor of the anthology, Modern Canadian Poetry (Carcanet, 2010)."

Cavafy in Liverpool, by Evan Jones

Here is your sad young man:
he is ship-to-shore, he is buttoned-down
in tweed and scarved, eyes closed
when the Mersey wind
calls his collar to his ear
on the strand near Albert Dock,
some January, some winter day
we recognise but take no part in.
Here is your boy at the end of the shore
while the waters continue
touching place and nothing,
hold something dear and don't,
the desire and devotion
to an island he never dreams.
Not summoned, not answered,
he searches the world growing dim
as the river swells and recedes,
like closed eyelids shifting during sleep.
One less wave, he thinks, one less,
and then the Persians can get through.

(from Paralogues, Carcanet)

Spotlight on Steve Ely

 Steve Ely was our Guest Poet at Kulturá in April.

"Steve Ely is a poet from the West Riding of Yorkshire. His book of poems, Oswald's Book of Hours, is published by Smokestack and was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2013 and the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry in 2014. Englaland, his second book of poems, was published in April, 2015, also by Smokestack. His novel, Ratmen, is published by Blackheath Books. Ted Hughes's South Yorkshire: Made In Mexborough, a biographical work about Hughes's neglected Mexborough period, will be published by Palgrave MacMillan in July 2015."

Etcetera, by Steve Ely

Great Britain impoverished to post-war prosperity:
everyone working, but nobody earning and nothing
to buy. Capital needed Labour for its unsocial
dirty work, but the natives wouldn't shift or shovel shit.
Jamaica & subcontinent took up the White Man's Burdens.
Race-rioting Teds, half-devil and half-child; Mosley,
that infantile Satan, master of puppets. Elite psychology
of fascism: malleable masses dependably deployable in the service
of their masters, to know - and keep - their place. Send them back!
Roman foreboding largely unwarranted. It naturalised
to jargon - multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-faith
- and reality on the ground, common humanity working
its warmcockle nostrums. People simply got used to it,
to each other, cordially embracing, ignoring or hating.
A provisional peace of geniality and ghettos,
subject to periodic eruption. I was born to this.
The young know nothing else. This is England.

(from Englaland, Smokestack Books)

Spotlight on John Foggin

John Foggin   was our Guest Lecturer in April 2015.

"John lives in Ossett, West Yorkshire. He has been a teacher, lecturer and LEA Adviser for Drama and English. he has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Leeds, but learns much more from The Poetry Business and all the poets he has met there. His poems have appeared in 'The North', 'The New Writer', and 'The Interpreter's House', among others. He was First Prize winner in the Lumen/Camden Poetry Competition (2014) and of The Plough Prize (2013). His first collection of poems , a chapbook: 'Running out of Space' was published in April 2014, and his second, Larach was published by Wardwood in November 2014."

Bric a Brac, by John Foggin

My one grandmother made roses
out of paper, wrote nasty letters
with a fountain pen and violet Quink.
She had a tasseled, velour tablecloth
whose colours changed and flowed
like barley in a breeze: green and purple,
port-wine red like the teardrop flasks
in chemists shops. And the paperweight.
It filled both my hands. A cool glass lozenge.
Like holding water if water could be still.
I liked its smoothness, and the aquatint
of Blackpool Tower inside. The spidery
rollercoaster, delicate Big Wheel.
I can turn it in one hand.
The colour's faded - merest pinks, blue-greys.
Stopped somewhere between wars and out of reach
it grows remote and pale, The Pleasure Beach.

(from Backtracks)

May at K u l t u r á

This month's event takes place on Thursday, 28 May from 7:30pm.

Poetry Lecture by Michael Francis Crowley

Michael is a poet and playwright who has written for stage, page and radio and worked extensively in youth theatre. He was previously writer in residence at Lancaster Farms Young offenders Institution for six years and is the author of Behind the Lines: creative writing with offenders and those at risk published by Waterside Press. In 2012 Prole Books published Michael's Close to Home, a short collection of thirty poems exploring a displaced childhood and misplaced adults. He is currently writing his first full collection First Fleet in the imagined voices of the convict settlement of 1788 in New South Wales. He teaches creative writing at Sheffield Hallam University and lives in Heptonstall.

Feature Poet:

 Evan Jones

Canadian poet Evan Jones has lived in Manchester since 2005.  He is the author of Paralogues (Carcanet, 2012) and was co-editor of the anthology, Modern Canadian Poetry (Carcanet, 2010).

Angel Dempsey
will read one of her favourite poems and tell us why she chose it.


Followed by an Open Mic.

£2 entry.

Open Mic

Each month at K u l t u r á we hold an Open Mic session following the poetry lecture and feature poet(s).

Everyone is welcome to participate in a supportive atmosphere. Come and see for yourself why this night is so beloved and popular.

MAY

Spotlight on Rob Baylis

Spotlight on Eileen Earnshaw

Lectures

April

John Foggin

John Foggin author of the award-winning 'Larach', gave the inaugural Káva poetry lecture on a theme of 'Reinventing Poetry'. In a virtuoso lecture which included audience interaction, John's talk included a personal reflection on his time as an English teacher, a paeon to the importance of the oral tradition in poetry and a homage to the work of Andrew Marvell and Tony Harrison. A truly memorable experience. John's lecture is available for sale in pamphlet form for £2.  

28 May

Michael Francis Crowley

Taking as its staring point quotes from Elizabeth Fry and Simon Schama's 'Landscape and Memory', Michael Crowley's lecture focusses on the First Fleet in 1788. Michael's lecture merges historical fact with the voices of historical characters like Jane Fitzgerald, James Ruse and the aborigine Bennelong, to poeticise the experiences of people who are ill-served by dry historical enquiry, or who are barely mentioned in the literature of 18th Century Australia. Michael's humane and ambitious project is a collection of poems to give space to these voices, and his lecture argues forcibly and passionately their right to be heard. Michael's lecture is available at £2 for those who could not make the evening. 

25 June

Sheila Wild

A beautifully written lecture of clear vision and passionate intent. 'The Art of Unsaying' focusses on the white page that foregrounds and frames the poem, teaches us the value of the spare beauty of Japanese poetry, particularly haiku, the elements of Buddhist practice that informs the poet's raison d'etre. Sheila Wild, with many examples from Japanese and Norwegian and English poetry, argues successfully the case against prolixity in English verse and reminds us of the importance of attentiveness in our reader responses, and highlights poetry's exquisite ambigousness. 

30 July

Steve Ely

Steve Ely's ambitious lecture argues for the importance of an authentic idiom for contemporary English poetry that can both pay homage to, and revitalise the language from, the classic English Bibles of the past. The lecture highlights the poetic literary tropes - repetition, parallelism, economy - that make reading bibles such as the king James Version a high and essential literary experience that somehow connects to what Englishness means in terms of culture, history, language, peoples. Steve interweaves his personal journey as a poet into a narrative of high seriousness and parochial passion. A desert island discs selection of his current favourite passages from various bibles adorn this lecture pamphlet. There are a limited number of copies of his lecture available for ordering via this website. A must read from one of England's most interesting and intelligent poets.  

27 August

Sarah Corbett

Sarah Corbett"s lecture - The Wrong Fit - examined the role of both place and people on the development of her writing. As an incomer to the calder valley, Sarah talked of the powerful impact the landscape had on her imagination and the different ways in which Sylvia Plath's and Ted Hughes' poetry affected her own development as a poet. Sarah read from The Red Wardrobe and her verse novel And She Was to demonstrate how a search for home and identity can manifest itself in moving and powerful ways in poetry. The lecture ended on an optimistic note with both a paeon to the landscape in spring around her adopted home and a homage to the nature poems of John Clare. A beautiful lecture.

24 September

Peter Riley

"Peter Riley prefers to be referred to as “writer” rather than “poet”. Born in Stockport 1940, now living in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, following a long period in Cambridge.” Peter Riley is author of several poetry books. His latest Due North is shortlisted for this year's Forward Prize for Poetry. Peter is a poetry book reviewer and poetry editor for The Fortnightly Review."

29 October

Ian Duhig

"Ian Duhig was the eighth of eleven children born to Irish parents with a liking for poetry. He has won the National Poetry Competition twice, and also the Forward Prize for Best Poem; his collection, The Lammas Hireling, was the Poetry Book Society's Choice for Summer 2003, and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Forward Prize for Best Collection. Chosen as a New Generation Poet in 1994, he has received Arts Council and Cholmondeley Awards, and has held various Royal Literary Fund fellowships at universities including Lancaster, Durham, Newcastle and his own alma mater, Leeds. His poetry is open to a multiplicity of subjects, from Apollinaire to Yorkshire pudding, from string vests to sutras; he has a particular gift for ignoring barriers between subjects that could be thought to be distinct.” 

26 November

Clare Shaw

"In 2006, my first poetry collection was published with Bloodaxe. In the same year, I launched a user-led self-harm training organisation. I continue to work on a freelance basis as a mental health adviser, trainer and consultant. Poetry and mental health might seem like very separate careers. They aren’t. Where they meet is in my passion for language; a passion rooted in my own experiences of lacking the right words to describe who I was, what my life was like, and what I needed. As a young person growing up in difficult circumstances, I found a means of expression in self-injury and other difficult behaviours. Later in life, I discovered how I could make language work for me; as a means of expression and communication, a way of walking in other people’s shoes, learning about – and changing - myself and the world around me.”  

17 December

John Duffy

"John Duffy was born in Glasgow and lives in Huddersfield. He works for Kirklees Libraries as a bibliotherapist, promoting reading as a mental health tool. He was a founding member of the Albert Poets, who perform alone, together and with musicians; run monthly readings in the Albert, the most venerable Huddersfield town centre pub; and run weekly workshops in the Albert and occasionally in other venues. He has run writing workshops for a wide range of community groups, including mental health service users, people with learning impairment and people affected by dementia. He has been published in Scotland and England,in Wide Skirt, West Coast, Scratch, New Writing Scotland, The North, Northlight, Northwords, Stand, Pennine Platform, Cencrastus, Radical Scotland, Lines Review, Envoi, Fatchance, Braquemard, Out From Beneath The Boot, Smiths Knoll and Verse among others and has three collections: Troika 1 (with Paul Donnelly and William Park) - Scratch 1994 Perpetual Light - Spout 1998 The Constancy of Stone - Nepotism Press 2002 The Constancy of Stone was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Writer's Digest 12th International Self-Published Book Awards."

Guest Poets 2015

April

John Foggin

"John lives in Ossett, West Yorkshire. He has been a teacher, lecturer and LEA Adviser for Drama and English. he has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Leeds, but learns much more from The Poetry Business and all the poets he has met there. His poems have appeared in 'The North', 'The New Writer', and 'The Interpreter's House', among others. He was First Prize winner in the Lumen/Camden Poetry Competition (2014) and of The Plough Prize (2013). His first collection of poems , a chapbook: 'Running out of Space' was published in April 2014, and his second, Larach was published by Wardwood in November 2014."

 Steve Ely

"Steve Ely is a poet from the West Riding of Yorkshire. His book of poems, Oswald's Book of Hours, is published by Smokestack and was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2013 and the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry in 2014. Englaland, his second book of poems, was published in April, 2015, also by Smokestack. His novel, Ratmen, is published by Blackheath Books. Ted Hughes's South Yorkshire: Made In Mexborough, a biographical work about Hughes's neglected Mexborough period, will be published by Palgrave MacMillan in July 2015."

28 May

 Evan Jones

"Canadian poet Evan Jones has lived in Manchester since 2005. He is the author of Paralogues (Carcanet, 2012) and was co-editor of the anthology, Modern Canadian Poetry (Carcanet, 2010)."

Sheri Benning

"Sheri Benning's new and selected poems, The Season's Vagrant Light, is forthcoming with Carcanet in July, 2015. Sheri has published to books of poetry in Canada, Thin Moon Psalm (Brick Books 2007) and Earth After Rain (Thistledown Press). Sheri divides her time between Glasgow and her family's farm in Saskatchewan." 

25 June

Sheila Wild

"Sheila’s poems have been published in a number of journals, including The North, The Rialto, Orbis and MsLexia. She has a collection forthcoming with Cinnamon Press. Her work has been widely anthologised and she has won several awards, including first (2012) and second (2014) prizes in the Manchester Cathedral Poet of the Year competition, and runner up in the Wigtown Poetry Competition (2013). Most recently she is the runner up in the British Haiku Award 2014." 

 Michael Conley

"Michael Conley is a teacher from Manchester. He completed an MA in Creative Writing at MMU in 2013. Aquarium is his first published pamphlet."

 30 July

Ben Wilkinson

" Ben was born in Staffordshire and now lives in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. He holds an MA in Writing with distinction from Sheffield Hallam University, and has won numerous awards for his poetry, including the Poetry Business Competition and a 2014 Northern Writers' Award. His latest short collection of poems, For Real, is published by Smith|Doorstop. With support from Arts Council England, he is working towards a first full collection of poetry, for which he is seeking a publisher." 

 27 August

Kim Moore

"Kim Moore was born in 1981 and lives and works in Cumbria. Her first full length collection “The Art of Falling” was published by Seren in April 2015. She won a New Writing North Award in 2014, an Eric Gregory Award in 2011 and the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2012. In 2014 she was Poet in Residence for Ilkley Literature Festival and Digital Poet in Residence for The Poetry School. Her first pamphlet ‘ If We Could Speak Like Wolves’ was a winner in The Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition, judged by Carol Ann Duffy. ‘If We Could Speak Like Wolves’ was chosen as an Independent Book of the Year in 2012 and was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Pamphlet Award and the Lakeland Book of the Year Award. Her poems have been published in Poetry Review, Poetry London, Poem, The TLS, Ambit, The Rialto, The North, Magma, Staple, Stand, Iota, Mslexia, The New Writer, Obsessed With Pipework, Brittle Star, The Interpreter’s House, The Frogmore Papers, Orbis and Other Poetry. Her work has been anthologised in Salt’s ‘Best British Poetry 2012′ and Oxfam’s ‘Lung Jazz'. Her reviews and articles have been published in Poetry Review, Mslexia, Artemis, Agenda and Under the Radar." 

 24 September

Anne Caldwell

"I grew up in the north-west of England and have been a keen reader all my life. My poetry has been published in a range of anthologies - Poet’s Cheshire (Headland) and The Nerve (Virago) and three books by Cinnamon Press who have also published my first full length collection. My work has appeared in many British magazines including Writing Women, The North, Poetry Wales and Quattrocento. I finished an MA in writing poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2007; I perform all over the UK. My current poetry collection is called Talking With The Dead and is published by Cinnamon Press. I have been short-listed in the Huddersfield Literature Festival Poetry Competition and won a micro-story competition that explores the theme of shoes, set up by Museums and Libraries in West Yorkshire by Cartwright Hall. I won an award to attend the Wired Writing Programme at The Banff Centre in Canada in 2006 which involved staying in Banff for two weeks and then working alongside Canadian writers until April 2007."

29 October

Wendy Pratt

"Wendy was asked to co-judge Prole's first poetry competition, something which she enjoyed immensely. Her first poetry pamphlet, Nan Hardwicke Turns into a Hare was published by Prolebooks in late 2011 and is selling well. She was delighted to see it reviewed favourably in the Times Literary Supplement, Other Poetry and several other publications. Her second, full size collection, Museum Pieces, also published by Prolebooks launched in January 2014 and is also selling well. Her third collection, a pamphlet entitled Lapstrake will be published by Flarestack Poets in 2015."

 26 November

Lucy Burnett

"Leaf Graffiti, Lucy’s first collection of poetry, was published in 2013 by Carcanet Press / Northern House, while individual poems have been published in a wide range of magazines. In 2007 she was shortlisted for the Chroma International Poetry Prize. She is currently seeking a publisher for her latest creative project, Through the Weather Glass, an exploration of climate change via the myth of Icarus and the narrative of a cycle expedition from Salford to the Greek island of Ikaria. This hybrid ‘novel’ is written in a generically experimental form combining magic realist travel writing with poetry and the visual image." 

 17 December

Maria Isakova Bennett

"Maria Isakova Bennett is an artist, poet and teacher from Liverpool.  During 2014 she was highly commended in the Gregory O’ Donoghue Poetry Competition, shortlisted in the Munster Literature Chapbook Competition, and awarded first prize in the Ver Open Poetry Competition. Last month, Maria’s debut pamphlet was published by Poetry Bus Press in Ireland."