This event series is part poetry reading, part open mic and the guest poet and open mic theme change each month.
Our 2021 contemporary poetry reading series, Go to the poets, they will speak to thee, is curated and hosted by poet Kim Moore. We will be listening to what poets have to say about our turbulent times, and how poetry can cross borders to challenge, delight and inspire us.
In one of the best-loved passages from The Prelude, Wordsworth recounts an experience of ice-skating as a boy, writing “I wheel’d about, / Proud and exulting, like an untired horse / That cares not for his home.”
A couple of hundred years later and contemporary poets are still turning to animals and nature to make sense of the world and to provide consolation. This month our guest poet is Wendy Pratt, whose latest book, When I Think of My Body as a Horse was a winner in the 2020 Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition. This book is a powerful and moving examination of motherhood and body identity within the context of baby loss. It is also a book about love and survival and how the natural world can help console us against grief and trauma.
Please bring a poem for the open mic this month on the theme of the natural world, whether this is landscape, animals, birds or anything in between.
