The Northern Poetry Symposium Programme

The Northern Poetry Symposium Sage Gateshead

9TH MAY 2017

Programme | 9th May | Sage Gateshead 9.45 - 10am Welcome from NCLA, Inpress & PBS in The Barbour Room on Level 2.

10.00 - 10.35 | Is Poetry Relevant?

Michael Schmidt chairs a panel discussion on the relevance of poetry in these uncertain times, from the impact of Brexit on translation to how to find the next big poet for our age.

Michael Schmidt is the Publisher at Carcanet Press and the General Editor of PN Review. His own books include Lives of the Poets, The First Poets and The Novel: a Biography, as well as a Collected Poems. He received an OBE for services to poetry and higher education in 2006.

Erica Jarnes is the managing director of the Poetry Translation Centre, a charity which translates, tours and promotes contemporary poets from around the world.

She has previously worked at English PEN, the Southbank Centre and Bloomsbury Publishing, among others. She curates occasional Shared Readings with the National Poetry Library, and serves on the editorial board of the translation journal In Other Words. She is also a composer who works frequently with poems and poets in translation.

Donald Futers joined Penguin in 2012 and was appointed full-time Penguin Poetry Editor in 2015 to revive the Penguin Poetry list. Futers’ first acquisition was Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric which went on to win the Forward Prize.

Mark Byers is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Archives and Poetry at Newcastle University. He received a DPhil in English from the University of Oxford. His first book, The Practice of the Self: Charles Olson and American Modernism, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

10.40 - 11.20 | In Person: World Poets Film Screening Bloodaxe’s Neil Astley launches the long-awaited sequel to In Person: 30 Poets with an exclusive film screening preview of this global poetry extravaganza.

Neil Astley is editor of Bloodaxe Books, which he founded in 1978. His books include novels, poetry collections and anthologies, most notably the Bloodaxe Staying Alive trilogy. He has published two novels, The End of My Tether (Flambard, 2002; Scribner, 2003), which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, and The Sheep Who Changed the World (Flambard, 2005). In 2012 Candlestick Press published his selection of Ten Poems About Sheep in its renowned pamphlet series. He received an Eric Gregory Award for his poetry and was given a D.Litt from Newcastle University for his work with Bloodaxe Books. He lives in Northumberland.

11.20 - 11.30 | Tea and Coffee Break | Sage 2 Foyer Bar | Level 1 11.30 - 12.10 | Poetry in the Digital Age Harry Man, creator of the Finders Keepers app, explores the exciting world of digital innovation with leading poetry app and digital archivist experts.

Harry Man is a poet from South London and living in Teesside. Lift, his first

pamphlet, won the 2014 Bridges of Struga Award. Harry was a 2016 Clarissa Luard Wordsworth Trust Poet in Residence and a 2016 Hawthornden Fellow. He is 2016 TOAST Poet. His most recent pamphlet Finders Keepers is about endangered species across the British Isles, and is created in collaboration with the artist Sophie Gainsley.

Pete Hebden is a freelance writer and digital editor with experience in publishing and web development. He studied English Literature and Creative Writing at Newcastle University and now works with arts organisations on various creative digital projects.

Pete is currently working for Newcastle University to create a poetry app in partnership with Bloodaxe Books, as well as the Steps in Time app for the 2017 Newcastle Poetry Festival.

Ian Johnson has a remit for the management of Newcastle University’s unique and distinctive research collections. His brief extends to the growth, discovery, and engagement with Special Collections in close consultation with diverse communities of researchers, particularly and increasingly in digital environments. Since 2013, a close relationship with the School of English and Newcastle Centre for Literary Arts was sparked through the acquisition of the Bloodaxe Books Archive and the resulting Poetics of the Archive project. This has since led to research and creative responses into poetry archives becoming a leading driver for co-curation and digital innovation.

Henry Volans has held many roles at Faber including as the founder of Faber Digital, the pioneering digital imprint which published The Waste Land for iPad among many other award-winning apps, ebooks and websites. He is now Digital and New Business Director, with responsibility for the Faber Academy and Faber Members, and the development of new platforms for higher education including Drama Online. He is currently working with the T.S. Eliot Foundation on their new website, tseliot.com.

12.15 - 12.55 | Print Revival Is the ebook dead? Michael Schmidt discusses the current trend for beautiful printed poetry books and the thriving pamphlet and micro press scene with leading independent publishers and a book artist.

Yvette Hawkins is a visual artist of British-South Korean origin working across installation and sculpture. Her work explores themes of hybridity, tradition, migration, bookbinding, embroidery and printmaking. Yvette studied Textiles at Glasgow School of Art and Fine Art at Newcastle University in 2007. Yvette’s work has featured in collections worldwide and was included in Book Art: Iconic Sculptures and Installations Made From Books (2011). Yvette is currently director of dot to dot active arts and is lead artist on Book Apothecary: The Travelling Museum of Artist Books.

Luke Allan studied Literature & Creative Writing at UEA. He worked as a project manager in the Arts in Newcastle and Edinburgh, and managed Studio Alec Finlay and the poetry press Morning Star. He is founding-director of the poetry press sine wave peak and co-founder of the poetry magazine Butcher’s Dog; he also edits the journal Quait and is former editor of the Newcastle Philosophy Society journal. In 2011 his poetry received a Northern Promise Award. His first collection, minimum soft exchange, was published by MIEL in 2015. He is currently Managing Editor at Carcanet Press.

Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir is an Iceland-born poet, publisher, editor, and literary curator. She is the founder and editorial director of Partus, an independent poetry press based between Reykjavík and Manchester.

Di Slaney is a publisher and poet. Having co-owned independent poetry publisher Candlestick Press from 2010, she has been at the helm since 2016. Candlestick’s ‘instead of a card’ pamphlets have established a unique presence in gift and bookshops alike.

In 2016 Di’s own poetry collection Reward for Winter was published by Valley Press to great acclaim, including being highly commended in the annual Forward Poetry Prizes.

1.00 - 2.00 | Break 2.00 - 2.30 | Evolution of the Editor Bloodaxe’s Editor Neil Astley explores the changing role of the poetry editor across major poetry imprints, award-winning emerging indies and poetry magazines.

Don Paterson is the Poetry Editor at Picador and Creative Writing Fellow at the University of Dundee. His work has received the Forward and Whitbread Poetry Prizes, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award, and the T. S. Eliot Prize, twice. Don is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the English Association; he was awarded an OBE in 2008, and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2010.

Emma Wright worked in ebook production at Orion Publishing Group before leaving to found the Emma Press in 2012 with the support of the Prince’s Trust Explore Enterprise programme. She has since published 38 poetry books, including themed poetry anthologies and single-author pamphlets. In 2015 she was awarded a grant from Arts Council England to run a poetry tour for children, and in 2016 the Emma Press won the Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlet Publishers.

Degna Stone is co-founder and Managing Editor of Butcher’s Dog poetry magazine, and a contributing editor at The Rialto. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University, is a fellow of The Complete Works III and recipient of a Northern Writers Award.

2.35 - 3.05 | Poetry in the Media The Poetry School’s Creative Director Julia Bird considers how to widen poetry readership through traditional and new media, with an award-winning poetry reviewer, radio editor and Vlogger.

Julia Bird grew up in Gloucestershire and now lives in London where she works for the Poetry School and as an independent live literature producer. She has published two collections with Salt Publishing: Hannah and the Monk (2008) and Twenty-four Seven Blossom (2013) and an illustrated pamphlet - Now You Can Look - is due out from the Emma Press in 2017.

Sean O’Brien is a poet, critic, novelist and short-fiction writer, Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His poetry collection, The Drowned Book (2007), won the Forward and T. S. Eliot Prizes.

Amongst his most recent publications are his eighth poetry collection, The Beautiful Librarians (2015), which won the Roehampton Poetry Prize, and his second novel, Once Again Assembled Here (2016).

Susan Roberts is Editor of BBC Radio Drama North and The Verb and an award– winning radio, film and theatre director (Sony Gold, Silver, Amnesty International). She has made over 200 radio dramas, worked on all BBC Radio 3 and 4 poetry programmes and is the artistic director of Contains Strong Language, a new poetry festival to be launched in Hull in September. She has edited several anthologies of poetry and is Chair of Z-Arts in Manchester.

Jen Campbell is an award-winning poet and short story writer. Her debut short story collection The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night is forthcoming from Two Roads, and her first children’s book Franklin’s Flying Bookshop is forthcoming from Thames & Hudson. She is the Sunday Times bestselling author of the Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops series and The Bookshop Book. Jen has a poetry pamphlet out with The Rialto, and she won an Eric Gregory Award in 2016. She makes videos talking about books at www.youtube.com/jenvcampbell with a following of over 30,000.

3.10 - 3.40 | Poetry Off the Page Poet in the City’s Chief Executive Isobel Colchester discovers diverse ways of bringing poetry to life off the page through Spoken Word events, festivals and interdisciplinary partnerships.

Isobel Colchester is Chief Executive of Poet in the City, a leading poetry producer curating imaginative events, commissions and participation work which bring classic and contemporary poetry to life for a twenty-first century audience. Poet in the City is an expert in creating new audiences for poetry and establishes live poetry as a major performing art form through ambitious artistic work, supporting the next generation of creative producers and involving audiences in its productions. Isobel is responsible for overall management of the charity and curation of its programme, leading its vision to bring live poetry to everyone.

Anna Selby is a poet and programmer specialising in international poetry. For 10 years she has worked as a writer and collaborator in Dance Theatre. Her poetry-dance pieces have been shortlisted for The Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award, featured on the BBC Culture Show and toured nationally. She did a Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia, was listed as one of five poets to watch by The Huffington Post, and as a top ten cultural innovator by Time Out. In 2012, she organised the Poetry Parnassus festival and co-edited The World Record anthology (Bloodaxe). She worked as Literature and Spoken Word Programmer at the Southbank Centre until 2017.

Anthony Anaxagorou is an award-winning poet, fiction writer, essayist, publisher and poetry educator. He has judged several literary prizes, including the 2016 BBC Young Writers Award. He guest lectures on the subject of poetry, race/identity politics and social inclusion. In 2015 his poetry and fiction writing won the Groucho Maverick Award and in 2016 he was shortlisted for the Hospital Club’s H-100 most influential people. In 2012 he founded Out-Spoken, London’s premier poetry and live music night, and, in 2013, Out-Spoken Press, an independent publisher of poetry and plays.

Eleanor Livingstone is a Scottish poet, reviewer and editor. She is the Director of StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival which takes place annually in St Andrews. Her collection, Even the Sea (Red Squirrel Press) was shortlisted for the 2010 inaugural London New Poetry award for first collections. Other publications include The Last King of Fife, A Sampler, and as editor, Skein of Geese (The Shed Press, 2008), Migraasje: Versions in Scots and Shetlandic (Stravaigers, 2008) and Bridging the Continental Divide (StAnza, 2015). Photo credit Olivia Vitazkova.

3.40 - 4.00 | Tea and Coffee Break | Sage 2 Foyer Bar | Level 1 4.00 - 4.30 | National Poetry Day Sneak Preview National Poetry Day Director Susannah Herbert reveals their plans for the big day and beyond.

Susannah Herbert joined the Forward Arts Foundation in 2012, after helping launch The Evening Standard’s Get London Reading campaign. She is the former editor of The Sunday Times books pages and was a national newspaper journalist for 20 years.

4.30 - 5.30 | Breakout Sessions Bloodaxe’s Simon Thirsk chairs our state of the nation summit to find new ways to widen audiences for poetry. Whether you’re an industry professional, a student or a poetry reader, every opinion counts!

Simon Thirsk is a founder director and chair of Bloodaxe Books Ltd. He has worked as a journalist, lectured in journalism and marketing, been coordinator of a Northern children’s medical charity, and organized Durham Literature Festival. His novel Not Quite White (shortlisted for the 2010 Costa First Novel Award) satirized anti-Welsh racism and language prejudice, and his BBC2 play Small Zones (1990), highlighted the imprisonment of dissident Russian poet, Irina Ratushinskaya. He has worked full-time for Bloodaxe for the last 20 years.

5.45 | Steps in Time App Launch | L3 Bar Sage One Join us in the bar to launch the Steps in Time App with John Challis and Pete Hebden. This exciting new poem-walk app explores Newcastle through the region’s most talented emerging poets.

John Challis is a Research Associate at Newcastle University, and works for Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts (NCLA). A recipient of a Northern Writers’ Award and a Pushcart Prize, he holds a PhD in Creative Writing and his poems have appeared on BBC Radio 4, and widely in journals and magazines including Magma, Poetry London, Poetry Salzburg Review and The Rialto

6.00 | Drinks Reception & PBS Summer Bulletin Launch| L3 Bar The symposium concludes with a celebratory showcase reading to launch the PBS Summer Bulletin and our spectacular Summer Choice Sinéad Morrissey, introduced by PBS Selector Vona Groarke.

Vona Groarke has published seven collections of poetry with Gallery Press, the latest being Selected Poems (2016). Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Threepenny Review, The Guardian, Poetry and Poetry Review. She is a Poetry Book Society Selector and teaches in the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester.

Sinéad Morrissey was born in 1972 and grew up in Belfast. Her awards include the Patrick Kavanagh Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, First Prize in the UK National Poetry Competition, the Irish Times Poetry Prize (2009, 2013) and the T. S. Eliot Prize (2013). Parallax and Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York) was shortlisted for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award in 2015 and in 2016 she received the E. M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

She was Belfast’s inaugural Poet Laureate and is now Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

Poetry Book Society Membership Set up by T. S. Eliot in 1953 ‘to propagate the art of poetry’, the Poetry Book Society is a unique poetry book club which delivers the best contemporary poetry to an international community of readers. Each quarter our expert PBS Selectors choose the best new poetry book (PBS Choice) which is delivered to all full members, alongside the PBS Bulletin, a quarterly poetry magazine. Members also receive 25% off all online book orders.

We offer a wide range of membership options. Please circle your chosen type: Full Choice Book and Bulletin every quarter Price: UK £55 | Europe £65 | Overseas £75 Charter Choice, Bulletin and 4 Recommendation books every quarter Price: UK £170 | Europe £185 | Overseas £215 Associate Bulletin only every quarter Price: UK £18 | Europe £20 | Overseas £23 Education Choice, Bulletin and teaching materials every quarter Price: UK £58 | Europe £68 | Overseas £78 Charter Education Choice, Bulletin, 4 Recommendations and teaching notes every quarter Price: UK £180 | Europe £195 | Overseas £225 All new Full, Education and Charter members receive a welcome pack including a free copy of the Bulletin, a £10 book voucher and a free copy of the latest PBS Choice. New Associate members receive a free copy of the Bulletin and a £10 book voucher for use on our website.

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Northern Poetry Symposium

Luke Allan | sine wave peak Anthony Anaxagorou | Out-Spoken Neil Astley | Bloodaxe Julia Bird | The Poetry School Mark Byers | Newcastle University Jen Campbell | Vlogger John Challis | NCLA Isobel Colchester | Poet in the City Donald Futers | Penguin Yvette Hawkins | Book Artist Pete Hebden | Bloodaxe App Susannah Herbert | National Poetry Day Vona Groarke | PBS Selector Erica Jarnes | Poetry Translation Centre Ian Johnson | Newcastle University Library Eleanor Livingstone | StAnza Poetry Festival Harry Man | Finders Keepers Sinéad Morrissey | Newcastle University Sean O’Brien | Newcastle University Don Paterson | Picador Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir| Partus Press Susan Roberts | BBC Radio Anna Selby | Poetry Parnassus Di Slaney | Candlestick Press Simon Thirsk | Bloodaxe Michael Schmidt | Carcanet | PN Review Degna Stone | Butcher’s Dog Henry Volans | Faber Emma Wright | The Emma Press

www.poetrybooks.co.uk & www.inpressbooks.co.uk