Bringing poetry to the community

Some of the biggest names in contemporary poetry are involved in a partnership to bring poetry to the heart of the community.

The University has teamed up with Middlesbrough’s Smokestack Books, an independent publisher of radical and unconventional poetry, to host the readings as part of a regular series of poetry readings and events.

The readings are free to attend and are open to the University community and members of the public.

The programme continues in April with a visit by Steve Ely, whose first collection, Oswald's Book of Hours, was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2013 and the Ted Hughes Award in 2014.

His new book, Englaland is a re-imagining of the song written by Egil Skallagrimsson after the tenth-century battle of Brunanburh. With a cast of Yorkshire miners, Danish huscarls, pit-village bird-nesters, flying pickets, aging prize-fighters, highwaymen, suicide-bombers and singing yellowhammers, Englaland is an unapologetic and paradoxical affirmation of a bloody, bloody-minded and bloody brilliant people.

Steve will be at the University on Tuesday 28 April, in the Athena Building, A2.01 from 6pm. Admission free.

Writer, poet, performer, photographer and artist Sheree Mack will visit the University in May.

Sheree’s new collection Laventille tells the forgotten story of the 1970 Black Power Revolution in Trinidad and Tobago, when an uprising of students, trade unions and the disaffected poor threatened to overthrow the government.

Born in Bradford to a Trinidadian father and a Geordie mother of Ghanaian and Bajan ancestry, Sheree is based in Tynemouth. Her work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Identity Parade, Red and Sweet Tongues. Her first full collection, Family Album, was published in 2011.

Sheree will be at the University’s Athena Building, A2.01 at 6pm on Tuesday 19 May. Admission is free.

For further information on attending these free readings, email arts@tees.ac.uk.

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