Friday 11th October at the Gala Theatre from 6-7pm. Tickets cost £12/£10 (Live-stream £5)
Celebrate one of the nation’s best-loved poets, Jackie Kay, with her new poetry collection, May Day: a chorus of protest songs tracing her childhood in Glasgow, the women’s rights and gay liberation campaigns of the 1980s to the Black Lives Matter movement of the present day. In this special event produced in partnership with the Poetry Book Society, emerging poet Romalyn Ante will read from her PBS recommended collection AGIMAT. Chaired by poet and PBS Selector, Jo Clement.
Thursday 21st November at the Culture Lab Newcastle University, 7pm.
Encompassing mythology, care and crisis, Romalyn Ante’s second collection asks: how do we keep safe what we hold most dear? AGIMAT follows the poet at the dawn of the pandemic– a practicing nurse in the NHS – thrown onto the frontlines of the war against COVID-19. These are powerful poems of strength, solace and healing. PBS Selector Roy McFarlane will read from his third collection Living By Troubled Waters an extraordinary, uncompromising book exploring slavery, colonialism, and the continued tragedies visited upon Black bodies whilst these legacies remain unresolved. Chaired by Tara Bergin.
The Poetry Book Society will have a bookstall and membership stand at Free Verse: The Poetry Book and Magazine Fair which will take place on Saturday 20th April 2024, at St Columba’s Church, Pont Street, London, SW1X 0BD. The Fair will be open to the public from 11:30 to 18:30 with lots of different publishers involved.
INTERNATIONAL POETRY SYMPOSIUM
9-10th May, Northern Stage Theatre
We're delighted to partner with Newcastle University once again to curate a lively symposium to open Newcastle Poetry Festival. This year we're going global with a series of inspiring International Poetry Symposium sessions blending panel discussions and performances with leading poets from Newcastle, Switzerland, the US, Canada, Ukraine, Lebanon, Iran and Bhutan. Join us to hear world-class poets offer unique insights into their craft and discuss vital issues around In/Out: Place poetry, inclusivity and belonging. Come find your PLACE in poetry!
The Poetry Book Society invites you to consider the future of poetry with leading poet and producer Yomi Ṣode, Director of Poet in the City Julia Bird, and the Co-Director of the Forward Prizes for Poetry, Mónica Parle. How can we make poetry more accessible and increase readership? Join us to discuss next steps for the poetry community from gatekeeping, inclusivity and prize culture to the future of poetry publishing at the UK's biggest trade book fair.
PBS SPRING SHOWCASE
6th March 2024
Join us on Wednesday 6th March 2024 at 7pm at the Percy Building, Newcastle University for our Spring Showcase with NCLA. We'll be joined by the PBS poets Isabel Galleymore and Victoria Kennefick (all the way from Ireland) who will be reading from their PBS Spring Selection collections Baby Schema and Egg/Shell and in conversation with Tara Bergin. This event is free but ticketed, so book here.
PAST EVENTS
AUTUMN WINTER SHOWCASE 2023
National Poetry Day | Thursday 5th October 2023 | NCLA | FREE
The Poetry Book Society presents its Autumn and Winter Showcase with Jacqueline Saphra and Kostya Tsolakis reading and in conversation with Tara Bergin. Introduced by PBS Manager Alice Mullen.
Tickets for this FREE event will be available to book soon.
Jacqueline Saphra is a T.S. Eliot Prize nominated, award-winning poet, a playwright, editor, agitator, teacher and organiser. She is the author of ten stage plays, four chapbooks and five collections.
Kostya Tsolakis is a London-based poet and journalist, born and raised in Athens, Greece. His first full collection of poetry, Greekling (Nine Arches Press, 2023) is a PBS Winter Recommendation. His debut poetry pamphlet, Ephebos, was published by ignitionpress in 2020.
Tara Bergin is a Senior Lecturer in Writing Poetry at Newcastle University.
NORTHERN POETRY SYMPOSIUM 2023
11th May 2023 | Northern Stage Newcastle
Join the Poetry Book Society and Newcastle University to celebrate COMMUNITY on the 11th May at the Northern Poetry Symposium featuring over 20 poets and speakers in one action packed day. We’re uniting all strands of the poetry community from readers to writers, students to publishers in a day of inspiring poet-led panel discussions and performances. It’s a unique opportunity to hear world-class poets discuss their craft and tackle key issues, so come and join our global poetry community.
DURHAM BOOK FESTIVAL 2023
Sunday 15th October | Durham Book Festival | Gala Studio | £8/£7/£5 (live-stream)
The Poetry Book Society is proud to present readings from three exceptional poets.
Mary Jean Chan is the author of Flèche (Faber, 2019), which won the Costa Book Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for numerous awards including the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Poetry Prize. They are currently a judge for the 2023 Booker Prize.
Kit Fan‘s third poetry collection is the Forward Prize-shortlisted The Ink Cloud Reader. His second collection As Slow As Possible was a PBS Recommendation, and his first collection Paper Scissors Stone won the Hong Kong University International Poetry Prize. His debut novel is Diamond Hill.
Jen Campbell is an award-winning poet and bestselling author from the North East. She has won the Jane Martin Poetry Prize, an Eric Gregory Award, and the Spelt Poetry Competition 2022 for her poem ‘The Hospital Is Not My House’ from Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit. Jen’s event contribution will be via video.
Introduced by Alice Mullen, Poetry Book Society
Newcastle Poetry Festival
11th-13th MAY 2023 | Outside of Northern Stage, Newcastle
The Poetry Book Society are delighted to be the official Newcastle Poetry Festival bookshop once again on the green outside Northern Stage at Newcastle University. Drop by the festival book tent for daily author signings and a chance to explore our extensive range of poetry books and pamphlets from a wide range of publishers with 25% off for PBS Members.
NCLA PBS SHOWCASE
**POSTPONED DUE TO STRIKE ACTION. NEW DATE TBC**
We're partnering with the wonderful NCLA at Newcastle University to present an in-person showcase with two of our amazing Selections: Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa and Jason Allen Paisant.
SANDEEP PARMAR AT KOLKATA POETRY FESTIVAL
Watch our Autumn Choice Sandeep Parmar discuss her new collection Faust and diasporic writing with Preti Taneja as part of the Kolkata International Poetry Festival here.
Don Paterson, Zaffar Kunial and Degna Stone
16th October 2022, Time 3.30pm, Durham Book Festival, Gala Theatre - £8/7
We are delighted to present this event with Durham Book Festival, featuring Don Paterson, Zaffar Kunial, and Degna Stone.
Don Paterson was born in 1963 in Dundee, Scotland. He is Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews, and since 1996 has been poetry editor at Picador MacMillan. He is the author of seven books of poetry, and also works as a guitarist and composer. His Latest collection, The Arctic, is a PBS Autumn 2022 Recommendation.
Zaffar Kunial was born in Birmingham and lives in Hebden Bridge. He published a pamphlet in the Faber New Poets series in 2014 and spent that year as the Wordsworth Trust Poet-in-Residence. Since his first public reading, of ‘Hill Speak’ at the 2011 National Poetry Competition awards, he has spoken at various literature festivals and in programmes for BBC radio, and won the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize for his poem, 'The Word'. His forthcoming collection, England's Green, is a PBS Autumn 2022 Recommendation.
Originally from the Midlands, Degna Stone is a poet and poetry editor based in north east England. They are co-founder and former Managing Editor of Butcher’s Dog poetry magazine, a Contributing Editor at The Rialto, and an associate artist with The Poetry Exchange.
Don Paterson & Alycia Pirmohamed
6th October 2022, 7pm, NCLA, Newcastle University Culture Lab - Free
We are delighted to present this event with the NCLA, featuring PBS Autumn 2022 Recommendation poets Don Paterson and Alycia Pirmohamed.
Don Paterson was born in 1963 in Dundee, Scotland. He is Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews, and since 1996 has been poetry editor at Picador MacMillan. He is the author of seven books of poetry, and also works as a guitarist and composer. His latest collection, The Arctic, is a PBS Autumn 2022 Reccomendation.
Alycia Pirmohamed is a Canadian-born poet based in the UK. Currently, she is the Junior Anniversary Fellow at IASH (Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities), University of Edinburgh. Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Liverpool, where she co-organised the Ledbury Poetry Critics programme. Alycia received an MFA from the University of Oregon and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. In 2020, Alycia was the winner of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Her forthcoming collection, Another Way To Split Water, is a PBS Autumn 2022 Recommendation.
15th- 17th JULY | SKYLINES FESTIVAL
Friday 15th - 17th July 2023, Belgrade Theatre, Coventry
We're delighted to be the official bookshop at Skylines Festival in Coventry this Summer, devised by Nine Arches Press and Writing West Midlands, with support from Arts Council England and the Belgrade Theatre. Highlights include a PBS Showcase with Hannah Lowe and Raymond Antrobus, plus performances from Moniza Alvi, Casey Bailey, Natalie Linh Bolderston, Alison Brackenbury, Rishi Dastidar, Rosie Garland, Roz Goddard, Hannah Lowe and John McCullough.
26TH MAY | Jane Burn & Jake Morris Campbell
Thursday 26th May 2023, 7pm, Bottleworks Bookshop, Byker
Join us to launch two local poets' new collections in our pop-up bookshop in the Bottleworks Byker, Newcastle. Jake Morris-Campbell is from South Shields. Corrigenda for Costafine Townis his debut collection. He was selected as a BBC New Generation Thinker and regularly appears on Radio 3 programmes. Jane Burn is a poet and illustrator based in the North East of England. Her poems have been published in numerous anthologies including Writing Motherhood (Seren),#MeToo (Fairacre Press) and The Anthology of Illness (The Emma Press and nominated for the Forward and Pushcart Prizes.
18TH- 31st MAY | BOTTLEWORKS BOOKSHOP
Join the Bottleworks Bookshop Launch Party at 7pm 18th May. Featuring readings by Linda France and Paul Summers at 8 Riverside Walk, Byker, NE6 1LX.
28th APRIL 2022 | WARSAN SHIRE & EMILY BERRY
7pm | NCLA Youtube | Free
Join us at the NCLA & PBS Spring Showcase, when we will hear from the Spring Choice poet Emily Berry and Spring Recommended poet Warsan Shire reading from their latest collections and in discussion with NCLA Research Associate Theresa Munoz and PBS Manager, Alice Mullen.
EMERGENCY POETRY SUMMIT 2022
Northern Stage | 10-5pm | £15 in person | £10 conc. | £5 online
After a two-year hiatus, the Newcastle Poetry Festival is back! Join the Poetry Book Society and NCLA on the 5th May for an Emergency Poetry Summit at Northern Stage. We’re reuniting the poetry community to review poetry's new normal, celebrate resilience and make the case for hope. Join us for an inspiring day of readings and reflections on covid to climate change, from 20 leading poets Imtiaz Dharker, Yomi Sode, Khairani Barokka, Romalyn Ante, Hannah Hodgson, Harry Josephine Giles, Jake Morris-Campbell, Don Jenkins, Rowan McCabe, Linda France, Jason Allen Paisant, Polly Atkin, Sylvia Legris, Rishi Dastidar, Jo Clement and Naush Sabah. In this age of emergency, we look to the poets to light the way!
5TH-7TH APRIL 2022 | LONDON BOOK FAIR
We're delighted to be curating Poets Corner with Inpress at London Book Fair again. Join us for an action packed programme of events from the 5th-7th April at Olympia showcasing poets from Prototype, Burning Eye, Mica Press, Arc, Arachne Press, Smokestack, Outspoken Press, Holland Park Press, Flipped Eye, Irish Pages, Knives Forks Spoons, Grey Hen Press and many more.
13th APRIL 2022 | LUCY MERCER & SYLVIA LEGRIS
13th April | 7pm | Granta Zoom
Join Granta and the Poetry Book Society for a zoom launch event with PBS summer selectees Sylvia Legris and Lucy Mercer. This unique one-off in-conversation event will launch our Summer ChoiceEmblem by Lucy Mercer and recommendation Sylvia Legris'Garden Physic.Join usto hear both poets reading from their collections and talking all things poetry and nature.
13TH MARCH 2022 | STANZA SHOWCASE
11.30am | The Cosmos Centre | St Andrews KY16 9LB | Tickets £3
Join us at Stanza Poetry Festival in St Andrews for the Poetry Book Society’s Spring Showcase to celebrate three astonishing new collections by Emily Berry, Fiona Benson and Will Alexander. The critically acclaimed LA-based poet Will Alexander will appear via Zoom to launch his first UK publication, Refractive Africa (Granta), a vital and searing work of diasporic witness. The Forward Prize winner Fiona Benson joins us live, reading fromEphemeron,her brave and blistering re-telling of the Greek myth of the Minotaur, and Emily Berry will tune in on Zoom from London to lead us into the half-lit world of dream and dawn in her PBS Spring Choice, Unexhausted Time (Faber). This promises to be an exhilarating tour of the Poetry Book Society Spring Selections from a stellar trio.
PAST EVENTS ARCHIVE
INSTA BOOK CLUB: LUCY MERCER & DENISE SAUL
23rd March | 7pm GMT | @poetrybooksociety | Free
Join us to delve into the forthcoming Summer Selections with PBS Book Selector Anthony Anaxagorou.
INSTA LIVE BOOK CLUB: FIONA BENSON & WILL ALEXANDER
22nd FEB 2022 | 7pm | @PoetryBookSociety Instagram | Free
We can't wait for the next PBS Insta Live Bookclub on the 22nd Feb at 7pm with Will Alexander and Fiona Benson, hosted by Anthony Anaxagorou on @poetrybooksociety instagram. Order their books with 25% off for members to join the book chat and live Q & A.
26th JANUARY | 7pm | FREE
Instagram Live @poetrybooksociety
Join us for the first PBS Insta Live Book Club of 2022 on Wednesday 26th January at 7pm. PBS Book Selector Anthony Anaxagorou will be chatting with Emily Berry about her much anticipated collection Unexhausted Time, our Spring Choice, and Jessica Traynor about Pit Lullabies, our Spring recommendation. We’re really looking forward to hearing them read some poetry and share their inspirations in a live Q & A.
DECEMBER INSTA BOOK CLUB
Wednesday 15th December 2021 | 7pm on Instagram
Polly Atkin and Lila Matsumoto will discuss their PBS Recommended collections with PBS Selector Anthony Anaxagorou. Join us for free on instagram @poetrybooksociety.
PBS WINTER SHOWCASE WITH NCLA
Thursday 25th November 2021 | 7pm on Youtube
Join us online for readings by our PBS Recommendation Raymond Antrobus (all the way from the US) and Autumn Choice Hannah Lowe, hosted by our friends at Newcastle University. Both poets will read from their latest collections The Kids and All The Names Given, alongside discussions with the poet John Challis. Book your free place here.
NOVEMBER INSTA BOOK CLUB
Wednesday 24th November 2021 | 7pm on Instagram
Ian Duhig and Stephanie Sy-Quia will discuss their PBS recommended collections with Anthony Anaxagorou. Simply tune in for free on instagram @poetrybooksociety.
PBS AUTUMN SHOWCASE AT DURHAM BOOK FESTIVAL
9th October 2021 | 3pm-4pm | Durham Book Festival Online
Tickets: £5 or £20 as part of Digital Pass
The Poetry Book Society presents a virtual showcases of three transnational stars: Kazim Ali, Hannah Lowe and Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe at Durham Book Festival. Each poet has the courage to dig deep into themes of being and belonging from very different world views. Join us for an exhilarating afternoon of new voices for our times. Book here.
SEPTEMBER INSTA BOOK CLUB: JACK UNDERWOOD & HANNAH LOWE
The next PBS Insta Live Book Club is at 7pm on 28th September over on Instagram @poetrybooksociety for free readings and discussions with our PBS Choice Hannah Lowe and Jack Underwood, hosted by Anthony Anaxagorou - we can't wait! Don't forget to order The Kids and A Year in the New Life with 25% off for PBS Members so you can join in the book group discussions.
PBS BOOKSHOP AT CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE FESTIVAL
24th-26th September | Belgrade Theatre | Coventry We're delighted to be the official bookshop partner at the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival which runs from the 23rd-26th September in Coventry. Drop by the Belgrade Theatre from Friday 24th to Sunday 26th to peruse our extensive poetry bookstall at the festival. Find out more about the festival programme here.
PBS SUMMER SHOWCASE AT LEDBURY FESTIVAL
We can't wait for our PBS Event at Ledbury Poetry Festival on the 4th July featuring John Challis, Seán Hewitt & Andrew McMillan! Copies of their new books The Resurrectionists, Tongues of Fire and Pandemonium are all available to order with 25% off for members via the links. Book your event tickets here.
INSTA BOOK CLUB
Keep a look out on our social media for the latest insta book club news - free and live on instagram!
Join us 1st June 7pm (BST) for PBS Insta Book Club with Kazim Ali and Rebecca Perry, hosted by Anthony Anaxagorou.
Don't miss our next Insta Book Club live on Wednesday 24th March at 7pm over on our instagram page, featuring readings and discussions with our Spring Selections Holly Pester and Tiffany Atkinson, hosted by Andrew McMillan!
PBS SPRING SHOWCASE
JEN HADFIELD & ROWAN RICARDO PHILLIPS
Thursday 11th March 2021 | 7pm to 8pm | YouTube
Join us for the PBS Spring Showcase hosted virtually by NCLA, Newcastle University, and chaired by the poet, John Challis. We're delighted to present our Spring Choice Jen Hadfield, all the way from Shetland, and recommendation Rowan Ricardo Phillips from across the Atlantic. The event is free but you must book here to receive the youtube link.
KENDAL POETRY FESTIVAL PBS SHOWCASE
Tuesday 23rd February 2021 | 8.00pm-9.00pm | Tickets: £5.00
Join us for a Zoom version of the popular PBS Insta Live Book Club at Kendal Poetry Festival. PBS Book Selector and instabook club host Andrew McMillan will be joined by special guest Michael Symmons Roberts to discuss our Spring Recommendation RANSOM, Michael’s eighth collection of poetry. Michael Symmons Roberts is one of the UK's best loved lyric poets, always adventurous in his use of form and ambitious in his thematic concerns. In this new collection, ideas around liberty, limits and the word 'ransom' are examined, explored and interrogated. Find out more and book ticketshere.
Don't miss the T.S. Eliot Prize Readings and winner's announcement in a streamed Southbank Centre event hosted by the wonderful Ian McMillan at 7pm this Sunday 24th January. A highlight of the poetry calendar, the prize was inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in honour of its founder T.S. Eliot, and is now run by our friends at the T.S. Eliot Foundation. Tickets are available to book here. We're delighted to be the official one-stop shop for the shortlist. PBS members can enjoy all ten books for only £75 including postage here.
We're so excited to be sponsoring "In Her Voice: Poetry Showcase" at Jacaranda’s #TwentyIn2020 festival in celebration of Black British writers, this Saturday 5th December at 7pm. The #TwentyIn2020 poets include Tolu Agbelusi, Sarah Lipton-Sidibeh, Brenda Garrick, Hibaq Osman and Adjoa Wiredu, hosted by Shaniqua Benjamin, a spoken word poet, writer, creative workshop facilitator, and Croydon’s first Poet Laureate. The event is sponsored by the Poetry Book Society. Find out more and book your tickets here.
PBS AUTUMN WINTER SHOWCASE AT NCLA
Thursday 26th November, 7-8pm
In association with the Poetry Book Society, NCLA presents a special poetry reading by David Morley, author of FURY (Carcanet, 2020), and Fred D’Aguiar, whose Letters to America (Carcanet, 2020) is the PBS Winter choice. Register here for your free place and the zoom details.
NEXT INSTA BOOK CLUB
Join us 4th December for Insta Book Club with Safiya Sinclair and Fred D'Aguiar at 7pm GMT over on instagram @poetrybooksociety.
12th NOVEMBER 7PM
Join our next Insta Live Book Club with Nii Ayikwei Parkes and Anthony Anaxagorou, hosted by PBS Selector Andrew McMillan and his poetic pug Patricia. Simply tune in to instagram live @poetrybooksociety to join the discussions and hear the poets read from their PBS recommended works.
CHELTENHAM LITERATURE FESTIVAL: POETRY BOOK SOCIETY EVENT
9th Oct | 8pm - 9pm | Town Hall, Pillar Room | £10 plus booking fee
Don’t miss your chance to hear from two of the poetry world’s brightest new voices. Rachel Long is the leader of Octavia Poetry Collective for Womxn of Colour and joins us to read from her highly-anticipated debut, My Darling from the Lions, a vivid collection with a razor-sharp perspective on sexual politics and cultural inheritance. New Zealand poet Nina Mingya Powles ’ first full collection Magnolia dwells within the tender, shifting borderland between languages, and between poetic forms, to examine the shape and texture of memories, of myths, and of a mixed-race girlhood. Find out more here.
DURHAM BOOK FESTIVAL: POETRY BOOK SOCIETY SHOWCASE 13th October, 12.30pm - 1pm | Durham Book Festival Online | Tickets: Free
The Poetry Book Society is delighted to present three thrilling new voices on the poetry scene: Bhanu Kapil, Rachel Long and Nina Mingya Powles. Join us for a thought-provoking lunch hour of cross-continental and multi-lingual poetry with a trio of PBS poets who fearlessly tackle gender identity, diaspora and displacement. These are three poets who speak to the current moment with their fingers firmly on the pulse – defiant, blazing and deeply entertaining. Find out more here.
MONTHLY INSTA LIVE BOOK CLUB PROGRAMME
We're so excited to reveal our first online book club #pbsonlinebookclub will launch 7pm next Wednesday 6th May on Instagram Live @PoetryBookSociety hosted by poet and PBS Selector Andrew McMillan & his poetic pug Patricia! Our first book club discussion will be the PBS Summer Recommendation Tongues on Fire by Seán Hewitt, so order your copy here with your 25% PBS member discount and tune into Instagram Live @PoetryBookSociety at 7pm 6th May to join the discussions.
PAST EVENTS
LONDON BOOK FAIR **CANCELLED**
PBS Spring Showcase 10th March 2020, 10:00 - 10:45 Poets' Corner
The Poetry Book Society opens Poets’ Corner at London Book Fair with a showcase of two of their finest Spring Selections. Join us to celebrate the launch of Will Harris’ much anticipated debut collection RENDANG (Granta) and Hong Kong born Jennifer Wong’s Letters Home(Nine Arches Press). Tackling themes of migration, home and belonging, these are two of the most important new poets writing today.
Poetry Planet 10th March 2020, 16:00 - 17:00 Poets' Corner
Director of the Poetry School and the world's biggest eco-poetry prizes, Sally Carruthers joins spoken word poet Zena Edwards to discuss how poetry can tackle the current climate crisis. What is the role of poets and writers in the climate emergency and how can publishers think more sustainably? Alongside the discussions, Zena Edwards will perform her eco-poetry protest songs.
Poetry & Place 11th March 2020, 14:30 - 15:30 Poets' Corner
How can publishers think beyond the page? The Poetry Book Society, National Trust and Poetry Society join forces to discuss new poetry projects bringing places of historic or natural importance to life. Can site-specific poetry projects engage with communities and bring poetry to wider audiences? Julia Bird explores how Historic England and The Poetry Society projected poems onto St Paul’s Cathedral whilst Kiki Claxton will reveal the National Trust and Poetry Book Society’s exciting new eco-poetry commission.
SCOTTISH SHOWCASE | 3RD APRIL | SCOTTISH POETRY LIBRARY **CANCELLED**
By popular demand we're finally taking the PBS on tour to Scotland! Join us on the 3rd April at 7pm for our PBS Scottish Showcase at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh. We hope to see plenty of our Scottish PBS members and poetry fans to celebrate this stellar line up: PBS Choice Juana Adcock and recent Recommendations Denise Riley and Charlotte Ansell. We're honoured to bring together one of the UK's finest contemporary poets, Denise Riley, with two of our most dynamic emerging poets. Juana Adcock's Splitwas described as "one of the most exciting debuts I've ever read" by our PBS Selector Sandeep Parmar and Charlotte Ansell's Delugeas a work of "unerring emotional honesty", so this promises to be a powerful trio. Tickets cost £8.
NATIONAL POETRY DAY SHOWCASE 2019
We're so excited to reveal the PBS is off on tour again and this year's National Poetry Day PBS Showcase will be held at Blackwell's Oxford featuring two poets who, in keeping with this year's theme, fearlessly speak the truth! PBS Autumn Recommendations Anthony Anaxagorou and Mary Jean Chan will perform poems from their new collections After the Formalities and Fleche at Blackwell's Oxford on Broad Street at 5.30pm on Thursday 3rd October. Both poets tackle identity, post-colonialism and these troubled times with clarity and courage. Join us for a sensational evening of poetry and truth to launch their debut collectionsand the PBS Autumn Bulletin. We hope to see lots of PBS Oxford members at the event to help us celebrate National Poetry Day in style!
The event is FREE and all are welcome. Simply register here.
HULL POP UP POETRY BOOKSTALL
he PBS is on tour over the next week, heading both North and South across the UK. We can't wait to be the official bookshop partner at the BBC Contains Strong Language in Hull this weekend. Contains Strong Language is the BBC’s national poetry and spoken word festival, with coverage on national and local radio and TV, spanning over 40 events over 3 days, 19 poets and artists both local, national and international. It is a partnership between the BBC, Wrecking Ball Press, Arts Council England, the British Council and the Makassar International Writers Festival. Tickets for free events are available from Hull Truck Theatre. We'll be there with an extensive range of poetry books from all the performers and many more. Find out more here.
PAST EVENTS ARCHIVE
PBS SPRING 2019 SHOWCASE
Thursday 21st March, 7.15pm, Newcastle University Culture Lab
Join us at this exciting two-part event. As well as co-hosting the Poetry Book Society Spring Showcase with NCLA, this event also marks the launch of the 2019 Newcastle Poetry Festival programme. Featuring two of the most dynamic new poets of 2019, PBS Spring ChoiceRachael Allenand RecommendationRebecca Tamáswill be reading from their debut collectionsKingdomland(Faber) andWITCH(Penned in the Margins). Expect an evening of powerful poetry and be the first to hear the full festival programme details. The NPF 2019 Programme will be available to pick up on the night.
NCLA's NEWCASTLE POETRY FESTIVAL starts 1st to the 4th of May featuring a fantastic line up of Terrance Hayes, Hannah Sullivan, Phoebe Power and many more. We'll keep you posted on all the events as soon as the programme is launched in March.
The Poetry Book Society has teamed up with Time Productions and Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspapermakers to bring a convention-distorting fusion event located in the church of Saint Martin withinLudgate.Poetry of the 17th-Century past interplays with that of contemporary PBS Winter Choice poet Raymond Antrobus, alongside David Harsent and musical accompaniment. This event will take place from 7.30-9.30pm at The Guild Church of Saint Martin within Ludgate, 40 Ludgate Hill, London, EC4M 7DE.
Raymond Antrobus's The Perseverance is the PBS Winter Choice for 2018. Raymond is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, Complete Works III and Jerwood Compton Poetry. He is one of the world’s first recipients of an MA in Spoken Word Education from Goldsmiths, University of London. Raymond is a founding member of Chill Pill and the Keats House Poets Forum. He has had multiple residencies in deaf and hearing schools around London, as well as Pupil Referral Units. In 2018 he was awarded the Geoffrey Dearmer Award.
David Harsent has published eleven collections of poetry. The most recent, Salt, came from Faber & Faber in October 2017. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Roehampton and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
To Stand Before Vahni Capildeo, Ishion Hutchinson & Kathleen Jamie 7.30 - 9.00pm
Sensational, moving and finely-wrought poetry by acclaimed international poets including two recent PBS Selections Vahni Capildeo and Kathleen Jamie. In association with the Poetry Book Society at Winchester Discovery Centre Performance Hall. Tickets cost £11 Concs £10, Students £9. Book here.
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PBS AUTUMN 2018 SHOWCASE
11th OCTOBER | YORK
Join us for a Northern Showcase at York University with three of our finest Autumn Selections, including debut poets Kit Fan and Zaffar Kunial, alongside Kate Potts.
Kate Potts’ debut pamphlet Whichever Music (tall-lighthouse, 2008) was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice and was shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. Her first full-length collection was Pure Hustle (Bloodaxe Books, 2011). Kate teaches poetry and creative writing for the University of Oxford, Middlesex University and The Poetry School, freelances as a mentor and editor, and works part-time for an independent publisher. She has been awarded two Arts Council England grants and a Hawthornden Fellowship. Her second collection Feral sets out to explore and trouble the boundary between “animal” and “human”.
Kit Fan was born in Hong Kong and moved to the UK aged 21. He studied at the Chinese University of Hong Kong before completing a doctoral thesis on Thom Gunn at the University of York. As well as being a published poet, he also writes fiction. In 2017 he was shortlisted for The Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize for Duty Free and the TLS Mick Imlah Poetry Prize.
Zaffar Kunial was born in Birmingham and lives in Hebden Bridge. He published a pamphlet in the Faber New Poets series in 2014 and spent that year as the Wordsworth Trust Poet-in-Residence. Since his first public reading, of ‘Hill Speak‘ at the 2011 National Poetry Competition awards, he has spoken at various literature festivals and in programmes for BBC radio, and won the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize for his poem ‘The Word’.
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PBS SUMMER SHOWCASE
AT THE SOUTHBANK
25th JULY | 7.30PM | SOUTHBANK CENTRE | LONDON
Tickets are selling out fast for the PBS Summer Showcase at the Southbank Centre. Join us on the 25th July from 7.30pm for a sizzling hot summer evening to launch our exciting new Summer Selections. Hosted by PBS Book Selector and Ledbury Forte Prize winner Sandeep Parmar, the event features readings by the PBS Summer Selections: our Wild Card Amy Key, Pamphlet Choice Mary Jean Chan and the winner of the PBS Student Poetry Prize, Jay G Ying. It's going to be a scorcher!
We'll be at the Ledbury Poetry Festival in July with a Poetry Book Society stand. Do drop by and say hi!
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PBS STANZA LECTURE
SINEAD MORRISSEY 8th March | 15:30 - 16:30
The Town Hall, Queens Gardens - Supper Room
StAnza Poetry Festival | St Andrews
We're proud to sponsor the 2018 StAnza Lecture this year with Forward Prize winner and PBS Summer Choice Sinéad Morrissey. Sinead will explore ideas of voice and authenticity in the work of a number of contemporary poets who are responding directly to trauma in their work. The lyric is traditionally understood as an utterance of both heartfelt and honest emotion, the conduit of an “I” voice engaged in an intimate conversation with a privileged reader and/or listener, and articulating itself, to intensifying effect, within the constraints of poetic form. She will question the extent to which this model of the lyric, particularly in relation to grief, holds “true”, via close readings of recent poems which foreground a complex “I” under duress.
Tickets are £4.50/£3.50 and are on sale now on the Stanza website.
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POETRY COLLECTIVE at LONDON BOOK FAIR
10th-12th April (More information to follow)
Versopolis poetry platform and review presents a chance to see some of Europe's finest contemporary poets, representing the Bookfair's nation-in-focus, Lithuania, alongside the UK. Sasha Dugdale, Hannah Lowe, Aušra Kaziliūnaitė and Marius Burokas have built international reputations around their remarkable poetry and in this event, curated by SJ Fowler, the threads of their ambitious and insightful works will be drawn out further, when allied together. Versopolis is supported by the Creative Europe programme of the EU.
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SPRING 2017 SHOWCASE
OXFORD OUTBURST FESTIVAL
Pegasus Theatre, Oxford Brookes University, 21st April at 7pm
The Poetry Book Society is delighted to join forces with Oxford’s Outburst Festival to present the PBS Spring Showcase featuring two of the most exciting new debut voices on the poetry scene: Hannah Sullivan and Sophie Collins. The Poetry Book Society was founded in 1953 by T S Eliot to propagate the art of poetry and every quarter our expert selectors choose the best new poetry books. Join us for an unmissable evening celebrating the next generation of powerful new female poets.
Sophie Collins grew up in Bergen, North Holland, and now lives in Edinburgh. She is co-editor of tender, an online arts quarterly, and editor of Currently & Emotion (Test Centre, 2016), an anthology of contemporary poetry translations. small white monkeys, a text on self-expression, self-help and shame, was published by Book Works in November 2017 as part of a commissioned residency at Glasgow Women’s Library. Who Is Mary Sue? is her first poetry collection, published by Faber.
Hannah Sullivan lives in London and teaches modern English Literature at New College, Oxford. After reading Classics as an undergraduate, she received a PhD in English from Harvard in 2008 and taught at Stanford University in California for three years. Her first published poem appeared in P.N. Review in 1998 and so this debut has had a long genesis. Her academic book The Work of Revision was, in fact, a study of the complicated and indirect ways in which writers draft and revise. She is currently writing a book on free verse, funded by a Philip Leverhulme Prize. Three Poems, published by Faber, is her debut collection.
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BOLTON UNIVERSITY
PBS SHOWCASE
Michael Symmons Roberts & Karen McCarthy Woolf
24th April 2018 | 6.30pm
Bolton Central Library | Le Mans Crescent | Bolton | BL1 1SE | Free
English and Creative Writing at Bolton University are proud to partner again with Bolton Library and Museum Services for a new season of literary events. In April, Karen McCarthy Woolf will be reading from her latest collection, Seasonal Disturbances, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, alongside Michael Symmons Roberts, whose latest book, Mancunia, was shortlisted for the prestigious T. S. Eliot Prize.
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INPRESS FESTIVAL OF PUBLISHING
Friday 26th January, 9:30-17:00
Friends House | Sarah Fell Room – 173-177 Euston Rd | London NW1 2BJ
The Inpress Festival of Publishing is a celebration of all things creative, with a practical twist. It is a showcase of the inventiveness, innovation, diversity and agility of independent publishers, and all those working in our industry. Designed to network and share ideas, the 2018 event themed ‘I Did It My Way’ is a day of presentations and panel events featuring experts ready to share their experiences and their discoveries. It is a chance to inspire and be inspired, to hone those schemes you’ve been nursing in a supportive and creative environment.
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PBS AUTUMN SHOWCASE
Pascale Petit & James Sheard
30th November 2017
Newcastle University
NCLA & The Poetry Book Society present an event with two Poetry Book Society Choice authors, Pascale and James, reading from their collections 'Mama Amazonica' and 'The Abandoned Settlements'. Tickets are available to purchase here.
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PBS WINTER 2017 LAUNCH PARTY
Poetry Society Cafe | 22 Betterton St | London | WC2H 9BX
Friday 8 December 2017, 7:00 pm–10:00 pm
The Poetry Society is delighted to join forces with the Poetry Book Society to celebrate the PBS Winter Selections. Join us to launch a special edition of the PBS Winter 2017 Bulletin with a stellar performance from five internationally acclaimed poets: PBS Choice Sasha Dugdale, PBS Recommendations Paul Deaton, Tim Dooley, Ahren Warner and PBS Special Commendation Fleur Adcock.
Sasha Dugdale was born in Sussex. Between 1995 and 2000 she worked for the British Council in Russia, where she set up the Russian New Writing Project with the Royal Court Theatre. She currently works as a translator and consultant for the Royal Court and other theatre companies. She has published two collections of translations of Russian poetry and, with Carcanet, three collections of her own poetry, Notebook (2003), The Estate (2007) and Red House (2011). In 2003 she received an Eric Gregory Award.
Paul Deaton was born in London and raised in Wales. He was runner-up in the Arvon International Poetry Competition 2010 and winner of the SaveAs Writers International Poetry Prize 2016. His work appears regularly in The Spectator, is included in York Notes for GCSE study guides and is featured in various magazines and anthologies including PN Review, The London Magazine, The Dark Horse. A novel started on his MLiTT at Glasgow University was recently finished. A keen runner, he has a first degree in psychology, works freelance in publishing and is a counsellor in training in Bristol.
Ahren Warner’s first collection, Confer (Bloodaxe Books, 2011), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for both the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize 2013. He was awarded an Eric Gregory Award in 2010 and an Arts Foundation Fellowship in 2012. He is Poetry Editor of Poetry London and Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow at Loughborough University, and currently lives in London.
Tim Dooley is a tutor for The Poetry School and a visiting lecturer at the University of Westminster. From 2008 to 2017 he was reviews and features editor of Poetry London. He is co-editor (with Martha Kapos) of The Best of Poetry London (Carcanet, 2014). His first collection of poems, The Interrupted Dream, was published by Anvil in 1985. This was followed by the pamphlets The Secret Ministry (2001) and Tenderness (2004), both winners in the Smith/Doorstop-Poetry Business pamphlet competition. Tenderness was also a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. Keeping Time (Salt, 2008) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was followed by Imagined Rooms (Salt, 2010). The Sound We Make Ourselves: Poems 1971-2016 was published by Eyewear in 2016.
Fleur Adcock was born in New Zealand in 1934, she spent the war years in England, returning with her family to New Zealand in 1947. She emigrated to Britain in 1963, working as a librarian in London until 1979. In 1977-78 she was writer-in-residence at Charlotte Mason College of Education, Ambleside. She was Northern Arts Literary Fellow in 1979-81, living in Newcastle, becoming a freelance writer after her return to London. She received an OBE in 1996, and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2006 for Poems 1960-2000 (Bloodaxe Books, 2000).
Thursday 28th September to Sunday 1st October (times TBA)
BBC Contains Strong Language is the BBC's new national poetry and spoken word festival with coverage in national and local, radio and TV programmes.
Over the four days, beginning on National Poetry Day, Thursday 28 September, Radio 1 Xtra, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, 5 Live and 6 Music as well as Radio Humberside will be broadcasting live from festival venues in Hull along with BBC TV.
The Pop-Up Poetry Bookshop is a four day book fair and exhibition space for all those involved in the promotion, creation and production of poetry. Celebrating the diversity and vitality of contemporary poetry in the UK, publishers large and small, niche and mainstream are invited to display and sell their works direct to the public at one of the most vibrant new poetry festivals in the UK.
The fair will take place in the foyer of Hull College, location of gala readings and live audience BBC broadcasts.
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DURHAM BOOK FESTIVAL
AUTUMN SHOWCASE
Poetry Book Society Showcase: Sinéad Morrisey, Colette Bryce and Tara Bergin
Durham, Palace Green Library: Saturday 7th October, 4-5pm
Sinéad Morrisey, Colette Bryce and Tara Bergin will be giving readings from their work as part of the Durham Book Festival.
You can get more information and book tickets through clicking this link.
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PBS PRESENTS
CHELTENHAM LITERATURE FESTIVAL
Sasha Dugdale and Sandeep Parmar
Cheltenham, Town Hall - Pillar Room: Friday 13th October, 4-5pm
Sasha Dugdale's Joy has been selected as our Winter Choice, and you can see her read here alongside one of our selectors, Sandeep Parmar, as part of Cheltenham's Literature Festival.
Tickets are available through this link from 30th August.
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FREE VERSE POETRY BOOK FAIR
PBS Presents Karen McCarthy Woolf and Pascale Petit will be at the Free Verse Poetry Book Fair on the 28th September, which you can read more about here.
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