Events

CAROL RUMENS

'One of the few women poets writing today whose seriousness is absolute but not closed; whose political beliefs are so enmeshed with her intelligence and sympathetic passions that it is impossible to consider the state of contemporary poetry in Britain without taking her work into account.' Anne Stevenson

Monday October 25th
Forget What Did? Philip Larkin's Poems of Lost Childhood
What made this strange, sometimes unattractive personality a powerful poet? Putting aside the politics, this talk draws on autobiographical material as well as early poems to suggest a possible imaginative source in childhood trauma. It also traces the younger Larkin's interest in Jung, Lawrence, Auden and others, and examines the famous 'two voices' of his maturity, the demotic and the literary.

Wednesday October 27th
Solitude and Sociability: An Introduction to the Poetry of Derek Mahon
Bleak North Antrim coastlines and a sense of isolation contrast with the warm intellectual companionship of other writers and artists often conjured in Mahon's work. This talk will take an over-view of his themes and forms, including a look at the conversation he conducts, via his many dedicatory and epistolary poems, across the time-zones.

Friday October 29th
Line, Women and Song
Have women poets brought distinctive approaches to the music and metre of contemporary poetry? Adrienne Rich, Marilyn Hacker and Ruth Padel will provide some of the material to be examined. More general questions will also be considered. Can there be a politically radical verse in traditional form? Can the English language and ancient, imported forms and metres still fruitfully work together?

a l l w e l c o m e pppp f r e e e v e n t
Room G5, ground floor, Percy Building at 5.30pm

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