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The Oxfam Winter Poetry Festival 2009

The Oxfam Winter Poetry Festival 2009 starts tonight

All events at the Oxfam Books and Music shop
91 Marylebone High Street, London W1
5 minutes from Baker Street tube station

THURSDAY, 22 January – 7pm start time
6 Poets for Oxfam
Featuring UK debut of American poet Annie Finch, with readings by
Emily Berry, Mimi Khalvati, Sarah Law, Sandeep Parmar, and Kathryn Simmonds


FIRST HALF

Sarah Law
Sarah Law is a senior lecturer in creative writing at London Metropolitan University, and an associate lecturer in creative writing for the Open University. She writes both lyrical and more experimental poetry; Bliss Tangle was published by Stride in 1999, and The Lady Chapel in 2004, also by Stride. Her latest collection is Perihelion (Shearsman, 2006) with a fourth collection due to be published by Shearsman later this year. A selection of her poems is included in the forthcoming Bloodaxe anthology Identity Parade. She also researches issues of gender and spirituality: a chapter on medieval mystic Julian of Norwich is appearing in the forthcoming volume Julian of Norwich's Legacy from Palgrave Macmillan.


Sandeep Parmar
was born in England but spent many years living in and around Southern California. She received an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia in 2003. Her PhD in English Literature at University College London is on the unpublished autobiographies of the modernist poet, Mina Loy. She contributed to the Salt Companion to Mina Loy, which is due out later this year. Sandeep is currently at Newnham College, Cambridge as a Member of High Table. She is researching for an edition of Hope Mirrlees's poems that she is co-editing with James Byrne (due out from Carcanet in 2011). She is also Reviews Editor for The Wolf. She lectures in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Hertfordshire and for The Open University. Her poetry will be included in the anthology from Bloodaxe, Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century edited by James Byrne and Clare Pollard (2009).


Kathryn Simmonds
Kathryn Simmonds was born in Hertfordshire in 1972. Her first full collection Sunday at the Skin Launderette was published in 2008 by Seren and was a Poetry Book Society recommendation; it then won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. In 2006 she won the Poetry London Competition. Like many of the leading younger British poets of the moment, she has an MA in Creative Writing - from the University of East Anglia. Simmonds also writes short stories. She works as an editor and lives in north London.


INTERVAL

SECOND HALF

Emily Berry
won an Eric Gregory Award in 2008. She has an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths College and her poetry has appeared in various magazines, most recently Ambit, Poetry Wales and The Manhattan Review. Her pamphlet collection, Stingray Fevers, was published at the end of last year by Tall-Lighthouse and a selection of her work will appear in Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century.


Mimi Khalvati
has published six collections with Carcanet Press, including Selected Poems (2000) and The Chine (2002). She is the founder of The Poetry School, where she teaches, and co-editor of its three anthologies of new writing published by Enitharmon Press. In 2006, she received a Cholmondeley Award and her new collection, The Meanest Flower (Carcanet 2007), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. Mimi was one of the first poets to read for the Oxfam series, in 2004, and her help then was most appreciated. It is good to welcome her back.


Annie Finch
Annie Finch’s books of poetry include The Encyclopedia of Scotland, Eve, and Calendars, as well as a translation of the Complete Poems of Renaissance poet Louise Labé. Her collaborations with theater, art, and dance include the libretto for the opera Marina. She has also published books of poetics, most recently The Body of Poetry: Essays on Women, Form, and the Poetic Self, and five anthologies of poetry and poetics. She is a Professor of English at the University of Southern Maine, founder of the international Discussion of Women’s Poetry listserv, and Director of the Stonecoast low-residency MFA Program in Creative Writing.

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TUESDAY, 27 January – 7 pm start time
3 Performance Poets for Oxfam
“Hooray for Horovitz!” Night
with the Australian Tug Dumbly
The UK’s very own John Hegley
and Special Guest Michael Horovitz


THURSDAY, 5 March – 7 pm start time
The Manhattan Review Launch in London
With special guests Phil Fried, in from New York, and Penelope Shuttle.
And Featuring “The Young British Poets”, such as Joe Dunthorne, Daljit Nagra, Luke Kennard, Nathan Hamilton, Melanie Challenger, Alex McRae, Sally Read, Isobel Dixon, and others


Please reserve seats for these events by contacting shop manager Martin Penny
By email or phone. 020 7487 3570

Admission free. Suggested £8 donation for the events. All money raised goes to Oxfam, a registered charity.

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