York Explore Library

October 24th @ 6:45 pm – 7:45 pm

 £5

Finding the Words is a relaxed and welcoming monthly poetry evening featuring established and emerging poets from Yorkshire and beyond.

Suzanne Batty’s most recent poetry collection States of Happiness (Bloodaxe Books 2018) begins with an extended sequence exploring her relationship with her twin sister, from their shared birth to her twin’s death from a rare genetic disease. The collection probes her primary concerns – the uncertainty and necessity of love and the drive to find meaning and healing through language. The search for states of happiness, no matter how fleeting, is at the heart of this collection.

Suzanne has won many prizes including the Poetry Society’s Anne Born prize in its inaugural year (2015), The Café Writer’s Poetry Competition (2015) and The York Poetry Prize (2016). Her first full-length collection The Barking Thing was also published by Bloodaxe. Suzanne uses creative writing to support people experiencing and recovering from mental distress.

“Reading these tour-de-force poems is to encounter shadow-wonders and brilliant terrors… Here is extraordinary witness in poems that recall the work of Janet Frame in their confronting both of mental anguish and the transformations that are the hard won and healing reward” -Penelope Shuttle

She is original, brave, unflinching” – Jackie Kay

Jane Burn’s poems have appeared in many magazines, such as Butcher’s Dog, The Interpreter’s House, Obsessed With Pipework, The Curlew, The Fenland Reed, Strix, Under the Radar, Bare Fiction, The Rialto, Prole, Long Poem Magazine,  Elsewhere, Crannog, Domestic Cherry, Iota Poetry,The Poet’s Republic, Eye Flash Poetry, Finished Creatures and the Oxford English Journal. Her poems have also been published in anthologies from The Emma Press and Seren. Her poems are regularly placed in competitions and she has been nominated for both The Pushcart and Forward Prize. Her latest collections are Fleet, from Wyrd Harvest Press, One of These Dead Places from Culture Matters and Remnants (co-written with Bob Beagrie) from Knives Forks and Spoons Press.

Keith Hutson has written for Coronation Street and for several well-known comedians. His plays have been performed at venues including The Royal Exchange, Manchester. Since beginning to submit his poetry five years ago, Keith has had over 150 poems published in journals. He has also had competition successes including being longlisted twice for the National Poetry Competition, shortlisted for the Wordsworth Trust Prize, and a winner in the Poetry Business Yorkshire Prize.

Keith tours extensively with Carol Ann Duffy, recently the Edinburgh Book Festival, Durham Festival and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank.

Keith’s debut pamphlet, Routines, was published in 2016 by Poetry Salzburg (where Keith is now on the Editorial Board) followed by a smith doorstop pamphlet, Troupers (2018) which was selected by Carol Ann as a Laureate’s Choice. His debut full collection, Baldwin’s Catholic Geese, was published by Bloodaxe in February 2019.

He delivers poetry and performance workshops for the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation and for the Square Chapel Arts Centre Halifax.

These poems illuminate something timeless about the human spirit. Keith Hutson is a wonderful talent – his technically accomplished and hardworking poems arrive all of a piece, centre stage. Carol Ann Duffy on Baldwin’s Catholic Geese.

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