Visit to Chester by Poet Tom Jenks

On 22 February, Creative Writing students on the module Poetry: Other Voices, Other Forms spent a seminar and workshop with poet Tom Jenks.  Tom has published ten collections of poetry and his work appears in Salt’s Best British Poetry 2015 (ed. Emily berry). See http://www.zshboo.org/ for more details.

Through a series of prompts and exercises, Tom showed us how to generate poems using the internet and computer programs, tempered by human input and intervention. There was a discussion about how to make use of this for writing poetry, for example, exploring new territory, going out of one’s comfort zone, overcoming writer’s block, and just having fun with the composition of poetry. Tom also read from his own brilliantly funny work.

One student commented that it was the best workshop he had ever been to. Tom has produced a collaborative poem using some of the lines from the workshop. See http://www.zshboo.org/and-then-but.html

The visit was organised by Dr Ian Seed.

Simon Armitage, 'Putting Poetry in its Place' (25 May 2016)

[Photo Credit: Paul Wolfgang Webster]

The Department of English, University of Chester, is pleased to announce that the ninth talk in the Professor Glyn Turton Lecture series will be delivered by one of Britain’s most distinguished writers, Simon Armitage.

Armitage is author of over twenty poetry collections, including: Zoom! (1989), Kid (1992), Book of Matches (1993), The Dead Sea Poems (1995), CloudCuckooLand (1997), Killing Time (1999), Travelling Songs (2002), The Universal Home Doctor (2002), Tyrannosaurus Rex versus The Corduroy Kid (2006), Seeing Stars (2010), and Paper Aeroplanes (2014). His other writing includes autobiographies, travelogues, plays, scripts, and translations of Homer’s Odyssey (2006), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2007), The Death of King Arthur (2011), and Pearl (2016). In 2004, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2010, for services to poetry, was appointed CBE. He is a Vice-President of the Poetry Society and Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford.

Entry is free, but BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL.

To book a place, and for further information, go to:

http://www.chester.ac.uk/departments/english/prof-glyn-turton-lecture

Visit to Chester by Novelist George Green

On 5 February, Creative Writing students on the module Writing the Past spent a seminar and workshop with author of historical novels, George Green. George’s novels include Hawk (2006) and Hound (2003), which was described in the Guardian as ‘tightly written, oddly touching and with a strong sense of history as well as myth’. He is also co-author of Writing a Novel and Getting Published for Dummies (2007; 2014). 

George gave out a number of tips based on his own experiences as a published writer on matters such as the relationship between historical research and fiction, the role of planning and plotting, and how not to waste time going up too many blind alleys with your story. He then took a number of questions from the class on issues such as theme, setting, and use of foreign languages.  

All agreed that it was a useful and thoroughly enjoyable seminar.  

The visit was organised by Dr Ian Seed.

New Book of Prose Poems Published by Lecturer Dr Ian Seed

Ian Seed’s book of prose poems, Identity Papers, has just been published by Shearsman.  

Poet and critic Mark Ford comments: ‘Ian Seed is our most brilliant exponent of that most unBritish of genres, the prose poem. Hilarious and unsettling, his beautifully controlled micro-narratives genially induct us into a world that soon turns out to be as dangerous as it is magical. His work should really come with some kind of health warning, for these poems are not only intoxicating – they are addictive.’ 

Click here for to find out more.

 

Ian will be launching his new collection at Swedenborg Hall, London on Tuesday 9^th February, as part of the Shearsman readings series