Poetry Library celebrates past and present at Manchester Literature Festival

Events celebrating three stunning new collections that explore poetry’s past and present form Manchester Poetry Library’s contribution to this year’s Manchester Literature Festival (MLF).

Manchester Metropolitan University lecturer and award-winning poet Malika Booker will perform at More Fiya (October 22), an event supported by the Poetry Library to celebrate a new collection of the same name which showcases the new generation of Black British poets.

She features alongside the likes of Jackie Kay in Kayo Chingonyi’s collection which shares the “chimerical re-makings of the Caribbean, the wisdom of diasporic philosophy, the cold and rain of Blighty, the sky viewed from the African continent, and the rhythms of language shifting before your eyes and in your ears.”

Manchester Poetry Library, the North West’s first public poetry library and the only one housed within a university, will also host two fascinating MLF events.

We are delighted to be partnering with Manchester Literature Festival again this year to explore these three stunning new poetry collections with in-person events across the festival.

Malika Booker will also host an evening with poet Roger Robinson and photographer Johny Pitts (October 17) to discuss their new book, Home Is Not A Place, which Poetry Library Director Becky Swain chose to induct into BBC 6 Music’s 6 Museum to mark National Poetry Day.

Through its photography and poetry, the book depicts the pair’s journey across the country where they “rented a red Mini Cooper and followed the coast clockwise in search of Black Britain”.

Rounding off the events will be After Sylvia (October 18th), exploring a new collection of poems and essays to mark the 90th anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s birth, “one of the most dynamic and admired American writers of the 20th Century”, and her legacy as a “fiercely intelligent, confessional feminist poet and novelist [which] continues to inspire generation after generation”.

Guests include Romalyn Ante, winner of the 2017 Manchester Poetry Prize.

Swain said: “We are delighted to be partnering with Manchester Literature Festival again this year to explore these three stunning new poetry collections with in-person events across the festival.”

One of the North West’s most innovative literary festivals, Manchester Literature Festival specialises in showcasing and commissioning imaginative writing from fiction and poetry to secular sermons.

The annual festival includes some of the most interesting voices in fiction, poetry, literature in translation, song-writing, activism and culture.

This year’s programme includes the likes of author Bernardine Evaristo in conversation with Vogue editor Edward Enninful and an evening with writer Ian Rankin, hosted by the poet Jackie Kay.

Tickets for all of the events are available via the Manchester Literature Festival website.