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Leicester Poetry Society Programme of Events 2007-8Unless otherwise specified, all events are at Leicester Adult Education College, Wellington Street, beginning at 7.30pm. For non-members, admission is normally £4 (£3 concessions). Society membership includes free entry to all events. Fri Oct 12 Charles Bennett The Room Fri Nov 16 Anne-Marie Fyfe Fri Dec 14 Members’ reading (Mike Brewer, Maxine Linnell, Brian Fewster) Fri Jan 18 Helen Ivory ‘Her best poems are quite exquisite, not so much a matter of known poetic craft as of vision, instinct and frayed edgy experience playing it dead straight’ – GEORGE SZIRTES Fri Jan 25: Social event and read-around Sat Jan 26, Friends Meeting House, 16 Queens Road, 3pm to 4.30: Fri Feb 8: Open Mic Evening Fri Mar 7: Themed Evening: John Lucas leads a discussion on the Forward Prize nominated poems The distinguished poet and critic John Lucas leads a discussion on the six poems short-listed for this year's Forward Prize. The poems are: "The Hut in Question" by David Harsent; "Thursday" by Lorraine Mariner; "Dunt" by Alice Oswald; "The Day I knew I wouldn't Live for Ever" by Carole Satyamurti; "Goulash" by Myra Schneider; and "Bufo calamito - the Natterjack toad" from "The Birkdale Nightingale" by Jean Sprackland. Fri Apr 11 Members’ Reading – Siobhan Logan, Graham Norman, Jean Harbour Mon April 28th: Visual & Verbal Poetry at the University of Leicester Fri May 9: G S Fraser lecture – Richard Burns Fri June 13 Members’ reading - Andie Wingham, Norman Harrington, Anne Kind Saturday 21st June 2 p.m. to 4 p.m: Picnic in the Garden – Belgrave Hall Gardens
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Perhaps best known as the driving force behind the Ledbury Poetry Festival, which he ran single-handedly for six years, Charles Bennett now teaches Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire. He has published a number of award-winning short collections and his highly-acclaimed first full collection, Wintergreen, was published by Headland in 2002. His second, How to Make a Woman Out of Water, with a cover by David Hockney, appeared from Enitharmon in May 2007. 
Anne-Marie Fyfe, an Irish-born poet, now living in West London, is the new Poetry Society Chair. She took over from Ruth Padel in November 2006. Her poem Curacao Dusk won the Cardiff International Poetry Competition (2004), and in 2003 she was the Aldeburgh Poetry Trust's Writer-in-Residence. She has three poetry collections, the latest being The Ghost Twin, of which Helen Dunmore wrote that it is "taut, elegant, eloquent and deeply felt." Tom Paulin has described her poems as having "a lyric clarity, an ontological accuracy and unflinching vigilance that is both spiritual and revelatory."
Helen Ivory was born in 1969, and lives in Norwich. She has worked in shops, behind bars, on building sites and with several thousand free-range hens. She has studied painting and photography and has a Degree in Cultural Studies from Norwich School of Art. In 1999 she won an Eric Gregory Award. Her first collection, The Double Life of Clocks, was published by Bloodaxe in 2002. She is now Academic Director and teacher of Creative Writing for Continuing Education at the University of East Anglia. Her latest collection is The Dog in the Sky (Bloodaxe 2006), which ‘offers a view of the world that is skewed, vibrant and larger than life.’
Founder of the Cambridge Poetry Festival, 