A COLLOQUY OF POETS

I'm still catching up with events listings from last year. On 13th and 14th November I took part in a Colloquy of Poets at the media centre, University of Hull. It was a busy weekend including public readings by invited poets: 1: Kelvin Corcoran, Zoe Skoulding, Matthew Welton, Philip Gross and Denise Riley; 2: Daljit Nagra, Carol Watts, Tony Lopez, Susan Wicks, and John Burnside. We stayed together at a hotel in Hull centre, near the station, and small groups walked around the city centre for a series of photo shoots with Carolyn Forbes. I had never been to Hull before. The Colloquy began with each of the poets giving a prepared talk on a poem that was important to them, and the idea, given the range of different poets invited, was set up useful encounters in poetry. I really enjoyed the readings on Saturday evening and Sunday Morning, including new commissioned poems. All of this was organised by Martin Goodman, Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the Philip Larkin Centre at the University of Hull.