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Programme Outline

Tuesday, 9 June
University of Leeds campus

14:00 - 16:00

Poetry Manuscripts – Open House with Cultural Collections
Join us for a curated exploration of items from Cultural Collections, showing how poets have engaged with the natural world across time. This session brings together rare books, letters, and manuscripts from the seventeenth century to the present day and offers exceptional opportunity to encounter these materials firsthand. Featuring works by Anne Finch, John Clare, and Simon Armitage, alongside contributions from unexpected and anonymous writers, the event highlights the many ways in which the natural environment has shaped poetic expression.

Poetry@Leeds in collaboration with Leeds Literature Festival
Entry included with conference registration

Treasures of the Brotherton

18:00 - 19:00

The Caster Cultural Fellows in Poetry: A Reading and Celebration
Made possible by the generosity of the Caster family, Caster Cultural Fellowships in Poetry at the University of Leeds are designed to nurture creativity at a crucial stage in a poet’s development. The work of Caster Cultural Fellows in Poetry continues to shape the poetry landscape in the UK and internationally. Join Poetry@Leeds and Leeds Literature Festival for a special celebration with readings from past Fellows Helen Mort, Malika Booker, Anthony V. Capildeo, Zaffar Kunial and Matt Howard and the announcement of the next Caster Fellow. Readings & conversation will be chaired by the Head of the School of English, Professor Hazel Hutchison.

Welcome: Professor Andrew Thorpe, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities, and Cultures

Poetry@Leeds in collaboration with Leeds Literature Festival
Entry and reception included with conference registration

Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall

19:00 - 19:45

Wine Reception

Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall Foyer

Wednesday, 10 June
Cloth Hall Court

09:00 - 09:30

Registration & Arrival Tea/Coffee

Merchants Hall

9:30 - 10:30

Welcome

Director of Poetry@Leeds, Kimberly Campanello
Head of the School of English, Hazel Hutchison
Pro-Dean for Research & Innovation, Faculty of Arts Humanities and Cultures, Matthew Treherne

Poetry's Environments Activity

Herringbone Suite

10:30 - 11:00

Morning Tea/Coffee

Merchants Hall

11:00 - 12.55

Contextual Environments 1

Eoghan Totten, Michael Longley’s Environmental Poetics
Louis Cameron, Environmental Ethics in Milton’s Paradise Lost
Aaron Prevots, Jacques Réda’s Love of Creation in Lettre sur l’univers (Letter on the Universe) (1991)
Jessica Louise Olley, I dwell in Possibility: Emily Dickinson’s Affective Ecology
Paula Rosenthal, Two Bluebells: Nature, Memory and the Divergent Poetics of Anne and Emily Brontë

Cotton Room Cotton Room
Chair: David Higgins

11:00 - 12.55

Watery Environments

Amna Umer Cheema, ‘Thinking with water’: Thinking with Elizabeth Bishop’s  ‘The Map’ 
Wanda O'Connor, Nomadic accumulations: a poetic exploration of water environments
Lue Mac, The Words in the Whale: Elegising the Sea Shanty
Matthew Ward, Byron and the “sea-born city” of Allusion
Blaise Sales, Water, Skin and Words: A Poetic Exploration of Three Environments

Denim Room
Chair: Emma Trott

 

11:00 - 12.55

Sacred Ecologies, Unsettled Bodies

Ayesha Hussain, Ghulam Farid Sabri’s 1991 Berlin Recording of Jāmī the Poet: Poetics, Place and Posthumous Intention
Sarah Stewart-Smith, Crossing into the Sacred: Faith and Open Access in John Clare’s ‘Sunday Walks’ (1821)
Rehnuma Sazzad, Mahmoud Darwish: Place, Precarity, and Justice
Enaie Maire Azambuja, The Ineffable Word: Apophatic Ecopoetics in Modernist and Contemporary American Poetry
Shauna M. Morgan, Otherwise Poetics: Sound, Image, and the Unsettled Body in Black Poetry
Mohan Ding, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s Stellar Environment

Wool Room
Chair: Hazel Hutchison

11:00 - 12.55

Guillemot: A Loomery: Publishing, Environment & the Local

Susie Campbell, Enclosure, extraction, and landfill: Wastelands and its ‘waste poetics’
Becca Drake, Fragmentary Medieval Landscapes: Poetry and the Hull Maritime Museum
Eleanor Rees, Portents and Portals: A Poetics of Encounter within Environments
Genevieve Carver, Place-based partnerships and voicing the non-human
Luke Thompson, Guillemot Press and Vernacular Publishing
Maia Elsner & Mary Watson, Intermedial (co)Construction: Introducing Clay Play

Herringbone Suite
Chair: Luke Thompson

13:00 - 13:45

Lunch

Merchants Hall

13:45-15:00

Fieldworking 1

Steve Ely, Eely: The Ecology of an Ecopoem
Adam Strickson, Being and Breath: the relationship between form and content in writing the Colne Valley, West Yorkshire
Susie Wilson, Clown River / Energy Fields
Chad Campbell, ‘Bright Particulars’: transformations of the poetic by the natural in the poetry and journals of R.F. Langley

Cotton Room
Chair: David Higgins

13:45-15:00

Marks & Materials 1

Nasser Hussain, see/hear – new works
Christodoulos Makris, nobody is going to be unique
Olivia McCannon, The Lives and Afterlives of Z: poems, images and sounds

Denim Room
Chair: Maia Elsner

13:45-15:00

With and Between Crows, Bats, Swifts

Chris Jones, Guessworking with Swifts
David Lloyd & Kim Waale, Intersections of the Human and Nonhuman in Poetry and Sculpture: a Collaboration
Jon Gilbert, The Language of Crows
Sarah Westcott, Handwing: A Lyric Exploration between Human and Bats

Wool Room
Chair: Caitlin Stobie

13:45-15:00

Translation Environments

Janani Ambikapathy, editor of Modern Poetry in Translation
Austin Woerner, Vicarious Author, Vicarious Reader: Translation as a Glimpse into Other Minds
Nicoletta Asciuto, Literary Translation in and out of the (English) Classroom

Herringbone Suite
Chair: Matthew Treherne

15:00 - 15:30

Afternoon Tea/Coffee

Merchants Hall

15:30 - 17:00

Charms, Spells, Poisons

Chloe Hanks, Creative Interventions in Archival Absences: The Aqua Tofana Poisonings
Milena Williamson, Creative and Critical Approaches to the Ecopoetics of Old English Poetry
Jess Richards & Catherine Batt, Prayer and Charm: The Poetry of the Ingleby Arncliffe Crucifix Charms (presentation with creative engagement)

Cotton Room
Chair: Hazel Hutchison

15:30 - 17:00

Contextual Environments 2

Jonathan Pitches, Norman Nicholson: Poet as Eco-dramatist
Caspar Wort, “yeah the title instantly made me understand”: Poetry’s Textual Environments
Craig Moyes & James Wishart, Artificial flowers: a dialogue on poetry, referentiality and nature

Denim Room
Chair: Emma Trott

15:30 - 17:00

Fieldworking 2

Kate Simpson, Lyric Fieldwork: Sediment & Sentiment
Paul Stephenson, On the Infraordinary
Maria Sledmere, Chronodiverse Ecologies: Dreamwork and the Poetics of Night
Katrina Porteous, Under the Ice

Wool Room
Chair: Fiona Becket

15:30 - 17:00

Poetry in Place 1

Liam Bates, group chat: towards an ecopoetics of friendship in the more-than-human city
Zakia Carpenter-Hall, Human Ecologies 2021
Liz Quirke, Poetry and Queer Geographies
Bryony Aitchison, Side Quests: Transdisciplinary Art Walk

Herringbone Suite
Chair: Caitlin Stobie

Wednesday, 10 June
University of Leeds campus

18:00 - 19:00

Simon Armitage reading and conversation

Join us for an evening with Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate and University of Leeds Professor of Poetry. Simon will read poems from across his work, including his latest books Gilgamesh: A New Verse Translation, Blossomise, Dwell, and New Cemetery. In conversation with Kimberly Campanello, Director of Poetry@Leeds, he will explore the role of the natural environment in his poems and the various environments in which poetry is written and shared.

Welcome:
Matthew Treherne, Pro-Dean for Research and Innovation, Faculty of Arts Humanities and Cultures, University of Leeds
Nick Barley, National Poetry Centre

This event is hosted by Poetry@Leeds, the University’s hub for research, impact and teaching in poetry, in collaboration with the National Poetry Centre.

Entry and reception included with conference registration

Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre

19:00 – 19:45

Wine Reception

Michael Sadler LG.10

Thursday, 11 June
Cloth Hall Court

09:00 - 09:30

Registration & Arrival Tea/Coffee

Merchants Hall

09:30 - 10:30

Italian Ecopoetry in Translation: An Ecology of Attention

Gabriele Belletti, Contemporary Italian Poetry and Ecology: An Anthology in Translation
Silvia Valisa, Moving Encounters: Italian Ecopoetry Translation Workshop at FSU
Ilaria Boffa, Poetry & Field Recording Performance: The Sound of Elsewhere, bilingual (exophonic) reverberations from the field

Cotton Room
Chair: Gabriele Belletti

09:30 - 10:30

Dislocating Location in Environmentalist Poetry

Christina Kullberg, Ecopoetics of Turbulent Islandscapes: Richard Georges’ Epiphanea
Jane Hiddleston, Act in your place. Think with the world’: Place and Globality in Édouard Glissant’s Essays and Poetry
Sarah Jackson, ‘WHERE STONE RUNS LIKE HONEY’: Reading the Rocks in Anthony V. Capildeo’s Polkadot Wounds

Wool Room
Chair: Sarah Jackson

09:30 - 10:30

The Call is Coming from Inside the House: Horror-Led Poetics – Process & Reflections

Abigail Parry
Ailbhe Darcy
Christina Thatcher

Denim Room
Chair: Ailbhe Darcy

09:30 - 10:30

Poetry, Heritage and Community

Abbi Flint, Poetry and Prehistory
Benjamin Turner, Belonging Through Creativity: Young People, Rap, and Reclaiming the Historic Environment
Christine Gerrard, Domi Blackmore & Laura Taylor, Conversations Between Poetry & the Historic Environment
JC Niala, Exploring Poetry Through the Lens of Heritage

Herringbone Suite
Chair: Christine Gerrard

10:30 - 11:00

Morning Tea/Coffee

Merchants Hall

11:00 - 12.55

Arboreal Environments

Amanda Blake Davis & Anna Burton, ‘embowered in sycamore’: Arboreal Environments in Romantic Poetry
JT Welsch, Navigating the Sea of Trees: Aokigahara and the Poetic Space of Suicide
Marjan Mohammadi, Iranian Women Poets: Arboreal Allegories and the Ecology of Desire
Veronica Exner, In the Midst of the Willows: Willowy Poems and Ways of Being
Jay Gao, Strange Shade: Dwelling Under the Hanging Tree

Cotton Room
Chair: Emma Trott

11:00 - 12.55

Poetry in Place 2

Damon Fisher Shusterman, Museum Settings as Environments for Experiencing Poetry
Tom Branfoot & Cathy Hirst, Writing Angel Meadow
Alice Eaves, Ghost of the Moors: Poetic responses to Hen Harrier persecution in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire.
John Challis, Collaborating with other voices: Methods of composing poetry in conversation with people and place
Susanna Nash, Leeds Poetry Ecologies

Denim Room
Chair: Emma Cayley

11:00 - 12.55

Bodies, Rhythms, Desiring Lines

Dimitra Xidous, O, Let the Things Themselves! Desire(d) Line(s) & the Laws of Thermodynamics as Poetic Practice with/in Space
Gábor Mezei, Repetition and Physiology – On the Impossibility of the Singular in Poetry
Grace Marsh, Internal Worlds: Environmental Blending in Disabled Poetics
Caroline Stancer, Restrictive masculinities as disavowal and rejection of the ‘environment’ of the body and the natural world. Poetry’s portrayals, challenges and transformations
Hugh Dunkerley, Entanglement, Deep Time and the Voice of Poetry

Wool Room
Chair: Fiona Becket

11:00 - 12.55

Ted Hughes: Papers from The Elmet Trust & The Ted Hughes Society

Jodie Hollander, Placing Hughes’s Elmet Environments within a Transatlantic Conversation
Rachel Nisbet, Poetic Place-Making: From Hughes’ Elmet to the Shaping of Local Enclosure Poetry
Ruth Crossley, Ted Hughes and the ‘Deadfall’ Psyche
Terry Gifford, Avoiding and Exploring Hughes as a Model for Environmental Poetry
Di Beddow, 'I saw my world again through your eyes’: Identifying Ted Hughes’s Cambridge as a Living Archive
Mark Wormald, Making Something Happen: the poetry, art and science of fresh water, from ‘Owned by Everyone’ to ‘Living Water’ and ‘Flow On’….

Herringbone Suite
Chair: Rachel Nisbet

13:00 - 13:45

Lunch

Merchants Hall

13:45 - 15:00

Poetech Environments

Richard A Carter, Aeolian Inscriptions—Tracing a Poetics of Flight
Joey Connolly, The Poetic Environment of the Data Subject
Christian Bök, THE XENOTEXT

Denim Room
Chair: Fiona Becket

13:45 - 15:00

Marks & Materials 2

Lisa Kelly, Scavenger of Signs: A Poetry Performance Exploring How British Sign Language (BSL) as a Visual and Embodied Language Enhances Communication with the Environment
JR Carpenter, p a u s e. : a lecture performance on durational writing as land acknowledgement
Máighréad Medbh, Vertigo of the Source: Wind Farm on a Waste Ridge
Lydia Kennaway, The Marker Committee: Expanding the Poetic Page

Cotton Room
Chair: Maia Elsner

13:45 -15:00

Poetry in Place 3

Andrew McDonnell, Lowlands Away: Poetry and Pedagogy in the East Anglian Fens
Katie Bastiman, Dante in Jersey: Italian Poetry in an Island Community
Lydia Unsworth, Embodied & Conscious Attending to Place
Jon L. Pitt, Okamura Boshichō: Environmental Poet of Prewar Little Tokyo

Wool Room
Chair: Matthew Treherne

13:45 - 15:00

Banshee Press & Hazel Press

Jessica Traynor (editor Banshee Press) & Sara Hudston (editor Hazel Press)
Bebe Ashley, Tim MacGabhann, Gregory Leadbetter

Herringbone Suite
Chair: Zaffar Kunial

15:00 - 15:30

Afternoon Tea/Coffee

Merchants Hall

15:30 - 17:00

Speaking of the Land and Planting Invasive Loving

Anke Bernau, The Poetry of Moss
Helena Fornells Nadal, Speaking of Land – A Land-Aware Ecopoetics for Scotland
Hannah Copley & Alycia Pirmohamed, performance of Hertz
Kanika Ahuja, "Sonnet Crown for Invasive Loving" – Theorizing and Practicing Invasiveness as Disruption
Karishma Sangtani, ‘I look for immigrants, plants who travelled well’: Experiments in post-pastoral plant-thinking with Sumana Roy

Denim Room
Chair: Emma Trott

15:30 - 17:00

Migratory Listening

Tom Crompton, Wishbone Valley, poetry reading
Zoë Skoulding, An Epiphytic Poetics: Do I Look Like an Atmosphere?
Jonathan Skinner, Poetry and the Planetary Garden: Ruderal Prosodies

Cotton Room
Chair: Zoë Skoulding

15:30 - 17:00

Disturbed Environments

J.S. Westbrook, Performance: The Oil & Gas Years
Ken Wilson, “‘They’ve never smelled jet fuel’: Dirty Nature Writing in Contemporary Canadian Poetry
Roula-Maria Dib, When Nature Turns Against Itself: Ecological Mirrorings and the Poetics of Autoimmunity
Weiheng Sun, Tanka in the Anthropocene: On Harryette Mullen’s Urban Tumbleweed
Elaine Ewart, The Professor of Transformation – a poetry reading

Wool Room
Chair: Hazel Hutchison

15:30 - 17:00

Marks & Materials 3

India Oswin, Deep Ecologies: Paula Claire's Pattern Poetics
Lucy Cheseldine, A Template for the Times: Postcards Between Poets
Emily Middleton, Recontextualising the Poetry of Charles Dickens
Regina Menke, Insects and Intertext: Cicadas, Crickets, and Quotations in Two Contemporary German-language Poems

Herringbone Suite
Chair: Maia Elsner

 

Please note: Conference Registration is now full. Events are open to the public and can be booked online.

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