Rising Stars

Northern Poets

Helen Burke & Andrew Forster

  • 6
  • Oct

2014

Monday

1.00pm

female poet


Two poets hailing from different ends of the North come to the library to read their work at this lunchtime event. Described by Ian McMillan as ‘a poet with wit, verve and humanity,’ Yorkshire native Helen Burke has been awarded the Manchester International, the Suffolk Poetry Prize, and the Ilkley Literature Performance Poetry Prize. Her collection The Ruby Slippers brings together the finest poems from a career spanning 40 years. She will be reading from this and her new collection Here’s Looking at You, Kid. Andrew Forster has published two collections of poetry with Flambard Press: ‘Fear of Thunder’, shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2008, and ‘Territory’. His poems are featured on the AQA GCSE syllabus and he reads as part of the annual ‘Poetry Live’ series. He won a Northern Writers’ Award on 2014. He will be launching his new collection ‘Homecoming’, with Smith Doorstop, which explores his settling in Cumbria after 20 years in Scotland. He is Literature Officer for the Wordsworth Trust.