Date/Time: Thursday 23rd March, 7pm to 8pm

Venue: Culture Lab, Newcastle University

This event is now fully booked. If you would like to join a waiting list please email Melanie.Birch@ncl.ac.uk     Material Properties (Picador, 2023) asks what it might mean to interpret and translate wildness into human language and human understanding. The book is a multi-faceted and vital exploration of the nonhuman, the elemental and the borders between existences. Through poems of parenthood at a time of environmental emergency, and poetic versions of Old English riddles in which animals, objects and natural phenomena speak, Polley poses essential questions about our relationship with the living world and with each other.

Material Properties is Jacob Polley’s fifth book of poems with Picador. His fourth, Jackself, won the 2016 T.S. Eliot Prize for poetry. His 2009 novel, Talk of the Town won the Somerset Maugham Award. Polley’s work explores his rural upbringing, the forces of tradition and history, and the power of speech as it approaches song. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

Sinéad Morrissey is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

Free event, and all very welcome.

Please note this event is fully booked. If you would like to join a waiting list please email Melanie.Birch@ncl.ac.uk