Three poets, including the renowned Roger McGough, will together offer members a wide-ranging look at this popular genre.
Speakers
Steven Fowler is a poet, writer and performer working in the literary, modernist and avant-garde traditions. He has published 10 collections of poetry, over 20 publications of limited-edition poetry, art and collaborative works. He is a founder of the European Poetry Festival and has been teaching at Kingston University since 2014.
James Haddow is the Taxi Driver Poet. He has published several collections of his verse, which he describes as “racy, raunchy, topical, soft, sensitive, brutal, political, satirical, comical, tough, loving and spiteful”. Much of it was originally delivered to the passengers in his taxi.
Roger McGough was born and raised in Liverpool. A prolific writer, he has published more than 50 books of adult and children’s poetry, as well as several plays. Notable poetry collections include Defying Gravity (1992), The Way Things Are (1999), and That Awkward Age (2009). After university McGough dabbled as a pop singer and lyricist in the band the Scaffold, which earned minor fame for his song Lily the Pink when topping the UK charts in 1968.
Influenced by the Beat culture in the United States, McGough embraces freedom of expression through his poems’ subjects and verse structure. He focuses primarily on the ordinary and everyday and his poetry is both accessible and popular. He considers poetry a form of subversion and often uses various forms of humour, particularly wordplay, to confront serious topics in an effort to expose the subjectivity of reality. He currently hosts the Radio 4 program Poetry Please.
Programme
9.30 Registration
10.00 Steven Fowler, Kingston University
11.00 Coffee/tea
11.30 James Haddow, the Taxi Driver Poet
12.30 Lunch (bring your own) tea/coffee available
1.30 Roger McGough, poet, playwright, children’s author & broadcaster
2.30 Tea/coffee
3.00 Roger McGough – concluding session
Cost
£12 (£15 to non-members)