Poetry performances
The Buzz is a long-running series of regular poetry readings in Middlesbrough. Over the past ten years many of the most distinguished poets of our time have read in Middlesbrough. The Buzz is a chance to see and hear some of the most exciting poets around, as well as an opportunity to spot some new talents on the way up. Poetry is buzzing again.
The Artists
Adrian Mitchell has compared the work of Liverpool poet Jean Sprackland to a walk along the edge of a cliff, ‘not comfortable, but somehow comforting in the end’. Her poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, on posters and on radio, on post-cards and in city-parks. Her first collection, Tattoos for Mother’s Day was recently shortlisted for the Forward Prize.
Tracey Herd is a young Scottish poet who has been praised for her ‘obsessive, darkly sexual poems’. Her first collection, No Hiding Place was short-listed for the Forward Prize.
Durham-born poet Mairi MacInnes lived in the USA for thirty years before retiring to North Yorkshire. She has published several books of poetry, including Elsewhere and Back: New and Selected Poems and her latest, widely-admired collection, The Ghostwriter.
Preston poet Alan Dent is one of the truly subversive poets writing today. Editor of the dissident magazine Penniless Press and author of Bedtime Story and Antidotes to Optimism, Alan makes his debut on Teesside with a reading from Corker, his new, full-length collection.
Funding
