Last night I toddled along to a Dialect Night: readings by poets and novelists united by pride in their accents and divided by their origins, styles and interests. The work ranged from free verse to highly structured work, low-life novels to Northern Irish teen romance and on to the joys (and otherwise) of West Midlands motherhood. The Granta set came in for a kicking too. Hosted by Niall Griffiths, it featured prize-winning poet Liz Berry, Joao Morais from Cardiff, Sam Roden and Dave Pitt from the West Midlands, Russ Litten from Hull, Grahame Williams from Northern Ireland who managed to make a fine Troubles-related knob gag in the course of a rathe moving story and another person whose name I failed to hear.
Last night I went to a joint poetry reading in our fine Arena Theatre, by my colleague (and PhD supervisor many years ago) Rosie Miles and Liz Berry, who has won lots of prizes and the praise – as Rosie pointed out – of both the Morning Star and the Daily Mail. You can buy Rosie's beautifully designed pamphlet Cuts direct from the publisher here and Liz's collection Black Country (live, her pronounced Dudley accent adds an extra layer of poetic sound to the words on the page) from all good book shops and probably lots of nasty tax-evading bad ones too. Here she is reading at the John Rylands Library:
Despite having a stinking cold which made leave early, missing most of Liz's set, it was a really good evening. Seriously good poetry, and an appreciative crowd. Congratulations to the one English literature student who made it to the event.
I took some photos (the rest are here: click on these ones for enlarged ones):
The book jacket made for Rosie as part of an art project
