Dead [Women] Poets Society at Sylvia Plath Literary Festival

Tickets are available via TicketSource here (£8/£5 concession).

Dead [Women] Poets Society is delighted to be coming to the Sylvia Plath Literary Festival! Plath is so many people's favourite dead woman poet, and one of the first poets we ever resurrected back in 2015, so we can't wait to head to the festival marking 90 years since her birth.

We'll be bringing you an evening of resurrections in Hebden Bridge. Our two guest poets are Claire Collison and Natalie Linh Bolderston, who will be communing with the spirits of Sylvia Plath and Janice Mirikitani. Claire and Natalie are both winners of the Women Poets Prize (which, by the way, is open for applications) among many accolades. They'll be speaking about their chosen women poets of the past, reading some of each poet's poems and performing sparkling new work inspired by Plath and Mirikitani.

The main event will be accompanied as ever by our popular Dead [Women] Poets Society Open-Mic, for which we welcome poets and performers of all and no genders to the stage! Our only rule: for every poem of your own, you should also perform one by a dead woman or non-binary poet. Arrive early to sign up for the open mic on the night as it's first come, first served! We recommend arriving around 8.45/9pm for the best chance of getting a spot.

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Claire Collison is a writer and cross-disciplinary artist. She was an honouree of the inaugural Women Poets’ Prize (2018). Her first novel, Treading Water, was a finalist in the Dundee Book Prize (2007). She came second in the Resurgence Prize (2014), Hippocrates Prize (2017), and Winchester Prize (2020). Her poems appear in magazines and anthologies, including Valley Press Anthology of Prose Poetry; Field Notes on Survival (Bad Betty Press); In Transit, and Second Place Rosette (Emma Press); Finished Creatures, Magma, Butcher’s Dog, The Compass, Perverse, Corrupted Poets, and The Rialto. Claire teaches and designs engagement in a range of settings, including for Poetry School and City Lit. She is a MacDowell Fellow (2007) and has been artist in residence at The Women’s Art Library, and Brockwell Lido. She is a founder member of Poets for the Planet. Her debut pamphlet, Placebo, is published by Blueprint Poetry Press, 2022

Natalie Linh Bolderston is a Vietnamese-Chinese-British poet. In 2020, she received an Eric Gregory Award and co-won the Rebecca Swift Women Poets’ Prize. Her poem ‘Middle Name with Diacritics’ came third in the 2019 National Poetry Competition and was shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. She is an alumna of the Roundhouse Poetry Collective, the London Library Emerging Writers Programme and the VanThanh Productions Development Programme. Her pamphlet, The Protection of Ghosts, was published by V. Press in 2019. She is now working on her first full-length collection.

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This event will take place at Nelson's Wine Bar in Hebden Bridge. We encourage you to wear a mask during this event. Please do not attend if you or anyone if your household shows any symptoms of Covid-19. We are hoping to record the audio of this event and release it as a podcast afterwards; you can also watch previous séances online.

We are sorry to say that the venue is only accessible by stairs. Please let us know any access requirements at deadwomenpoets@gmail.com. If you would like to be notified when the planned podcast comes out, sign up to our mailing list.

Come for the poetry, stay for the resurrection! #JoinTheSéance

This event was made possible through funding from Arts Council England. Illustrations by Lily Arnold.