Dead [Women] Poets Society Not in Oxford

We're back, and this time, we're everywhere!

Join us for an evening of resurrecting dead women poets online. This time we'll be hosting two fabulous (living) poets: Thea Ayres and Julia Copus. They will be communing with the truly legendary twentieth century poets Charlotte Mew and H.D. You might have already heard that Julia's just published the first ever comprehensive biography of Mew, This Rare Spirit, which is absolutely wild given that Mew was thought 'far and away the best living woman poet' in her day. We can't wait to hear about these two poets, who were contemporaries with very different lives.

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 (virtual) stage! Our only rule: for every poem of your own, you should also read/perform one by a dead woman or non-binary poet. When you get your ticket, just indicate that you want to sign up and we will confirm whether you have a spot or not by Sunday 30 May. 

Normally, tickets to our events are £5, but we know online events aren't quite the same. So we're offering £1 tickets, but the option is there if you're able and would like to pay £5 - it'd help us keep doing what we're doing. And if the £1 is really a barrier, select a £1 ticket and use the code Oxford Concession at checkout for a free ticket. We're also offering our merch as optional add-ons, just as if you were at a stall in the interval leafing through our wares!

This event will be auto-captioned and we'll be doing our best to share transcripts in advance - but of course let us know if you have any other access requirements at deadwomenpoets@gmail.com.

More about the poets:

Julia Copus is a poet, biographer and children's writer. Her published collections include The Shuttered Eye (Bloodaxe, 1995), which won her an Eric Gregory Award and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, In Defence of Adultery (Bloodaxe, 2003), The World's Two Smallest Humans (Faber, 2012), shortlisted for both the Costa Book Awards and the T.S. Eliot Prize, and Girlhood (Faber 2019), winner of the inaugural Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. She created the specular poetic form where the second half of the poem mirrors the first. She will be resurrecting Charlotte Mew (1869 - 1928), whose most famous poem nowadays is 'The Farmer's Bride', and who influenced Virigina Woolf, Thomas Hardy and Siegfried Sassoon amongst others.

Thea Ayres is a poet from Huddersfield, who is interested in nature, animals, history and queer themes. She was a commended Foyle Young Poet in 2012 and 2014, is a graduate of The Writing Squad, and studied History at Oxford. She is the current social media editor for the poetry organisation Write Out Loud. She will be communing with the spirit of poet H.D. (1886–1961) aka Hilda Doolittle, an American who spent most of her life in London and Paris, and helped to shape the Modernist movement. Her poems are often short and imagistic - see 'Oread' - and we love the fact that she translated Sappho.

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

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