Homes from home, oil, and troubled waters
After a childhood spent in Iran, Marjorie Lotfi’s family had to leave quickly, at about an hour’s notice. Subsequently she has lived in the US, and currently resides in Scotland. Kris Johnson is from and writes about America’s Washington state, but has lived in Britain since 2007. Ecopoet Yvonne Reddick’s poetry is influenced by the Middle East, where her father worked in the oil industry.
The...
20th October 2023
‘You never quite know what’s going to count as a religious poem’: Rowan Williams on his anthology of spiritual poetry
“Poetry is one of the things that religion does to you … I believe that good poetry comes from the same sort of place as religious faith.” Thus spoke Rowan Williams, former archbishop of Canterbury, and an established poet in his own right, at Berwick literary festival on Saturday.
He was talking...
16th October 2023
Dissenter, mariner, spy, journalist, poet: the remarkable life of Basil Bunting
Born in Scotswood, Newcastle in 1900, he was a conscientious objector in the first world war, and was given hard labour in Wormwood Scrubs and other jails. In the 1930s he became a close friend of Ezr...
15th October 2023
