The vulture and the cod-worm and other unsavoury creatures will be celebrated  by Eric Ormsby when he reads from his collection The Baboons of Hada at Manchester’s Poet and Players at the Whitworth art gallery, Oxford Road, from 2.30-4pm on Saturday 11 February. Ormsby, a historian of Islamic thought, is a senior research associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. Also on the bill is Adam Strickson, whose collection Tear Up the Lace, was published last year. He is a teaching fellow in creative writing at the University of Leeds. Appearing with them is Tara Bergin, who is studying for a PhD on Ted Hughes’s translations of János Pilinszky. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Review, Poetry London, Modern Poetry in Translation and PN Review, and a selection of them are included in the Carcanet Press anthology New Poetries V. Improvised music will be provided by Robin Bowles (accordion, piano) and Simon Prince (flutes, saxophone) as the group Our Liberated Winter. More details and Map