Wenlock Poetry Festival Carol Ann Duffy, Imtiaz Dh

Contact: info@wenlockpoetryfestival.org

This year the Poet Laureate and our founding patron Carol Ann Duffy will be joined by two special guests; Imtiaz Dharker and Sean Borodale (T S Eliot Prize shortlist).

Carol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester, where she is Professor and Creative Director of The Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has written for both children and adults, and her poetry has received many awards. She was appointed Poet Laureate in 2009.

Since becoming Poet Laureate she has won the Costa Poetry Award for The Bees in 2011, and the PEN/Pinter Prize in 2012, being described by PEN as "one of the most significant names in contemporary British poetry". As well as winning significant literary prizes she has also founded the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry and is the inspiration behind the new Adrian Henri Prize for Poetry in Art, launched this year by the Wenlock Poetry Festival.

Carol Ann Duffy is the founding patron of the Wenlock Poetry Festival and we are very pleased to welcome her back to Much Wenlock, which she has dubbed the perfect place for poetry.

Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist and documentary film-maker. She was born in Lahore, grew up in Scotland, worked for many years in India and now lives between Mumbai, London and Wales. Her collections of poems include Purdah (Oxford University Press), Postcards from god, I speak for the devil and The terrorist at my table (all published by Penguin India and Bloodaxe Books UK) and Leaving Fingerprints (Bloodaxe Books UK). Her poems have been widely broadcast on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3, BBC World Service and on television.

She is a poet on the UK national curriculum and performs at Poetry Live! events across Britain, to over 70,000 students a year. She has had ten solo exhibitions of drawings in India, London, New York and Hong Kong. All of her books of poems also contain her drawings. She scripts and directs films, many of them for non-government organisations in India, working in the area of shelter, education and health for women and children.

Sean Borodale works as a poet and artist, making scriptive and documentary poems written on location. His books include Notes for an Atlas, written whilst walking around London, and Bee Journal, his first collection of poetry. Bee Journal was shortlisted for the Costa poetry award and the T S Eliot Prize.

Price: £15.00 / £13.00

Time: 8:00pm