An Evening with Clare Shaw

Open Mic Event

Website: https://wordsworth.org.uk/blog/events/an-evening-with-clare-shaw/

Our contemporary poetry reading series ‘Go to the poets, they will speak to thee’ is running throughout 2022, curated and hosted by poet Kim Moore. We will be listening to what poets have to say about our turbulent times, and how poetry can cross borders to challenge, delight and inspire us. Each event in the series is part reading, part open mic – and the theme of the open mic changes every month!

In the poem ‘Michael’, William Wordsworth writes that ‘There is a comfort in the strength of love; / ’Twill make a thing endurable, which else / Would overset the brain, or break the heart’. Our guest poet this month is Clare Shaw, someone who we think would also align themselves to this philosophy. Their fourth poetry collection Towards a General Theory of Love (Bloodaxe, 2022) is an examination of love in all its complexity – the love between lovers, between friends and between children and parents, and what happens when love is no longer there.

Our open mic theme this month then has to be ‘love’ – please feel free to interpret this theme widely!

Price: £5.00 / £0.00. (5 free tickets available to those who would not otherwise be able to attend)

Time: 7:30pm