Poetry at Birkbeck

#BBKArtsWeeks

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On which road do poetry, pedagogy, solidarity, and survival collide / is this the attic that holds the stranger’s dreams / who wipes the door handles when the Dr. leaves?

This collection of poems was produced in a pandemic for #BBKArtsWeeks 2020 to celebrate the launch of Steve Willey’s Living In: Creative Solidarities in Palestine (The Onslaught Press, 2020) and to share some of the best poetry written this year by students on BA Creative Writing and BA Creative Writing and English at Birkbeck. The poets are Matt Bates, Megan Massey and Dana Alice Niamh.

ABOUT THE POETS

MATT BATES
Is editor-at-large for Muswell Press. He was formerly Fiction Buyer for WHSmith Travel where he created and curated the Fresh Talent promotion for new writers. He has judged for The Costa Prize, The Jerwood Prize, The Bookseller’s Association and The Romantic Novelists Association. He writes a poetry that knows of the city’s broken and hidden places, of desire, of love, and guillotine-windows.

M. R. MASSEY
A writer whose work is usually about magic, folklore and the Indian diaspora. In the future she plans to crack the Voynich Manuscript, raise children in outer space, and become poet-laureate – among other things. You can e-mail her to talk about intersectionality, Doctor Who, or that strange dream you keep having: megan.massey@live.com

DANA ALICE NIAMH
autistic, feminist, working on debut collection Erotic Object, enjoys long walks on the intertextuality & pulling the legs off forms, more & contact: danaaliceniamh.poetry.blog

STEVE WILLEY
Author of Elegy (Veer Books, 2013); Sea Fever (Knives Forks and Spoons, 2017), Living In: Creative Solidarities in Palestine (The Onslaught Press, 2020). Lecturer in Critical and Creative Writing, Birkbeck, University of London. Director of the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre and posts at stevewilley.com. He waits for/at the site where poetry, pedagogy, survival and solidarity collide.

Image credit: Emil Whitehouse-Willey (18 months old)

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