An Evening with Caroline Bird

Our contemporary poetry reading series ‘Go to the poets, they will speak to thee’ returns in 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!

We are starting 2022 off with a bang with our guest poet Caroline Bird. She is the author of six collections from Carcanet including the Forward Prize winning The Air Year, published in 2020. Caroline’s work is surreal, funny, playful and above all, surprising. Whilst Wordsworth isn’t best known for his playfulness, the revolutionary nature of Lyrical Ballads caused both surprise and consternation at the time of publication. Our open mic theme and invitation is to bring a poem with a surprise in it, whether this surprise takes the form of epiphany or revelation, confession or holding back, or maybe the surprise is in the form that you use – however you choose to approach this theme, we’re looking forward to hearing your poems!

Open mic slots are limited and must be booked in advance. Email host Kim Moore at wordsworthreadingseries@outlook.com for a spot. (Open mic is now full.)

How to book and attend

Please read our guide to booking and attending online events before you purchase a ticket.

This event is a Zoom Webinar and the audience will not appear on screen. If you have bought a ticket and signed up to the open mic your audio and video will be enabled during the open mic.

Five free tickets are available for each session for those experiencing financial hardship that would otherwise not be able to attend. This is on a first come first served basis with no questions asked about your situation. Please email Hannah at h.catterall@wordsworth.org.uk. (All free tickets have now been claimed.)

Live captions will be provided by Otter.