Winchester Poetry Festival 2025
Friday Headline: Diane Seuss, Mona Arshi, Luke Kennard
In celebration of our festival’s focus on fresh approaches to the canon, we are proud to present three major poets with their new collections. Diane Seuss, who will read by livestream from the US, revisits her poetic education and great love: Keats. Mona Arshi’s new work rescues overlooked women from the edges of Greek tragedy, while Luke Kennard makes us see Shakespearean sonnets and biblical texts anew.
Diane Seuss’s sixth collection is Modern Poetry, a finalist for the National Book Award. frank: sonnets, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is a memoir in linked contemporary sonnets, while Modern Poetry explores a self-education in poetry, and the efficacy of poetry in a harrowing world. Both are published in the UK by Fitzcarraldo Editions, and will feature in this reading.
Mona Arshi’s debut collection Small Hands (2015) won the Forward Prize for best first collection and was followed by Dear Big Gods (2019) and her novel Somebody Loves You (2021). Her third collection of poetry, Mouth, is published by Chatto and Windus in July 2025.
Luke Kennard is a poet and novelist who lives in Birmingham and teaches at the university. His sixth poetry collection, Notes on the Sonnets, won the Forward Prize in 2021; The Book of Jonah is his seventh.
Diane Seuss will be appearing virtually at this event
Suitable for: all
Duration: 1.5 hours
Format: in person and online
Access: BSL interpreted
