For the seventh Matt Simpson Memorial Reading, hosted by Liverpool Poetry Space, Professor Deryn Rees-Jones will be reading from her new collection, Hôtel Amour, a sequel to her T. S. Eliot Prize shortlisted Erato. Deryn Rees-Jones’ remarkable new collection sees her returning to ongoing preoccupations: the complexities of memory and memorialisation, desire and the body, and poetry’s place in a hostile world.
The Matt Simpson Memorial Reading was established by Dr Eleanor Rees at Liverpool Hope University, working with The Windows Project. Previous readings included the following poets George Szirtes (2018), Liz Berry (2019), Helen Mort (2021, online), Kayo Chingonyi (2022), Seán Hewitt (2023), Janette Ayachi (2024).
Deryn Rees-Jones is Professor of Poetry at the University of Liverpool, and editor of the Pavilion Poetry (Liverpool University Press). The Memory Tray (Seren Books, 1995) was shortlisted for a Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection. Her collection of work includes: Signs Round A Dead Body (Seren Books, 1998), Quiver (Seren Books, 2004), Consorting With Angels (Bloodaxe, 2005), Modern Women Poets (Bloodaxe, 2005) and And You, Helen (Seren Books, 2014), a meditation on Helen and Edward Thomas, illustrated by Charlotte Hodes. In 2010 she received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors. Her collection Burying the Wren was on the 2012 T.S. Eliot Prize shortlist, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year. Erato (2019) was again a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. She is also the author of Paula Rego: The Art of Story (Thames & Hudson 2019) and the lyric essay Fires (Shoestring, 2019). She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2024. Her collection What It’s Like to be Alive: Selected Poems (Seren, 2016) was also a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation.
Matt Simpson was born in Bootle in 1936 Simpson to a working-class family with a long seafaring tradition. He was educated at Bootle Grammar School. In 1955 he won a place at Cambridge where he read English. Matt was an English poet, literary critic, mentor and Senior Lecturer at Liverpool Hope University. He published six full collections of poetry, literary criticism and essays and work for children. He died in 2009.
