THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED IN LIGHT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC.

This evening of readings follows the half-day symposium on 'Revoicing Early Medieval Poetry' and brings together poets and writers who are reworking and revoicing the material of the early medieval past in their contemporary practice. The evening will feature readings from Canal Laureate (2013-15) and poet Jo Bell, poet and non-fiction writer Nancy Campbell, poet and producer Degna Stone, and poet, composer and sound artist Rowan Evans.

The symposium is organised by Fran Brooks (UCL), Beth Whalley (KCL) and Fran Allfrey (KCL), with the help of Millie Horton-Insch and Calum Cockburn as part of 'New Old English: Performance, Poetry, Practice', a UCL Creative Fellowship project with Rowan Evans and Maisie Newman for 2019-20. As part of the Creative Fellowship, Rowan and Maisie will develop WULF, their dark, feminist adaptation of the anonymous Old English poem ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’, in dialogue with staff and students. The symposium will also offer an opportunity to learn more about this project and to visit a site-specific installation in the North Observatory, a decommissioned astronomical building in UCL’s main quad.

This event is open to everyone and you don't have to have attended the symposium to join us for the readings.

This event is supported by the IAS Creative Fellowship, and the Octagon fund at UCL, as well as The Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies (CLAMS) and the English Department at KCL.

For further details and accessibility info, please contact Fran Brooks, f.brooks@ucl.ac.uk

More about the poets:

Poet, Jo Bell was the inaugural Canal Laureate for the Canal & River Trust and The Poetry Society from 2013-2015. Jo Bell was formerly an industrial archaeologist specialising in industrial remains like mines, railways… and canals. She discovered historic narrowboats and began writing poetry seriously at about the same time; and her career has since included running a fleet of historic narrowboats and acting as director of National Poetry Day for six years.

Nancy Campbell is a writer of poetry and non-fiction. A series of residencies with Arctic research institutions between 2010 and 2017 has resulted in many projects responding to the environment, most recently The Library of Ice: Readings in a Cold Climate, which was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2019. She is currently a Literature Fellow at Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia in Bamberg, Germany. Nancy’s first poetry collection Disko Bay (‘a beautiful debut from a deft, dangerous and dazzling new poet writing from the furthest reaches of both history and climate change’–Carol Ann Duffy) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2016 and the 2017 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize.

Rowan Evans is a poet, composer and sound artist and studied at Cambridge and Bristol Universities. He received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2015 and is the author of The Last Verses of Beccán (Guillemot Press, 2019), cante jondo mixtape (If a Leaf Falls Press, 2017), ODE RHIZOME MOUNTAIN SONG (Moot Press, 2016), freak red (Projective Industries, 2015), and returnsongs (Wide Range, 2012). A selection of his work appears in Penguin Modern Poets 7: These Hard and Shining Things (Penguin, 2018) with Geoffrey Hill and Toby Martinez de las Rivas. Rowan composes music and sound for performance, theatre, film and installation and is artistic co-director of the interdisciplinary performance collaboration Fen. He co-edits Moot Press and co-curates the ANATHEMA reading series. Rowan is currently undertaking practice-based PhD research into modern poetry and ancient language at Royal Holloway, University of London, and is a Creative Fellow at University College London 2019/20.

Originally from the Midlands, Degna Stone is now based in Tyne and Wear. She is a co-founder and former Managing Editor of Butcher’s Dog poetry magazine, a Contributing Editor at The Rialto, and a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet selector. She received a Northern Writers Award in 2015 and holds an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University and is an associate artist with The Poetry Exchange. She is a fellow of The Complete Works III and received a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2019. Stone has worked with Apples and Snakes, English PEN, The Poetry School and New Writing North to deliver creative writing workshops and courses for adults and young people.

Revoicing Early Medieval Poetry: An Evening of Readings