Workshop, led by Julia Deakin 7pm
Guest readings and open mic 8pm
Guest poet: Julia Deakin
Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham
£5 waged, £3 unwaged
JULIA DEAKIN was born in Nuneaton and worked her way north via the Potteries, Manchester and York to Huddersfield. Widely published, she has read twice on Poetry Please and won several competitions.‘Crafted, tender poems, written with passion and purpose,’ said Simon Armitage of her first collection, Without a Dog (Graft, 2008). Anne Stevenson ‘read it straight through at a single sitting’ enjoying its ‘mature wit and wisdom’. ‘Real linguistic inventiveness’ said Ian McMillan. ‘Bold, irreverent and wickedly funny,’ said Alison Brackenbury of her Poetry Business Competition winner, The Half-Mile-High-Club.Michael Symmons Roberts describes her second book, Eleven Wonders (Graft 2012) as ‘powerful, assured, elegant. Her formal skill and inventiveness make this a rich and eclectic collection. Those who, like me, have admired her individual poems in the past, will be struck by their cumulative strength and range, and this book deserves to win her many new readers.’Julia lives near Huddersfield and teaches at the University of Bradford.More details at www.juliadeakin.co.uk
