Poetry @ Central Library

Edwin Morgan
A Celebration
Edwin Morgan was appointed Scotland's first "Makar" or National Poet in 2004,
and his work now spans more than 50 years. He has received a Queen's Gold Award for Poetry and his latest Carcanet collection, A Book of Lives, won the 2008 Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award.
Born in Glasgow in 1920, he has lived there all his life.
The first in a new series of partnership events between Carcanet Press & Manchester Central Library, this tribute features a talk by KEN COCKBURN, co-ordinator of the Edwin Morgan Archive, video footage of the poet himself, and local poets, readers and fans performing their favourite Morgan poems.

Manchester Central Library
Committee Room, Second Floor
Friday 30th January 1-2pm
FREE

Contact Libby Tempest on 0161 234 1981

Poetry Readings @ Manchester Central Library

Emma McGordon

Emma McGordon is a poet based in Cumbria. Her work has been described by Times Online as “devastating”; they also listed her as one of the 12 writers to watch in 2008. When she was touring with the Generation Txt collective in 2007, she was spotted by London based poetry publishers Tall Lighthouse who have just published her new collection Those who Jump.
Appearing with Emma -
Ann Wilson
Dominic Berry
Sue Wickwar

Manchester Central Library
Committee Room, Second Floor 
Thursday 29 January 6pm onwards
FREE
For more information please contact Libby Tempest on 0161 234 1981
email: l.tempest@manchester .gov.uk

New Contemporary Writing

New Contemporary Writing
The students are back!

We invite you to hear students from Manchester Metropolitan University Creative Writing course read from their work

Manchester Central Library
Reception Room, Second Floor
Wednesday 21 January 1-2pm
FREE

For more information please contact Libby Tempest on 0161 234 1981 

Poem of the Month

The Poem of the Month for December is The Search by Simon Rennie

The Search

With a wing fingertip quiver
The kestrel craves stasis. The ground
Is sheep-shorn in this realm not bounded
By the slow sliding river

Or the brittle, turbulent scree,
Nor by the lines of dry stone walls
Which hunker down when the bird calls
Its mate across the next valley.

Rodent prey is pinned by its sight,
Nervous, quick-hearted, impotent.
Wings are drawn in to aid descent -
More controlled falling than real flight.

Gravity and talons combine,
Impact is fatal, spine-snapping;
A tiny mammal caught napping
In fields denuded by ovine

Teeth. Distorting evolution,
Humanity’s search for its meat
Feeds the kestrel’s search for its meat.
The field-mouse finds oblivion.

Simon Rennie has had work published in The Ugly Tree, Lamport Court and Foreword. He has contributed to, and been on the editorial board of, Crumpsall Green and Muse 6. Simon is currently in the third year of an English degree at MMU and has hosted Inn Verse, a monthly Manchester poetry event, for over a year.