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            [post_content] => <img class="size-medium wp-image-232315 alignleft" src="https://poetrysociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Sophie-Robinson-by-Christa-Holka-29Jun18-0260-800x533.jpg" alt="Sophie Robinson headshot by Christa Holka" width="800" height="533" />

<em>Tickets to the live workshop are sold out. Due to high demand we are now offering a limited number of recordings for the workshop <strong>Poetry and Desire </strong>with <strong>Sophie Robinson</strong>. </em>

<em>The recording will expire on 23:59 on 2nd May 2024.</em>

<em>Please note: this is not an automated system. Our office hours are 10-6 Monday-Friday and our staff will send you the recording as soon as possible within these hours. If you have any queries, please email [email protected].</em>

This writing workshop will focus on desire and erotics in its most expanded, political and poetic sense, using repetition, utterance, sensory detail, metaphor and somatic experience as ways of exploring and claiming desire textually and formally. With Sophie's guidance, you will explore taking the sensory experiences of desire to the page and write using desire as a playful energy, taking inspiration from Audre Lorde, June Jordan and Gertrude Stein.

Sophie Robinson is a poet, novelist and nonfiction writer living in Norwich. Her poetry collection <em>Rabbit</em> (Boiler House Press, 2018) was the Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice. Her work has been published in Granta, The Guardian, Stylist, BOMB Magazine, The Believer, N+1, The Poetry Review and The White Review. She runs <a href="https://www.instagram.com/devotionworkshop">Devotion</a>, a radical and inclusive online creative writing workshop series, and publishes regular essays on feeling at her Substack <a href="https://feelingsalmanac.substack.com/">Feelings Almanac</a>. She is currently finishing her first novel. 
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            [post_date] => 2024-01-25 17:17:55
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            [post_content] => <h4><img class="wp-image-229199 alignnone" src="https://poetrysociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/NewSocialAsset_1-800x800.png" alt="" width="557" height="557" /></h4>
<h4>The Poetry Book Fair is back! </h4>
The Poetry Society’s <b>Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair </b>celebrates the vitality of poetry in the UK – it’s a day of conversation and shopping, an unrivalled opportunity to browse the very best in contemporary poetry publishing and to meet publishers, organisations and poets.  
<h5>What is it?</h5>
Free Verse is a book and magazine fair. Publishers each have their own stall, and bring along their latest wares for the public to peruse. We have over 70 independent poetry publishers in attendance, and Free Verse offers the best chance to find innovative, new, and up-and-coming poetry all in one place. Expect limited editions, poem-objects, fine letter-press printing, radical zines, artists’ editions, miniatures, pamphlets, translations, anthologies, and the best independently published poetry collections. Find out more and see the full list of exhibitors <a href="https://poetrysociety.org.uk/projects/free-verse-poetry-book-and-magazine-fair/">here</a>. 
<h5>What’s happening on the day?</h5>
The main event is the Book Fair itself, which runs from 11:30 to 18:30. There’ll be dozens of publishers exhibiting in the main space, waiting for you to come along, have a chat, and get your hands on the best new poetry books and magazines. 

Make sure to stick around after the fair, though, for the <strong><a href="https://poetrysociety.org.uk/event/free-verse-after-party-and-gala-reading/">Free Verse After-Party and Gala Reading</a></strong> from 19:00. This free after-party will feature readings from poets representing presses across the fair, including Z. R. Ghani, Timothy Adès, John Greening, Kate Noakes, Sujatha Menon, Isobel Williams, Eira Murphy and more. There’ll be drinks on sale, publishers and poets to chat to, and an incredible line-up.

If that’s not enough poetry for you, we also have two incredible panel events in the morning. At 10:45, there’s the <strong><a href="https://poetrysociety.org.uk/event/free-verse-magazine-editors-panel-with-lisa-kelly-magma-jo-clement-butchers-dog-and-ben-townley-canning-fourteen-poems/">Free Verse Magazine Editors’ Panel</a> </strong>with Lisa Kelly of <em>Magma</em>, Jo Clement of <em>Butcher’s Dog</em> and Ben Townley-Canning of <em>fourteen poems</em>, chaired by Andrew Neilson.

And at 11:45, there’s the <strong><a href="https://poetrysociety.org.uk/event/free-verse-editors-panel-with-anthony-anaxagorou-out-spoken-press-hasti-montez-press-and-aaron-kent-broken-sleep/">Free Verse Book Editors’ Panel</a> </strong>with Out-Spoken Press’s Anthony Anaxagorou, Hasti of Montez Press, and Broken Sleep’s Aaron Kent, chaired by Billie Manning. 
<h5>When and where is it?</h5>
The 2024 Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair will take place from 11:30 – 18:30 on <b>Saturday 20 April 2024</b> in the Lower Hall of <a href="https://www.stcolumbas.org.uk/">St Columba’s Church</a>, Pont Street, London, SW1X 0BD. You can find information on travel, parking and access on our <a href="https://poetrysociety.org.uk/free-verse-poetry-book-and-magazine-fair-faqs/">FAQs page</a>.

<strong>Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair is free and there's no need for a ticket.</strong> However, we'd love to get a sense of how many people are coming along. Help us out by booking a free ticket to let us know you're coming and you'll be added to a prize draw and be in with a chance to <strong>win a £50 spending spree at Free Verse!</strong>
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            [post_content] => <strong>Join us at Free Verse for an exciting panel event and Q&A with three distinguished magazine editors. </strong>

Ever wondered how a poetry magazine works? Or how editors decide which poems to publish? Want to know what it really takes to set up your own magazine? Come along and find out at this exciting panel discussion, which kicks off <a href="https://poetrysociety.org.uk/projects/free-verse/">Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair</a>. 

<a href="https://www.joclement.co.uk/"><strong>Jo Clement</strong></a>, the editor of <em>Butcher's Dog </em>magazine, will be in discussion with <em>fourteen poems</em> editor <a href="https://www.instagram.com/14poems/?hl=en"><strong>Ben Townley-Canning</strong> </a>and <a href="https://lisakellypoet.com/"><strong>Lisa Kelly</strong></a> of <em>Magma</em>, chaired by <a href="https://www.badlilies.uk/"><em>Bad Lilies</em></a> co-editor and chair of the Poetry Society, <a href="https://andrewneilson.uk/"><strong>Andrew Neilson</strong></a>.

<a href="https://www.butchersdogmagazine.co.uk/"><em>Butcher's Dog</em></a> is a bi-annual poetry magazine founded and published in North East England. Independent and egalitarian, it prints outstanding poems by diverse writers with distinctive voices from across the UK and ROI.

Like all the best poetry, <a href="https://magmapoetry.com/"><em>Magma</em></a> is always surprising. Every issue of Magma has a different editor, either members of our board or a prominent poet acting as a guest editor. It’s that fresh eye in each issue which gives Magma its unique variety.

<a href="https://www.fourteenpoems.com/about"><em>fourteen poems</em></a> is a London-based poetry journal, publishing the most exciting LGBTQ+ poets 3 times a year. Every issue they bring together fourteen of the best poets in the world, printing their queer takes on sex, love, race, gender and life in the LGBTQ+ global community.

<strong>Saturday 20 April. 10:45 - 11:30. The Library at St. Columba's Church, Pont Street, London, SW1x 0BD. Tickets £3.</strong>

(Tickets are strictly limited; if you can't make it along, please (please!) let us know as soon as possible so we can refund you and re-allocate the ticket. If the event is sold out, please email Ali Lewis on [email protected] to be added to a waiting list.) 
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'Sertraline fever' was commended in the 2023 National Poetry Competition, judged by Will Harris, Clare Pollard and Jane Draycott. From the judges: 'This brilliantly intense poem is a fever-dream, the speaker trying to find meaning by obsessively noticing orange - kimchi, chimney pots, tomcats, cantaloupe. The sense of building mania is visceral and truly disorientating; the ending devastating. I was all in.'

Sertraline fever

by Katie O’Pray

                       I dreamt thick
marmalade – elastic bagels – dad’s
chevy – everything good bleeds
orange – I’ve been noticing –
the pause before the traffic slows
or starts – the cars do move but
gingerly – I’ve woken to the steamed
peaches of my windows – jangled
bags of groceries and the change
tray on the bus – copper-full – both
my childish earrings tugging
at my lobes – I like to eat orange
zest and hot sauce and butter
-nut squash – everything good blushing
warm and dusky – kimchi – inari –
the streetlights twitching on
in my feeble little body – I am finding
the orange in every scene – panning
to a chimney pot – a salt lamp – to ripped
and rolled train tickets – herb glow –
my neighbour’s brickwork but not mine –
a skulking tomcat – I tip my hat
to him – I am a starlet playing
my role so perfectly – I feel like
a breaking fever – a clockwork
cantaloupe – putting the plastic
in the recycling bin and moving
my beech lipstick around my lines
with poise – drawing attention –
my own mouth giving it all
meaning – I am humming along to channel
orange in the kitchen – sweet life – being
happy enough to bear it – smiling wide
as a tiger – I’m collecting orange hearts
on instagram – can’t hear anyone
else talking much – just the hiss
of my candles getting smaller – them –
becoming more orange flame than wax

The Poetry Society was founded in 1909 to promote “a more general recognition and appreciation of poetry”.  Since then, it has grown into one of Britain’s most dynamic arts organisations, representing British poetry both nationally and internationally.  Today it has more than 5,000 members worldwide and publishes The Poetry Review.

With innovative education and commissioning programmes and a packed calendar of performances, readings and competitions, The Poetry Society champions poetry for all ages.

More about the Poetry Society…