News

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: Towards a Collective Poetics
Posted by Eleanor Careless on 2024-01-10

Western ideas of both the production and reception of poetry often emphasise the individuality of the poet or the reader. Dominant conceptions of the act of writing poetry can thus frame it in narrow individualist-expressive terms. At the same time, Sam Solomon has described the study of poetry in the UK as closely shaped by a “lyric pedagogy” – a practice of reading poetry in a closed [...]

OPEN CALL: BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH  (1958-2023)
Posted by Eleanor Careless on 2023-12-08

OPEN CALL for responses, creative, critical, and/or in memoriam to one of Britain’s greatest innovative poets. Submit here: https://poetry.openlibhums.org/submissions/ 

Gavin Selerie (1949-2023)
Posted by Scott Thurston on 2023-07-14

The Journal is saddened to hear of the loss of poet Gavin Selerie, following cancer. Gavin has been described by Robert Hampson as 'one of the most obviously scholarly of contemporary British poets'. He was born in Hampstead in 1949 and educated at Haileybury, Lincoln College, Oxford, Sussex and York. His first poems were published in 1972 and some of his important volumes of poetry [...]

Callie Gardner (1990-2021)
Posted by Scott Thurston on 2023-03-30

Today, we publish Callie Gardner's beautiful essay on Anna Mendelssohn and Veronica Forrest-Thomson. This article is published posthumously, following the tragic loss of Callie in July 2021. Earlier that year, Callie had signed off the final version of their article, and was looking forward to the work being published in its present form. In their essay, Callie generously models ways of reading [...]

Alan Halsey (1949-2022)
Posted by Scott Thurston on 2022-10-29

The Journal is dismayed to learn of the recent passing of Alan Halsey at the home he shared in Sheffield with Geraldine Monk. Alan was an extraordinary poet, publisher, artist, editor, bookseller, performer -- the author of sixteen major collections and countless smaller pamphlets and projects. His poetry is steeped in literary history and philosophical thought but with a formidable wit and [...]

StAnza Festival 7-13 March
Posted by Scott Thurston on 2022-02-11

This year's StAnza festival (7-13 March), directed by Lucy Burnett, has an impressive innovative poetry programme featuring:Harriet Tarlo, Tom Jenks, Claire Crowther, Vahni Capildeo, Matt Welton, Yang Lian, Sandeep Parmar, Gezim Hadjari, Holly Pester, Elena Rivera, Bridget Khursheed, Khaled Nurul Hakim, Richard Price and Camilla Nelson. There's also the Shearsman Covid anthology showcase, and a [...]

A Celebration of Eric Mottram and Jerome Rothenberg at King's College London 12 March 2022
Posted by Scott Thurston on 2022-01-14

Please find the draft programme of the latest in a series of events memorialising the life and work of Professor Eric Mottram (1924-1995), which on this occasion also comprises a celebration of the work of Jerome Rothenberg. The event is organised by Valerie Soar and takes place on 12 March 2022. Online bookings via Eventbrite here [...]

A Tribute to Lawrence Upton
Posted by Scott Thurston on 2021-11-24

The Argotist, edited by Jeffrey Side, has published a tribute to Lawrence Upton (1949-2020) featuring materials from Robert Hampson, Peter Finch, Richard Kessling and Scott Thurston. You can read the tribute here.

Peter Larkin and Dominic Hand
Posted by Scott Thurston on 2021-11-10

The subject of a recent special issue Peter Larkin and contributor Dominic Hand will be reading at a Zoom event, 3-4.30pm on 11 Nov, on poetry and the Anthropocene. The readings will be followed by a discussion with opportunities for audience members to join in. This event is hosted by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities and will be chaired by Simon Collings, who also contributed [...]

R.I.P. Chris Torrance (1941-2021)
Posted by Gareth Farmer on 2021-09-01

The editors of The Journal of British and Irish Poetry are tremendously saddened to hear of the death of the unique and brilliant poet, Chris Torrance. One of our co-editors, Gareth Farmer, had the privilege of reviewing Test Centre's 2017 edition of The Magic Door for Poetry Wales in 2018. Collecting together eight of Torrance's books, this edition is a remarkable achievement of both editing and [...]

New AV accessible article
Posted by Scott Thurston on 2021-08-13

We are delighted to take the next step in exploring new levels of accessibility for our articles by publishing Natalie Joelle and Kaushika Ratnayake's narrated video presentation of Natalie's article for our Peter Larkin special issue. You can find the video on the article page here.

Introducing our new Editorial Advisory Board
Posted by Scott Thurston on 2021-04-16

The Journal is delighted to officially introduce our new Editorial Advisory Board which convened in January of this year. The board's remit is to bring a diversity of new perspectives to the Journal, to think creatively about new initiatives and to advise on all aspects of the day-to-day running of the Journal and future directions of travel. The new board members and their research interests are [...]