Dead [Women] Poets Society in Leeds

Dead [Women] Poets Society is teaming up with Wharf Chambers to bring you an evening of resurrecting dead women poets in the beautiful city of Leeds. This time we'll be hosting two fabulous Leeds-based poets: Malika Booker and Lizzi Hawkins, who will be communing with the spirits of Jean 'Binta' Breeze and Mary Oliver.

This event will take place at Wharf Chambers in Leeds. We encourage you to wear a mask during this event. You must show a negative PCR or lateral flow test result on the door to gain entry to the event (within 48hrs of the event). Log test results online (https://www.gov.uk/report-covid19-result) to receive your certification via text or email and bring this with you to the night. There will be no exceptions.

Livestream link: https://m.twitch.tv/wharfyc

Please do not attend if you or anyone if your household shows any symptoms of Covid-19. We are planning to live-stream or record the event so you'll be able to access this séance from anywhere, but we are working out this brave new world of hybrid gigs so please bear with us - do check out our séance at WayWORD on 26 September for our next online gig, and our online zine workshop on the afternoon of 23 September.

The main event will be accompanied as ever by our popular Dead [Women] Poets Society Open-Mic, for which we welcome poets and performers of all and no genders to the stage! Our only rule: for every poem of your own, you should also perform one by a dead woman or non-binary poet. Arrive early to sign up for the open mic on the night as it's first come, first served! We're sorry that on this occasion only attendees to the in-person séance will be able to perform.

More about the resurrectors below...

Malika Booker is a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian parentage, living in Leeds. Her  writing spans poetry, theatre, monologue, installation, and education. She is the founder of the writer’s collective ‘Malika’s Kitchen’. Her first collection, Pepper Seed, was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. She is published with the poets Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire in the Penguin Modern Poets series. Malika is a fellow of both the Complete Works and Cave Canem and was inaugural Poet in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company. She is a Creative Writing Teaching Fellow at the University of Leeds. She won the 2020 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem, and was shortlisted for the 2017 prize. Malika will be communing with Jean 'Binta' Breeze, a Jamaican poet who passed away earlier this year. She was the first woman dub poet, working in a male-dominated genre to bring together reggae rhythms, poetry and politics. You can hear some recordings of her performing her work on the Poetry Archive website.

Lizzi Hawkins is a poet from Leeds. She is a proud graduate of both The Writing Squad, and Ilkley Young Writers, with whom she has performed in venues across Yorkshire. Lizzi’s poems are published in The Rialto, The North, The Cadaverine, The Compass Magazine and several anthologies. She is a winner of the 2017 Poetry Business New Poets Prize with her debut pamphlet Osteology, and has been commended in the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award. Lizzi will be communing with Mary Oliver (1931-2019), much-loved American poet of Wild Geese fame ('You do not have to be good. [...] You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves'). Oliver published over 15 essay and poetry collections, and won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her fifth collection, American Primitive. Lesser known facts include that she used to hide pencils in trees so she could write on walks, and she met her wife through another dead woman poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay.

This event will not be BSL interpreted; however a recording will be available after the event and we will aim to provide captions. Let us know any other access requirements at deadwomenpoets@gmail.com.

Come for the poetry, stay for the resurrection! #JoinTheSéance

This event was made possible through funding from Arts Council England. Illustrations by Lily Arnold.