Goodness, that was a year, wasn't it? Congratulations to all for making it to the end of 2020! We want to round-up the year and say another huge thank you to you for being there on this wild ride.
Cast your minds back to January, when we were all set to run our Arts Council England funded national tour. We kicked off the year with two brilliant events at DINA, Sheffield with Suzannah Evans and Warda Yassin resurrecting Nadia Anjuman and Lucille Clifton, and The Forum, Norwich where Caroline Bird and Jade Cuttle resurrected Anna Wickham and Gisèle Prassinos (podcasted here). We planned to go to Leeds, Halifax, Oxford, Newcastle and London but with venues shutting due to Covid-19, we postponed our events and moved online.
Our London resurrectors, Bridget Minamore and Nina Mingya Powles, came through with two brilliant responses to dead women poets Margaret Walker and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, which we published to our blog in July. It's a fantastic appetite-whetter for their live séance which, we hope, will go ahead at The Poetry Café in 2021 or online.
This year, we also published Ruth Sutoyé's resurrection of June Jordan, and shared two from the archives - Helen Mort's resurrection of Sarah Kane and Helen Bowell's resurrection of Gwendolyn Brooks.
On International Transgender Day of Visibility in March we highlighted some gender-bending poets of the past, and commissioned an incredible essay from Rachel Mann on Miss Alfred Tennyson.
We've been really proud of what we've put online this year and we plan to bring more of these creative responses to you soon!
In the summer, we had the huge privilege of guest-editing Modern Poetry in Translation. You helped us to crowd-fund an amazing £2,419, enabling us to edit and launch a bumper issue of MPT with a focus on dead women poets - something that's never been done before. We still can't believe we really made this happen! You can order the issue here, and watch our first online séance, with three translators featured in the issue (Jessica Wood, Natalie Linh Bolderston and Zoe Brigley) here.
Behind the scenes, we've been making partnerships ready for new ventures in 2021. We are crossing all our fingers and toes that we'll be able to finish our tour next year, and we're currently planning another digital séance which we hope to share more about soon.
Until then... it's been a tough year, but we are so grateful for all your support in 2020. We're wishing you all the best for the new year - see you in 2021.
Helen, Jas & Lily
Dead [Women] Poets Society co-directors