TWO award-winning poets will take to the virtual stage this tonight in the latest of a series of digital events hosted by the Bakehouse.
The local arts organisation has invited internationally renowned wordsmiths Moniza Alvi and Caroline Smith to share some of their verse over Zoom this Saturday night (May 29).
Caroline’s most recently published book of poetry, The Immigration Handbook, was shortlisted for the 2016 Ted Hughes award and has been translated into Italian.
Irish poet Bernard O’Donoghue has called the book “certainly the most moving and inspiring book of poems I read last year”, adding: “It really is a major book of political poems; I find it hard to think of a comparably successful achievement in that area.”
Furthermore, the Essex-born writer is a two-time winner of prestigious Troubadour Poetry Prize.
Moniza’s debut collection, The Country at My Shoulder, released in 1993, was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and the Whitbread poetry prizes whilst her later works Europa (2008) and At the Time of Partition (2013) were both Poetry Book Society Choices and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.
London Magazine has described Moniza, who is originally from Pakistan, as a “skilled story- teller, recounting the extraordinary in the voice of the everyday, so that we accept the miraculous as something we need”.
Budding bards attending the online event will also have the chance to take the floor and share some of their work.
Slots for the Bakehouse’s ‘Fickle Tupperware Bowl of Fate’ open mic, which will take place straight after readings from the poetic duo, will be filled on a first come, first served basis. Anyone interested in reading or attending should email [email protected] ahead of Saturday.
Pre-booking is essential for the event, which begins at 7.15 pm.
Find out more at www.thebakehouse.info.
