Carcanet Book Launch: Tim Liardet & Julian Turner

Contact: events.manchester@waterstones.com

New work by two of Carcanet's renowned poets, plus a rare opportunity to hear them in conversation, with readings from their poetry collections.

Julian Turner has published three previous collections of poetry: Crossing the Outskirts, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize best first collection in 2002, Orphan Sites (2006) and Planet-Struck (2011). Born in Cheadle Hulme, near Manchester, in 1955, he was educated at New College, Oxford and Goldsmiths, London. From 2013-15 he was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Leeds University. He lives with his partner in Otley, West Yorkshire, and works as a writer and counsellor.

His new work, Desolate Market, akes as its tuning fork a line from William Blake’s Vela, or the 4 Zoas: ‘Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy.’ Fascinated by the interaction of material and mystical forces, Turner sets up a series of test cases in which the power of the human imagination, and its susceptibility to quasi-mystical influence, are explored.

Tim Liardet is the recipient of many literary awards, including the T.S. Eliot prize, for which he has been shortlisted twice. Born in London and educated at the University of York, Liardet worked variously and travelled widely before moving into higher education. He has reviewed contemporary poetry for an extensive number of journals and newspapers, including the Guardian, Poetry Review and PN Review, and his poetry has been translated into Farsi, Macedonian and German. He is Professor of Poetry at Bath Spa University.

In his eleventh book of poems, Arcimboldo’s Bulldog: New and Selected Poems, Liardet spans nine of his ten award-winning collections adding new poems and fresh produce, reconfiguring his life’s work to date. The book draws on his two T. S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted collections The Blood Choir (2006) and The World Before Snow (2015). Vivid images, large abstractions, symbols, allegory, elegy, provocation, confession and lyric find a necessary place in his work. Arcimboldo’s Bulldog records achievement and includes a promissory note towards his next collection.

This is a free event. Please email events.manchester@waterstones.com to register your interest.

Entry: Free, booking required

Time: 6:00pm