University of West London Launches Poets Talking Series
Katharine Towers and Zaffar Kunial to feature in first event
Katherine Towers and Zaffar Kunial . Picture: UWL
January 5, 2023
Two prize-winning English poets, Katharine Towers and Zaffar Kunial, are to give a talk and read from their work at an event at the University of West London (UWL).
It will be the first in a series of poetry events this year in collaboration with the UWL’s English & Creative Writing Programme.
The two poets will talk about the roots of creativity, language and what it means to be a poet in England today on Wednesday 11 January.
Katharine Towers was born in London and lives in the Peak District. Her work reflects her interest in the natural world and her love of music. Both BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 have used her poems which have also appeared in The Guardian, Poetry Review, Poetry London and numerous anthologies including the Forward Book of Poetry. Her first collection, The Floating Man (2010) won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. It was also on the shortlist for the Ted Hughes Award, New Work in Poetry; and for the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. The Remedies (2016), her second collection, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. Her most recent 2021 collection Oak was a Poetry Book of the Month in The Guardian. A poem from The Floating Man appeared as a Poem on the Underground. Her work is published by Picador Poetry.
Zaffar Kunial was born in Birmingham and lives in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire. He published a pamphlet in the Faber New Poets series in 2014 and was Poet-in-Residence at the Wordsworth Trust the same year. In 2011 he won third prize in the National Poetry Competition with ‘Hill Speak’. He is the author of one full-length poetry collection, Us (2018), which made the shortlist for both the Costa Poetry Award and the T. S. Eliot Prize. In Us, Kunial, the son of an English mother and a Kashmiri father, takes his own identity as his central subject. Faber & Faber published his new collection, England’s Green in 2022. Zaffar is one of this year’s winners of the prestigious Windham Campbell Prize.
In addition to meeting two of the leading contemporary poets in the UK today, there's an opportunity to buy a copy of their latest books and have them signed.
Poets Talking is only possible because of the support of Literary Agent and Lecturer in Creative Writing, John Saddler and the University of West London. John Saddler created the event and is responsible for commissioning the participating poets. The University of West London’s English and Creative Writing Degree Programme is promoting the event to their students and making it possible for them to attend free of charge.
Tickets to the event cost £10 which includes welcome refreshments. To book a seat, click on this link.
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