2-4pm Saturday 21st October 2017. £3 entrance.
Full Festival outline here:
http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=19273&p=0&fsize=2Mb&ftype=Sunderland%20Libraries%20Literature%20Festival%20Programme.PDF/
Sundered
(For The Quiet Compere Sunderland leg)
We champions of Pallion,
we builders of ships,
we pipework wranglers.
We sons of Hendon
and Roker daughters
caught by the nets
of a slaughter trawler
who stripped our streets,
shutdown our shops,
took food from the mouths
of the bairns of the town.
We stand sundered
but unbowed,
made from the stuff
the south cannot dream of.
The tide is ours
and it is due in.
by Harry Gallagher
Harry Gallagher has been published by The Interpreter’s House, Poets Republic, Ofipress, Rebel Poetry and many others. He performs nationwide and his new book, “Northern Lights” is out in September, from Stairwell Books.
Photo by Kev Howard
Bob Beagrie lives in Middlesbrough and is a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Teesside University as well as being a co-director of Ek Zuban Press & Literature Development. He has published eight collections of poetry to date and his work has been translated into French, Estonian, Spanish, Finnish, Dutch, Danish and Urdu.
Pippa Little is Scots but settled in Northumberland. She is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newcastle University. Her second full collection Twist came out in March this year from Arc.
Mandy Maxwell is a poet from Northumberland. In 2009 Mandy completed an MA in Creative Writing at Newcastle Uni. Mandy has performed in venues across the UK and has been published in pamphlets, zines, anthologies and online. In 2015 Mandy began running The Stanza poetry and spoken word events to bring new and established writers with their words and voices to the stage in the North East.
Judi Sutherland is a poet who lives in Barnard Castle, County Durham. Her work has appeared in a number of magazines and in a chapbook which she shares with Lancashire poet, Jim Burns; ‘Dark Matter VI’ from Black Light Engine Room Press. She is the proprietor of The Stare’s Nest poetry webzine and she is working on her first pamphlet for publication early in 2018.
The Quiet Compere
Sarah L Dixon runs regular events in Manchester/Huddersfield. She hosted a medical-themed poetry event at Cheltenham Poetry Festival in 2014. Sarah has toured as The Quiet Compere since 2014 and received Arts Council funding for 24 events in 2014 and 2015. Quiet Compere events enlist established poets and emerging voices.
The Quiet Compere introduces them with little fanfare, so the poems (and not the poet’s track record) tell you all you need to know.