Potty poetry: £1200 poetry commission up for grabs

Fancy yourself as a bit of a bard? Best put pen to paper and get your application in for a £1,200 poetry commission that’s on offer courtesy of Manchester Literature Festival and Manchester Art Gallery. Whoever gets picked will be expected to produce six new poems that each focus on….pottery. OK, so the ceramic stuff may not have the most ‘urban’ of reputations but it does tap into Manchester’s remarkable industrial past.

Manchester, you see, was once the national centre of ceramic innovation (just don’t tell Stoke on Trent). A forthcoming exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery, Pilkington’s Lancastrian Pottery: Art and Industry in Greater Manchester, intends to demonstrate Manchester’s ceramic glories by showcasing 150 prime pieces of historic Pilkington pottery and tiles. The commissioned poet will get to dig about amongst the display and look at the wider social and artistic history that surrounded what was once one of the world’s most important ceramics manufacturers.

The result? Six new poems that will be performed as part of this October’s Manchester Literature Festival. The deadline for applications is this Friday – 19 March. Find out more at Manchester Literature Festival’s blog.

Image: 1920 Forsyth vase, courtesy Manchester Art Gallery.

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