Jenny Mitchell at Manchester Poetry Library

Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor
Poet Jenny Mitchell (from film by Arachne Press)
Poet Jenny Mitchell (from film by Arachne Press).

Jenny Mitchell at Manchester Poetry Library at Manchester Poetry Library, Manchester 24 November 2022 Entrance is free — Visit now

Award-winning poet Jenny Mitchell returns to Manchester Poetry Library to read from her third collection Resurrection of a Black Man. Having joined the Poetry Library online last year to celebrate the Aryamati Poetry Prize 2021, which she won for her poem, ‘Imagining A Forest Made Of Freedom’, Jenny Mitchell appeared at MPL in person in May to read from her first two prize-winning collections, Her Lost Language and Map Of A Plantation; both books are on the syllabus of Manchester Metropolitan University.

Jenny Mitchell appeared at MPL in person in May to read from her first two prize-winning collections, Her Lost Language and Map Of A Plantation; both books are on the syllabus of Manchester Metropolitan University.

Resurrection of a Black Man offers contemporary poems about male family dynamics – the peace, the violence, the fault lines – “using language,” says the blurb, “that aims to transcend global trauma, and reach into the healing heart, creating men whose words fall out as petals”. This collection contains the winners of the inaugural Ironbridge Prize 2022, the Gloucester Poetry Society Open Competition and the Fosseway Prize.

Jenny Mitchell has been nominated twice for the Forward Prize: Best Single Poem, and she is winner of the Poetry Book Awards 2021, the Bedford Prize, the Ware Prize and joint winner of the Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize 2019. Her poems have have been widely published, including in Magma, The Rialto, The Morning Star, The New European and The Interpreter’s House, as well as several anthologies, such as Time and Tide published by Arachne Press, and from which she can be seen reading her poem ‘Church Mary Sounds The Sea’ at the Solstice Shorts Festival in 2019. Her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC2 and she has performed in Italy, France and regularly in London. As Artist in Association at Birkbeck, University of London, she is working on a novel, The Abundance of Water, as well as a project creating a series of poems re-telling the story of Jane Eyre from the perspective of a free woman of colour in the 19th century.

Her second collection Map Of A Plantation is winner of the international Poetry Book Awards 2021, given to the best poetry books produced by indie writers, self-published authors or books published by small independent presses. It was chosen as a Literary Find in the Irish Independent and a Poetry Kit Book of the Month. The collection is described as “giving] voice to contrasting characters on a Jamaican cane plantation in order to examine the widespread and ongoing impact of enslavement. These poems are both tender and uncompromising, always seeking to use the past to heal present-day legacies of a contested and emotive history.” 

Poet Roy McFarlane says: “Map Of A Plantation details the symbiotic relationship between enslaved people and enslavers – harrowing, disturbing and heart-rending. There’s no hiding from the violence but there’s also a ‘tiny eden’ flowered with love of a mother and memories of being loved. A joy to read, this book is a spiritual parchment of pain that transforms into a wild dance of hope.”

Jenny Mitchell’s best-selling debut collection, Her Lost Language, is joint winner of the Geoff Stevens’ Memorial Poetry Prize and it was voted one of the Books of 2019 (Poetry Wales) and was a Jhalak Prize #bookwelove recommendation. An exploration of the impact of British transatlantic enslavement on black lives and family dynamics, the poems in it are said to combine grounded realism with imaginative empathy on a journey from the Caribbean to Britain. “At the heart of the collection is the belief in the power of stories to ‘liberate’ the voice in order to help heal a collective future.”

Jenny Mitchell Map Of A Plantation
Jenny Mitchell Map Of A Plantation

Jenny Mitchell at Manchester Poetry Library at Manchester Poetry Library, Manchester 24 November 2022 Entrance is free Visit now

Where to go near Jenny Mitchell at Manchester Poetry Library

Manchester
Restaurant
The Astronomer

The Astronomer is an exclusive dining space on the 35th floor of Vita Living North on the new Circle Square Development.

The Manchester Museum on Oxford Road Manchester
Manchester
Gallery
The Study
at Manchester Museum

Manchester Museum opened The Study on 11 September 2015. A reworking of the entire top floor of its historic Grade II*-listed building, The Study has been reimagined as a space designed to spark wonder, curiosity and a passion for research in all of its visitors.

Manchester Museum Tours at Manchester Museum
Manchester
Museum
Manchester Museum

The Manchester Museum isn’t one of the UK’s leading university museums for nothing – it has six million objects in its stores, including a full size T-Rex skeleton, and that’s just for starters.

Manchester
Bar or Pub
Kro Bar

Kro Bar, Manchester is an independent pub and music venue housed (somewhat ironically) in the former Temperance Society building.

Manchester
Shop
Want Not Waste

Want Not Waste is a student-run, not-for-profit zero waste shop operating out of Academy 1 at the University of Manchester Students’ Union.

Manchester Academy music venue on Oxford Road Manchester.
Manchester
Music venue
Manchester Academy

The Manchester Academy is a mid size, modern warehouse venue adjacent to the University of Manchester Students’ Union. It lacks any architectural merit and has always been a difficult place…

Christie’s Bistro, Manchester. Courtesy Christie’s Bistro
Manchester
Café or Coffee Shop
Christie’s Bistro

This wood-panelled former science library – part of a cluster of neo-Gothic buildings designed for the University of Manchester by Alfred Waterhouse (he of Manchester Town Hall and London’s Natural History Museum fame) – has a wonderfully bookish interior that turns lunch into something of an event.

What's on: Literature

Writer Nicholas Royle. Photo by Zoe McLean
LiteratureManchester
Ghosts at the Old Library

Levenshulme Old Library has commissioned brand-new festive ghost stories from six writers for three special atmospheric lantern-lit reading events after hours in the Carnegie building.

from £10
LiteratureWest Yorkshire
Poetry at the Dusty Miller

Poetry at the Dusty Miller is a brand-new night with invited readers, organised by Carcanet-published Carola Luther and Judith Willson in the Coiners’ Room in the Mytholmroyd pub.

free entry
Nathan Parker
LiteratureManchester
Verbose at The King’s Arms

One of Manchester’s longest-running monthly spoken word and live literature events, Verbose welcomes two invited headliners to the stage each month, plus a selection of open mic performers.

free entry

Culture Guides

Music in Manchester and the North

Spotlighting global artists who all, in one way or another, break the mould, we preview the best gigs happening this side of Christmas and beyond.