Poetry at the Dusty Miller
Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature EditorVisit now
Poetry at the Dusty Miller
Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.
Since its first outing in December 2023, Calder Valley reading series Poetry at the Dusty Miller (in the Coiners’ Room in the Mytholmroyd pub) has been inviting three or four guests to read each month, gathering considerable steam, with organisers Carola Luther and Judith Willson, both published by Manchester’s Carcanet Press, so far welcoming the likes of Lucy Burnett, Steve Ely, Rebecca Hurst, Tom Jenks, Andrew McMillan and Kim Moore, winner of the 2022 Forward Prize for Best Collection.
Hot on the heels of last month’s guests Tom Branfoot, Nigel King and Clare Shaw, this time round PATDM welcomes Sarah Corbett, launching her new book The Ishtar Gate, out on Pavilion/Liverpool University Press, Mytholmroyd-based poet Winston Plowes and a the newly announced Poet Laureate for Rochdale, Sammy Weaver.
Sarah Corbett has published six collections of poetry, including the verse-novel And She Was (Pavilion Poetry, 2015) and A Perfect Mirror (Pavilion, 2018). Her first collection, The Red Wardrobe (Seren Books, 1998), was awarded an Eric Gregory Award and shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and her work has been widely translated and anthologised. Sarah is the co-editor (with a previous PATDM guest, Ian Humphreys) of After Sylvia: Poems and Essays in Celebration of Sylvia Plath (Nine Arches Press, 2022), and in 2022 she produced and directed the Sylvia Plath Literary Festival. Sarah has published essays on poetry, writing, and the work of Sylvia Plath, and has produced poetry reading series and collaborative arts projects, including ‘Dorothy’s Colour’ (2017-18). She is currently working with poet and dance choreographer Helen Calcutt on a dance translation of And She Was. Sarah has taught creative writing in higher education since 2004 and is currently a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Lancaster.
Winston Plowes teaches creative writing in schools and works with adult groups in Calderdale and beyond. He is based aboard his floating home near Hebden Bridge. His next publication will be a collection of Urdu ghazals in English with translations, First of all, I Wrote Your Name published by Stairwell Books later in 2025. He receives regular advice from his friends and spiritual advisers, the Canada geese he calls Ringo and Maureen.
Sammy Weaver’s debut pamphlet Angola, America (Seren, 2022) won Mslexia’s Poetry Pamphlet Prize 2021 and was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award 2023. Her poems have appeared in The Irish Times, The Moth, Colorado Review, Mslexia, Anthropocene and The Island Review. She was made a Yaddo Fellow in 2025. Sammy is the Poet Laureate for Rochdale 2025-26.
The organisers of Poetry at the Dusty Miller say just turn up, no booking is necessary and all are welcome. The event is free, with a hat passed around at the end of the evening to contribute towards the performing poets’ travel expenses, and there will also be books for sale – so remember to bring some readies. Getting there is not too difficult, with a bus stop outside and Mytholmroyd Railway Station a five-minute walk (and regular trains from Victoria if you’re heading over from Manchester).
