Poets & Players at Burgess Foundation

It’s the second Poets & Players of 2024, back at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation with an afternoon of words and music, featuring readings by Peter Sansom, Carrie Etter and Anita Pati.

“Mr Poetry”, according to the Poet Laureate, Peter Sansom is co-director – along with the poet Ann Sansom – of The Poetry Business, based in Sheffield, where they run courses and edit The North magazine and the independent publisher Smith|Doorstop Books. As a poet himself, Peter Sansom’s books include a Selected Poems published by Manchester’s Carcanet Press and, more recently, Lanyard. Bloodaxe publish his best-selling “how to” guide Writing Poems. Sansom has been company poet with M&S and the Prudential, and Fellow in Poetry at universities in both Leeds and Manchester, so, in a sense, he’s back on home turf. Simon Armitage says: “In my view, the UK’s most astute and effective tutor, a guiding light through his deft criticism and the example of his own work.”

American expatriate Carrie Etter’s fifth collection of poetry, Grief’s Alphabet, is published by Seren this month to critical acclaim. Her poems have appeared in The Guardian, The New Republic, The New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement and The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem, among many other journals and anthologies internationally. She also writes short stories, flash fiction, essays and reviews. In 2022 she joined the creative writing faculty at the University of Bristol.

In The Guardian, Rishi Dastidar described Grief’s Alphabet as “an impassioned reckoning” and said: “Etter has the ability to floor you as she explores guilt […] and makes everyday observations that are anything but banal […] She is particularly good at showing how finding a language for grief is close to impossible.”

Born and raised in a northern coastal town, Anita Pati now lives in London and has worked at various points in journalism and libraries. Hiding to Nothing, her debut poetry collection, was published in April 2022 by Liverpool’s Pavilion Poetry and was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize, with work highly commended in the Forward Prizes. Her first poetry pamphlet, Dodo Provocateur, won The Rialto Open Pamphlet Competition (2019) and was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Awards.

Music this month comes courtesy Arian Sadr, an amazing musician whose focus is Persian percussion instruments.

Everyone is welcome and, as always, the event is free (no need to book tickets) – show your appreciation by buying books and CDs from the performers on the day (please note only cash payments are accepted).