Carcanet online book launch: The Iron Bridge by Rebecca Hurst

Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor

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The Iron Bridge by Rebecca Hurst: Carcanet Online Book Launch

17 April 2024

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Rebecca Hurst
Carcanet Press
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We’re very excited about the launch of Rebecca Hurst’s debut poetry collection The Iron Bridge, published by Manchester’s Carcanet Press. The online event will feature a reading from the text and a chat about the book with host, poet Sarah Hesketh.

Spanning memory and observation, Rebecca Hurst’s first collection, The Iron Bridge, noting the detail of the natural world and our changing relation to it, picking up on themes explored in her beautifully illustrated debut poetry pamphlet, The Fox’s Wedding. Here’s some blurb about The Iron Bridge: “The book’s places are made familiar by walking. It encounters other worlds alive with new and recovered ideas and images – from the folk traditions of her Sussex childhood, to archival encounters with a nineteenth-century nurse-explorer, and her undergraduate training as a Kremlinologist. Her language is deeply rooted, as keenly aware of etymologies as of history. Shaped by myth, history and desire, the poems of The Iron Bridge are theatrical, fierce, music-infused.”

Rebecca Hurst is a writer, opera-maker, illustrator and researcher based in Greater Manchester. Her poetry has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including Carcanet’s New Poetries VIII. She is the author of a poetry pamphlet, The Fox’s Wedding (The Emma Press, 2022). Rebecca has a PhD from the University of Manchester, and is co-founder of the Voicings Collective, an ensemble that devises new music theatre, and teaches creative writing in schools, universities, museums, and the community.

Sarah Hesketh is a writer and editor. She is the author of the poetry collections Napoleon’s Travelling Bookshelf (Penned in the Margins, 2009) and The Hard Word Box (Penned in the Margins, 2014), and the editor of The Emma Press Anthology of Age (2015). She has been an artist-in-residence with Age Concern and The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. Her work has a focus on socially engaged writing practices. She currently lives in London and works as managing editor for Modern Poetry in Translation.

As always with Carcanet Press events, extracts of the text will be shown during the reading so that you can read along, and audience members will have the opportunity to ask their own questions. Registration for this online event is £2, redeemable against the cost of the book – attendees will receive a discount code and details of how to get hold of the new book during and after the event.

Where to go near Carcanet online book launch: The Iron Bridge by Rebecca Hurst

Manchester
Food hall
Kargo MKT

Mighty food hall in Salford Quays, with around twenty street food vendors, serving a huge range of cuisines.

Asap Coffee Interior/ Counter
Manchester
Café or Coffee Shop
ASAP Coffee

If you’re looking for quality coffee and a decadent brunch in a setting that nails the Northern Quarter brief, you’d struggle to do better than ASAP Coffee.

Interior of George St Chapel
Manchester
Event venue
George Street Chapel

This beautifully restored former Independent Methodist Chapel in the heart of Oldham is as much a creative hub as a heritage landmark.

Chinatown
Restaurant
Pho Cue

Family-run Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown. Prepare to queue for Pho Cue.

Come to Swithens Farm for a great family day out in Leeds. Our farm has plenty to offer whatever age you are!Swithens Farm is a working farm. For many years now Ian and his wife Angela have built a following that they welcome in all year around. We now have a farm shop, café, playbarn and petting farm. When we first opened we only had the usual farm animals – cows, pigs, sheep, chickens and it was free entry. We now have llamas, alpacas, meerkats, rabbits, guinea pigs, donkeys and a pony.On the working farm, we breed our own cows, pigs and sheep and we sell the meat through the farm shop and the café. If you buy a sausage sandwich from the café the sausage will be from the butcher who has made the sausage by hand using our own pork. We also produce our own free-range eggs.
Leeds
Swithens Farm

Swithens Farm is a working farm. For many years now Ian and his wife Angela have built a following that they welcome in all year around.

Peak District
Restaurant
The Chequers Inn

The Chequers Inn is a 16th century, family-run, traditional country inn with an impressive dining space. The Peak District at its best.

Testbed Main Space
Leeds
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TESTBED

TESTBED is a newly renovated 10,000 sq foot event venue in Leeds that offers endless possibilities for creating unique and inspiring experiences.

Manchester
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Salt & Pepper

Chinese inspired British food in the centre of Manchester, backed up by plenty of well-deserved local hype.

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