I’d been writng and publishing poetry for some years, and discovering a world of modern women poets that I’d never come across at school or university. Wonderful poets whose concerns I identified with. Feminist poets.

When I enrolled on an MA in poetry writing at MMU in 2008, it was because there were two outstanding feminists leading the programme: Carol Ann Duffy and Vicky Bertram. I was shocked when I received the reading lists: almost exactly the same 20th century ‘canon’ as I’d studied as an undergraduate in the late 60s, virtually all white men.

In consequence, I began to run The Living Line, a group for local women poets. In monthly meetings we read and discussed inspiring poems by modern and contemporary women writers, using them as prompts for our own writing, and sharing feedback. We did this for twelve years, on zoom through Covid.

Tonight’s reading will be a reunion and a closure for this project. Local poets, including Jenny Hockey, Abbi Flint and Jane Monach have gone on to great things and are publishing wonderful poetry, while I have moved on to work more on fiction. I’m enormously proud and moved by our part in continuing a magnificent lineage, and look forward to sharing some of the rich harvest with you here in Netheredge.

Free, with books for sale!