Why Read Modern Poetry? | A panel discussion

Wednesday 12th November | 6pm

Why Read Modern Poetry?
A panel discussion with Sean O’Brien, Neil Astley and Alice Mullen

The poet, critic and editor Michael Roberts helped to shape the readership of poetry in the 20th century at a time when he was a teacher at Newcastle’s Royal Grammar School. Three anthologies he published during the 1930s introduced many readers to the poetry of Auden, Day-Lewis, Empson and Spender, among others, prompting T.S. Eliot to call him the 'expositor, interpreter of the poetry of his generation’. These included the highly influential Faber Book of Modern Verse (1936). The following year Roberts delivered a lecture to the Lit & Phil entitled ‘Why Read Modern Poetry’. In this event, three latter-day expositors of poetry respond to his challenging question nearly 90 years later.

Sean O’Brien’s twelfth collection of poems, The Bonfire Party, is to be published by Picador in January 2026. 2025 sees the publication of Eye of the Island: Selected Poems of Corsino Fortes, which O’Brien has translated with Daniel Hahn (Poetry Translation Centre) and a pamphlet of poems, À la Carte, from New Walk. A recipient of the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes, O’Brien is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Alice Kate Mullen is Manager of the Poetry Book Society. Since 2016 she has designed and produced the quarterly Bulletin magazine, ran the PBS marketing campaigns and events programme. She’s worked in poetry publishing for 15 years, since 2010, including at Carcanet Press and PN Review. Prior to that she worked in bookselling and events at Waterstones, Shakespeare & Company in Paris, on a Chicago Poetry Foundation mentorship and as a Sydney Writers’ Festival Bibliotherapist. She co-founded the Northern Poetry Symposium in 2017, co-programmes Newcastle Poetry Festival and sits on the Poetry Translation Centre Advisory Board.

Neil Astley is editor of Bloodaxe Books, which he founded in Newcastle in 1978. Since then he has edited and published no fewer than 1200 poetry books and other titles by writers from around the world. He has also edited over 20 anthologies, most notably those in Bloodaxe’s Staying Alive series, Staying Alive (2002), Being Alive (2004), Being Human (2011), and Staying Human (2020), which have helped bring modern poetry to the attention of a wider readership over the past two decades. His own books include two poetry collections, and two novels, The End of My Tether (2002), which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, and The Sheep Who Changed the World (2005). His anthology Land of Three Rivers: The Poetry of North-East England (2017) includes Michael Roberts, among numerous other poets.

A LIVE Lit & Phil Event | £10/£8 concession

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