Category: Readings and Screenings (Page 2 of 3)

ROBIN ROBERTSON

Weds 12th March, 6.15

Trinity Old Combination Room

Robin Robertson’s work has been described as pitching ‘the power and

wonder of nature against the frailty and failure of the human’.

Although human presence is frequently surreal and dislocated, it remains

at the heart of his work. Robertson is a poet who finds song in silence,

hope in a retreat into the ‘homelessness’ of the wild, all in a

meticulously exact language, described as “simultaneously spare and

ample”.

He is the first poet to have won all three categories in the Forward

Prize: Best First Collection for his 1997 debut A Painted Field, Best

Collection for Swithering in 2006, and Best Single Poem for ‘At Roane

Head’ from 2010’s The Wrecking Light. His most recent collection is Hill

of Doors, described by The Guardian as ‘a collection of flinty beauty’.

He lives in London and is fiction and poetry editor for Jonathan Cape.

We are excited to announce that Trinity Literary Society will be hosting
two poetry readings this term by Michael Longley and Don Paterson (5th
March) and Robin Robertson (12th March), both at 6.15 in the OCR.

MICHAEL LONGLEY and DON PATERSON, Weds 5th March, 6.15 Trinity OCR

Described by Seamus Heaney as "a keeper of the artistic estate, a
custodian of griefs and wonders", Michael Longley's work has handled
subjects as diverse as Homeric literature, the landscape of
Carrigskeewaun, jazz and the politics of Northern Ireland over a span of
nearly fifty years. Praised for his formal power, and 'meticulous,
unpretentious technique', his most recent collection, A Hundred Doors,
won the Poetry Now Award in September 2012, and has been described as
displaying 'proof in the continuity of poetic language with the world'.

His other collections include The Echo Gate (1979), Gorse Fires (1991)
which won the Whitbread Poetry Prize, and The Weather in Japan (2000),
awarded both the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Hawthornden Prize. He received
the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2001 and was made a CBE in the 2010
Birthday Honours.

Named one of the Poetry Society's 'New Generation Poets' in 1994, Don
Paterson's work has been praised for combining "postmodern playfulness
with a sense of yearning for the transcendental". Paterson has said he
finds truth not in beauty but in style, and his writing - from the towns
and empty football pitches of his early work to the more inward-facing
elegies of recent collections - mixes the colloquial with the erudite to
create a sharp and distinctive voice.

Since his 1993 Forward Prize-winning debut Nil Nil, he has published
several collections including God's Gift to Women (1997), which won the
T. S. Eliot Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and his Landing
Light (2003), which won both the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread
Poetry Award. He was made OBE in 2008 and was awarded the Queen's Gold
Medal for Poetry in 2010. He currently teaches at the school of English
at the University of St Andrews and is poetry editor for Picador.

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ROBIN ROBERTSON, Weds 12th March, 6.15, Trinity Old Combination Room

Robin Robertson's work has been described as pitching 'the power and
wonder of nature against the frailty and failure of the human'.
Although human presence is frequently surreal and dislocated, it remains
at the heart of his work. Robertson is a poet who finds song in silence,
hope in a retreat into the 'homelessness' of the wild, all in a
meticulously exact language, described as "simultaneously spare and
ample".

He is the first poet to have won all three categories in the Forward
Prize: Best First Collection for his 1997 debut A Painted Field, Best
Collection for Swithering in 2006, and Best Single Poem for 'At Roane
Head' from 2010's The Wrecking Light. His most recent collection is Hill
of Doors, described by the Guardian as 'a collection of flinty beauty'.
He lives in London and is fiction and poetry editor for Jonathan Cape.