27.10.13 Cambridge School Poetry and the Frontiers of Meaning

Cambridge_school_poetry_27_Oct_CB1

*********** SOLD OUT **************

The Festival of Ideas and Cambridge Poetry Stall present:

Cambridge School poetry and the frontiers of meaning

8pm, Sunday 27 October 2013
CB1 Cafe, 32 Mill Rd, Cambridge CB1 2AD
Free; limited capacity, book in advance to ensure a place
(booking contact alexanderblustin@gmail.com
<mailto:alexanderblustin@gmail.com> or 01223 523 692)

To many of those interested in poetry, the Cambridge School stands for
obscurity and difficulty. Opening up conventional notions of language
and meaning, working through independent and small press publishers,
with their own reading series and festivals, this extended group of
poets have for decades stood apart from the kind of modern poetry that
is taught in secondary schools.

To the reader of poetry, the works of the Cambridge School poets pose
fascinating questions about the nature and boundaries of poetry, the
relations of the reader to the poem and of poetry with the world at
large. But does, did or will the Cambridge School really exist? And –
well – what does it all MEAN? (Or is that question meaningless?)
In this event, Drew Milne, Justin Katko and Ian Heames read and
discuss their work in the relaxed surroundings of CB1 Cafe.

Since 1997 Drew Milne has been the Judith E Wilson Lecturer in Drama &
Poetry, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge. In 1995 he was
writer in residence at the Tate Gallery, London. His books include:
‘Sheet Mettle’ (1994); ‘Bench Marks’ (1998); ‘Mars Disarmed’ (2001);
‘Go Figure’ (2003); and ‘The View from Royston Cave’ (2012). For more,
see http://drewmilne.tripod.com <http://drewmilne.tripod.com/>.

Justin Katko was born in Hazard, Kentucky, and has gone deep into
personal financial debt in order to A) attend the University of
Cambridge for postgraduate study, so that he could B) infiltrate the
‘Cambridge School’ in order to get C) a massive long-exposure whiff of
its odious mysteries, thereby affording him the assured opportunity of
D) revealing the aforementioned super-obscurities, as if by
scratch-and-sniff mitigation, with spectacular self-importance, at a
Festival of Ideas event, much like the one for which he composed this
biographical note. Believe it!

Ian Heames is a poet, publisher and PhD student.

Event organised by the Cambridge Poetry Stall, which specialises in
new work from local poets and publishers and can be found on Cambridge
Market, Thursdays 10am-4pm.