An Evening with Jessica Traynor

About

Our contemporary poetry reading series 'Go to the poets, they will speak to thee' returns in 2022, curated and hosted by poet Kim Moore. We will be listening to what poets have to say about our turbulent times, and how poetry can cross borders to challenge, delight and inspire us. Each event in the series is part reading, part open mic – and the theme of the open mic changes every month!

In William Wordsworth's preface to Lyrical Ballads, he writes that one of the purposes of his poetry is to trace 'the maternal passion through many of its more subtle windings'. Our guest poet this month is Jessica Traynor, who sets out to map the state of motherhood through its 'more subtle windings' in her latest collection Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022). These are emotionally complex poems that veer between darkness and humour, anger and love.

Our open mic theme this month is to bring a poem that traces 'the maternal passion through many of its more subtle windings'. Please feel free to interpret this theme widely – poems can be about being a mother, or about being mothered, about the absence of mothering or the journey towards or away from it. Is there such a thing as 'maternal passion'?