Mark Goodwin and Chris Jones will read at Newstead Abbey on Saturday 9 February as part of the inaugural Nottingham Festival of Words (click here for further details and booking). The two poets have devised a special, one-off collaborative performance for the occasion; an exploratory tour of the English outskirts (accompanied by a projected film of Nikki Clayton‘s photographs). Here’s a transcript of Elaine Aldred’s recent conversation with Goodwin, in which he discusses publishing, poetics, rock-climbing and slack-lining. Goodwin’s words and voice (and Clayton’s images) feature in this short film by Brian Lewis (based on our recent closer to ground to hear installation).

We’ve uploaded the third (and final) part of our recent Winter Songs event to SoundCloud (parts 1 & 2 are now deleted). A journey into exile with poets Angelina Ayers, Matthew Clegg, Andrew Hirst, Chris Jones and Fay Musselwhite (through landscapes haunted by the shades of TS Eliot, Emily Dickinson, Gyorgy Petri and Peter Reading). Click on the podcast below. ‘Listen to it / all night north…’

Poems in order of appearance: Journey of the Magi – TS Eliot (read by Chris Jones); 
St Hilary’s Exile – Angelina Ayers; Welund’s Lament – Andrew Hirst; There’s a certain slant of light… – Emily Dickinson (read by Angelina Ayers); Out Far and In Deep – Matthew Clegg
; Night Song of the Personal Shadow – Gyorgy Petri (read by Andrew Hirst)
; Impasse – Fay Musselwhite; Ovidian – Peter Reading (read by Matthew Clegg).

Finally, we’ve created a short film in response to Kelvin Corcoran‘s remarkable poem ‘Season Below Ground’ (featured in his 2010 Shearsman collection Hotel Shadow). Corcoran’s acclaimed 2011 pamphlet Words Through A Hole Where Once There Was A Chimpanzee’s Face is still available from Longbarrow Press (click here to order)