26th and 27th February 2016. A collaboration between Leeds University Poetry Centre and the Environmental Humanities Research Group in the School of English

Organisers: John Whale, Fiona Becket, David Higgins, Amy Cutler

This symposium brings together poets, established scholars, and Early Career Researchers to explore the interface between poetry and the environment. It will focus in particular on the creative process and consider how poetry and the natural world are in reciprocal engagement in the business of composition. One of its primary concerns will be to discern whether there are distinctive aspects to the writing of poetry in the context of environment and in the wider frame of eco-poetics. This will include both critical and creative questions, including the politics of environmental emergency, forms and techniques of individual practice, and modes of specific work.
It will take the form of: two sessions of public readings by the poets at either end of the symposium; two round tables, one in which the poets reflect on their creative processes and another in which critics engage with Eco-poetry; a PGR/ Early Career Panel on poetry and environment ranging across historical periods, and a visual display by artist Judith Tucker.

Poets include: Madeleine Lee, Lucy Burnett, Harriet Tarlo, Zoe Skoulding, Amy Cutler, Yvonne Reddick, Melanie Challenger, and Samantha Walton

Critics include: Fiona Becket, Sam Solnick, John Parham, David Borthwick, David Farrier,

ECR/PGE Panel: Carl McKeating, Anna Fletcher, Emma Trott, Julia Tanner, Anna Antonova, Lucy Rowland, Eleanore Widger