Edited by Rachael Boast (Forward Poetry Prize Winner 2011 for the Best First Collection), the anthology features familiar names such as Philip Gross, Helen Dunmore and Jane Griffiths as well as up-and-coming new voices, including a number of University of Bristol staff and students, past and present.
Each specially commissioned work responds to the city’s wide-ranging art in public spaces and galleries: paintings, sculptures, statues, architecture and graffiti.
Many of the paintings and sculpture are to be found in the city’s fine art collections in Bristol Museum & Art Gallery but the poets have been attracted by other work around the city too: John Cabot outside the Arnolfini, Pero’s echoing bridge, the sundial in a house nestled between office blocks and student accommodation in Charles Street, or the mirror maze in the grounds of Royal Fort House and the gorgeous rough detail of the beetle in Anchor Square lurking around the corner from Cary Grant and Thomas Chatterton.
The initial call for submissions was launched by undergraduate student Patrick Burley and English PhD Adam Hanna and the resulting collection was produced as a pamphlet in August 2012. The Bristol Poetry Institute is now delighted to support the publication of the anthology by Redcliffe Press.
This vibrant anthology, which has received an Arts Council England grant, will be launched at the Bristol Poetry Festival on Wednesday 2nd October at 7.30pm in The Orangery, Goldney Hall, in association with the Bristol Poetry Institute, Redcliffe Press and the Poetry Can.
The evening will feature readings from 22 of the contributors, with ekphrastic musical interludes from Helen Jenner and Thom-Thomas Watkins of Hat in Hand, and a slideshow of the artworks.
The book will also be launched at Foyles bookshop in Cabot’s Circus on Tuesday 29 November and a celebration, with readings, is planned at the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery in 2014.
The Echoing Gallery: Bristol Poets and Art in the city: Wednesday 2 October 2013, 7.30 pm. £7 waged/£5 unwaged. Reservations may be made through the Poetry Can by email admin@poetrycan.co.uk or telephone 0117 9330900.