As the weeks count down towards the deadline for the 2019 National Poetry Competition on 31 October, The Poetry Society are hosting this event featuring the competition’s 2016 winner Stephen Sexton, who will read from his new debut collection If All the World and Love were Young (Penguin), shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, a daring exploration of memory and grief through the prism of classic video game Super Mario World.

 

He will be joined by National Poetry Competition 2018 commended poet Kirsten Irving, editor at Sidekick Books and author of Never Never Never Come Back (Salt) and Jane Yeh, author of Discipline (Carcanet), who was commended in the 2009 National Poetry Competition and on its judging panel in 2013.