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First publication for winning poets

Join Simon Armitage to celebrate the publication of the 2nd Brotherton Poetry Prize Anthology.

Book your tickets for the Brotherton Poetry Prize Anthology II launch event, which takes place on Monday 25 April at 7:30pm at The Workshop Theatre, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT.

The Brotherton Poetry Prize celebrates and promotes poetry and supports new poets, with two international competitions since 2019. The new anthology is published by Carcanet Press and features the work of the 2021 shortlisted poets: Kym Deyn, Lucy Dixcart, Helen Kay, Isabella Mead and Lauren Pope.

The launch event will be introduced by Poet Laureate and Professor of Poetry, Simon Armitage, and will feature readings from the new anthology by the poets themselves.

The Brotherton Poetry Prize is the University's latest expression of commitment to poetry as a living art. The University has a long-standing and historically significant engagement with poetry and poets. This is reflected in the Library’s Special Collections Poetry archives, which hold internationally significant archives of outstanding contemporary poets, such as Tony Harrison, Geoffrey Hill and Simon Armitage. The Poetry Centre continues the work started in the 1950s with the Gregory Fellowship scheme and the publications Poetry and Audience and Stand magazine, by supporting a new generation of poets through Creative Writing and Douglas Caster Fellowships.

Supported by the Charles Brotherton Trust, the competition was inaugurated in 2019. Charles’s uncle, Lord Edward Brotherton of Wakefield, was a Yorkshire industrialist and philanthropist who funded Leeds’ iconic Brotherton Library building. He donated his private library of rare books and manuscripts to the University to form the basis of the Brotherton Collection, which is 100 years old this year.

The poetry anthologies are available from:

Book your tickets for the Brotherton Poetry Prize Anthology II launch on 25 April 2022.