Date: Saturday 28 February 2009
Time: 6.15-7.30pm
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Jane Duran, John Mole, Robert Minhinnick, Jo Shapcott

A high profile poetry event reflecting on the choices that we all make in our lives, whether social, economic, moral or spiritual, featuring a great line-up of some of the UK's finest poets

Jane Duran is a prize winning poet, born in Cuba to Spanish parents, who was brought up in the United States and Chile, and moved to England in 1966 after graduating from Cornell University. Her three poetry collections - Breathe Now, Breathe (1995), Silences from the Spanish Civil War (2002) and Coastal (2006) - are all published by Enitharmon Press. Breathe Now, Breathe won the Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection and in 2005 Duran received a Cholmondeley Award.

"probably the most important Welsh poet writing in English". John Redmond, Poetry Wales, January 2009.
"Robert Minhinnick has been regarded as the best writer in Wales now for more than a decade and his voice needs to be heard internationally." Peter Stead, Western Mail, March 2008.
Robert Minhinnick was born in Wales in 1952, and is an advisor to the environmental and lifestyle charity, 'Sustainable Wales'. Minhinnick has published eight volumes of poetry, the most recent being: Selected Poems (1999); After the Hurricane ((2002); and King Driftwood (2008) all from Carcanet. He was winner of the UK's 'Forward Prize for 'best individual poem' in 1999, 2003, and shortlisted in 2004. His books of essays, Watching the Fire Eater (1993) and To Babel and Back (2005), both from Seren, won the 'Wales Book of the Year' award. Robert Minhinnick published his first novel, Sea Holly (Seren) in 2007. It was shortlisted in 2008 for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize. In 2003, his translations of six contemporary Welsh language poets, The Adulterer's Tongue appeared from Carcanet in parallel text.

John Mole, a celebrated poet writing for both children and adults, is also an accomplished jazz clarinettist, and has been known to combine poetry and jazz with other poet-musicians such as Roy Fisher and John Lucas. He has won several prizes for his poetry, including an Eric Gregory award, the Cholmondeley Award and the Signal Award, has been Writer in Residence at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and is also Poet in the City's long-standing Poet in Residence.

Jo Shapcott is one of the UK's best loved poets. Her collections include Electrocuting the Baby (1988), Phrase Book (1992), and My Life Asleep (1998), which won the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Collection). She has won the National Poetry Competition twice and has worked with a number of orchestral composers on collaborative projects. The Transformers, a collection of public lectures given by her as part of her Professorship at Newcastle, was published in 2007.

This event is part of the 'Poetry and Choices' series, organised in conjunction with Poet in the City. Other events in the series include a Ben Okri 'showcase' and a New Audiences event. Poet in the City is a registered charity committed to attracting new audiences to poetry, making new connections for poetry, and raising money to support poetry education, in particular the placing of poets in schools.

This is part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Weekend, the LSE's first ever Literary Festival, celebrating the completion of the New Academic Building.

Online Discussion

An online discussion covering the theme of Poetry and Choices is now live on Poet in the City's website.

Media queries: please contact the Press Office if you would like to reserve a press seat or have a media query about this event, email pressoffice@lse.ac.uk