Poetry Hour with Henry Normal & Rich Goodson

Welcome to Poetry Hour! A chance for you to enjoy some wise and witty words from the wonderful Henry Normal and his special guests, in thirteen libraries around the city, completely free, as part of Nottingham Poetry Festival. No registration required – just show up.

Audience members are encouraged to bring a poem to read or simply to come and enjoy the poetry.

Festival founder, the Nottingham-born Henry Normal, began his career as a stand-up poet and went on to become a co-writer of award-winning TV and film hits including The Royle Family, The Mrs Merton Show and Coogan’s Run, and producer of Gavin and Stacey, Alan Partridge and the Oscar-nominated film Philomena.

Henry will be joined by Rich Goodson during his pit stop at Wollaton Library. Rich’s début pamphlet ‘Mr Universe’ (Eyewear Books) was chosen by The Poetry Book Society as one of the four best pamphlets of 2017 in the UK. He’s been teaching – and leading writing workshops with – Nottingham’s refugee community for the last 25 years and co-founded World Jam – a collective of poets and musicians – with Mina Fatemi. As the local ‘rep’ for The Poetry Society he also founded – and continues to facilitate – Nottingham Stanza, allegedly Britain’s longest-running poetry reading group. He’s a practising Zen Buddhist, a trained counsellor and has a Doctorate in Creative Writing from NTU. His work explores borders – those which divide countries and those which divide genders – and is influenced by Zen, the Beats, DH Lawrence and Queer Theory. Expect poems which are wry, surreal interrogations of masculinity and foreignness and what it means to have an ‘identity’, a ‘self’ and a desiring body.

Check the library website for access information: https://www.nottinghamcitylibraries.co.uk/find-a-library/

(organised in association with NPF)