mouthing poetry

Shirley Dent of the Institute of Ideas and co-author of RADICALBLAKE has kindly agreed to be an advisor on if:book's Songs of Imagination & Digitisation project and sends news of this very relevant event:

POETRY AND RADICALISM: MOUTHING OFF OR MAKING A DIFFERENCE? with Penned in the Margins

7 October, 7pm-9pm at Vibe Live

A new generation of poets seems to be reclaiming poetry as a political, not simply cultural, ‘way of happening’. And often it is explicitly associated with calls for political change, from Poets Against War to last year’s Love Poetry Hate Racism events. Is poetry reclaiming its radical roots? Or is this just self-flattery, with too many modern bards mouthing platitudes? Are we neglecting the genuine potential of great poetry to subvert and unsettle the way we see the world, even if as Auden said, it ‘makes nothing happen’?

These questions about poetry and politics today will be tackled by a panel of poets, critics and political journalists, as well as the famously lively Vibe Live Battle Satellite audience http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2008/08/folk-music-british-today. Whether poetry lovers or political animals (or both!) we encourage you to come along and join in the debate and banter with the panel, who include:

Brendan O'Neill
editor, spiked; weekly blogger Comment is Free; regular writer for New Statesman, Christian Science Monitor and BBC News website

Todd Swift

international poetry activist, anthologist, editor, and poet; editor of the best-selling British poetry CD, Life Lines: poets for Oxfam.

Imogen Robertson

novelist, poet and reviewer; author, Instruments of Darkness (forthcoming).

Chris McCabe

poet and joint librarian, The Poetry Library; author, Zeppelins

Paul Dunn

assistant editor, Opinion, The Times; regular contributor, Times Books

Dr Gary Day

fellow, Royal Society of Arts; Secretary, British Society of Eighteenth Century Studies; author, Eighteenth Century Literature and Culture

David Bowden

poet and playwright, MA Creative Writing student

With chair:

Dr Shirley Dent

communications director, Institute of Ideas; producer Battle Satellites programme, 2008; development editor, Culture Wars; columnist at Guardian Unlimited Arts; co-author Radical Blake

Tickets are available here:

http://www.instituteofideas.com/tickets/battlesatellites2008.html