Patience Agbabi, sought-after poet, performer, mentor and Fellow in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes University will be reading from her poetry collection Telling Tales at the University of Kent later this month. The reading (followed by a Q&A) will take place in Grimond Lecture Theatre 2 at 6pm on Tuesday 24th March. All are warmly welcome.
The School of English is delighted that Patience, a former lecturer in the School, has returned as ‘Poet in Residence’ for 2015. English Literature was one of the University of Kent’s founding subjects and the Festival of English, which Patience’s residency forms a central part, celebrates the University of Kent’s 50th Anniversary. Patience returns to Kent at a time of particular professional success and critical recognition. Earlier this month her poetry collection Telling Tales was shortlisted for the prestigious Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2014. Canterbury Laureate from 2009 to 2010, she received a Grant for the Arts to write this contemporary version of The Canterbury Tales, which has been described by Professor Helen Cooper as: ‘Responsive to their models in endlessly inventive ways, they are a treat to read, and even better if you know the originals. Chaucer would have been proud of what he has inspired’.