Description
What happens when poets turn to their own lives for material — or to the lives of those they carry within them?
In this powerful event, renowned Lemn Sissay, explores how poetry becomes a form of biography: personal, political, fragmented, and deeply felt. Through memory, myth, and metaphor, poets shape experience into language that can be both intimate and universal.
From migration to love, loss to inheritance, we ask: how do poets tell the story of a life? And is poetry closer to truth — or to the imagination that makes truth bearable?
About the Poet
Lemn Sissay
Lemn Sissay OBE is a poet playwright, memoirist performer and broadcaster. Lemn Sissay was named MBE for services to literature by The Queen in 2014. In 2021 he named OBE for services to Literature and Charity. He has honorary doctorates from Universities of Huddersfield, Manchester, Brunel, Kent and Essex. Lemn has been Chancellor of University since 2015. He has judged many literary competitions including 2020 Booker Prize, The Gold Man Booker Awards, The National Poetry Competition, The Forward Prize, The Ted Hughes Prize, Cardiff International poetry competition, The Creative Future Literary Awards, and the Bridport Prize. He lives in London and Manchester.
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