Blake Morrison – Afterburn and On Memoir
22nd October @ 16:00 – 17:00
In Afterburn, Blake Morrison returns to poetry, his first calling, to offer scenes from his own life and the lives of others. In psychology, ‘afterburn’ refers to the time before a past event is assimilated – an idea that resonates through these poems (which themselves linger after reading) about memory and our attempts to articulate, shape or contain it.
Throughout the collection, not least in two extraordinary sequences – one about his sister, the other
about Elizabeth Bishop – the poet sees with new eyes the turning points in a life’s accidental course.
What holds his wise, touching, melancholy yet joyful poems together are the small intimacies that bind
us to others, under time’s lengthening shadow: ‘you moved too fast for me to catch you / and so did
the years.’
Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)
