March already? How did that happen? The perils of having our head buried in a book so much of the time, no doubt. If we must emerge this week from our cosy little book-enclosed chrysalis, it’ll likely be to head to the following events.
Monday: The RSL-sponsored TS Eliot Memorial meeting brings together award-winning poets Alice Oswald and Kathleen Jamie for an evening of readings from their work. Both have been lauded for the affinity of their poetry with the natural world, in the poetic tradition of Ted Hughes. 7pm, £5 contribution suggested.
Tuesday: The London Word Festival presents Words in Progress at the George Tavern tonight. Playwrights Lizzie Nunnery, Joel Horwood, Tim Price, and Alan McKendrick offer insight into their creative processes as they introduce read-throughs of works that are currently taking shape. 7pm, £5. Meanwhile, the Rich Mix Cultural Foundation is sponsoring a week-long event called Wise Words to celebrate the talents of female artists, as International Women’s Day approaches on Saturday. Join the literati party tonight as a number of writers gather to read from their work and celebrate the fairly recent launch of the literary magazine Br•\nd. 6.30pm, free.
Wednesday: Jackie Kay, Ali Smith, and Jeanette Winterson read and discuss their work at the Southbank Centre tonight as part of the run up to IWD. Womyn, expect to feel empowered. 7.30pm, £12 tickets, £6 concessions.
Thursday: 2007 Man Booker Prize winner Anne Enright will be reading from her newest work, Taking Pictures, at the London Review Bookshop, to mark the publication of this collection of short stories. 7pm, £6. Or head to yet another IWD-related event at Rich Mix for some Apples and Snakes-sponsored performance poetry from Joolz Denby, Mab Jones, and Realitie. Unconventional name spellings not, to our knowledge, required for entrance. Though it might be fun to come up with one. 8.30pm, £7 tickets, £5 concessions.
Saturday: Frequent fixtures at Housmans radical bookseller, the Torriano Poets open the doors to the Torriano Meeting House in Kentish Town this weekend to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The open weekend goes from 10am to 6pm both Saturday and Sunday and will feature exhibits and readings from artists-in-residence Ruth Breckell, Natasha Gomperts, and Zuzana Piponi.
Sunday: We round out the weekend by heading back to the London Word Festival, to hear the Oulipo Poets and novelist Toby Litt at Gramophone, 7pm, £5. The aptly named Litt, another of Granta’s 2003 Best Young British Novelists (quite a class, that), will be reading from his latest, I Play the Drums in a Band Called Okay (just published this week). Meanwhile, the Oulipo (from the French Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle) poets set certain self-imposed (often arbitrary) writing constraints on their creative processes as a way of countering the notion that great works of art are anything more than hard work – don’t go using the “genius” word around a true Oulipian. Joe Dunthorne, Ross Sutherland, and Tim Clare will take up the Oulipian cause with poetry written using only one vowel. Sounds like a recipe for madness to us – we have enough trouble keeping within our word limits.
Know of an event that belongs in the Book Grocer listings? Please e-mail us at londonist-at-gmail-dot-com and let us know!
Pretty butterfly pic courtesy of Vic’s flickrstream
