How can poetry navigate our manifold and multiple relations to place? What is the place of language and identity, of cartography and naming, and our entanglement with our nonhuman neighbours, in a poetics that negotiates particular landscapes? Join us for readings and discussion on poetries of place by poets Eleanor Rees & Cathy Galvin, marking the publication of Rees' collection of lyrical poets' essays, *Eyes in the Wood* (Broken Sleep), and Galvin's debut collection, *Ethnology: A love song for Connemara* (Bloodaxe).

On *Eyes in the Wood*:

Eleanor Rees’ Eyes in the Wood: Occasional Prose is a meditative and exploratory collection that considers poetry as a situated, permeable practice grounded in place, ecology, and attention. Moving between reflective essay, lyric fragment, and critical enquiry, Rees develops a poetics that is both relational and speculative, drawing on lived experience, myth, and ecological thought. Her prose resists academic fixity, favouring instead a dynamic, processual mode of thinking that unfolds through landscape, memory, and sensory perception. The result is a richly textured work that approaches language as a means of encounter—open-ended, affective, and materially bound.

On *Portents & Portals*:

Eleanor Rees's New & Selected Poems gathers together a body of work spanning three decades, five collections and several pamphlets, along with a new sequence Five Breaths. It follows Tam Lin of the Winter Park (Guillemot, 2022),The Well at Winter Solstice (Salt, 2019), Blood Child (Pavilion, 2015), Eliza and the Bear (Salt, 2009), and Andraste’s Hair (Salt, 2007), which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Eleanor is the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award and a Northern Writers’ Award, and she is a senior lecturer at Liverpool Hope University.

These are poems written in a state of grace, trusting in the infinite wisdom of the universe. And Rees gives us hope that all manner of things shall be well in the end, if we are only able to shift our vision. Rosi Braidotti

On *Ethnology*:

Ethnology draws on the mystical cry for the dead of Cathy Galvin's Irish-speaking ancestors. Within an epic narrative she reclaims place, people and language, creating a bridge between our own times and a Connemara community on the margins of Europe. Drawing on classic forms within literary and oral traditions, Ethnology becomes a love song for Connemara, witness to vivid encounters: between the living and the dead and between the poets, folklorists and ethnologists who have written about the West of Ireland for their own agendas. In her first full-length book of poetry, fragility and strength are finely balanced, focused on the ruins of an island cottage built by her great-grandfather. Here, Cathy Galvin locates humour and joy as well as mourning. The poems give a vivid, original voice to the tradition of keening, of honouring the loss of those we love. 

Bios:

Eleanor Rees is a poet and lecturer. She has recently published *Portents and Portals: New & Selected Poems* (Guillemot, 2025) and the collection of essays *Eyes in the Wood* (Broken Sleep, 2025). Other publications include *Tam Lin of the Winter Park* (Guillemot, 2022), *The Well at Winter Solstice* (Salt, 2019), *Blood Child* (Pavilion, 2015), *Eliza and the Bear* (Salt, 2009), and *Andraste’s Hair* (Salt, 2007), which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Eleanor is the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award and a Northern Writers’ Award, and she is a senior lecturer at Liverpool Hope University.

Cathy Galvin is a poet and journalist. She is co-founder of the Sunday Times Short Story Award. Her journalism has appeared in the Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, Newsweek, The Sunday Times, and The Tablet where she is a non-executive director. She has published three poetry pamphlets: *Black and Blue* (The Melos Press, 2014), *Rough Translation* (The Melos Press, 2016) and *Walking the Coventry Ring Road with Lady Godiva* (Guillemot Press, 2019). Her debut poetry collection, *Ethnology. A love song for Connemara* is forthcoming from Bloodaxe Books in February 2026.

Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio) — Read more — Read less