Readings and discussion 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 *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