Poetry with Karen Solie – Introducing The Living Option

Karen Solie, one of the most distinctive voices in Canadian poetry, will be joining us on Sunday 28th of June for an evening of readings and discussion.

Published by Bloodaxe Books in 2013 The Living Option is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Sean O’Brien celebrates the collection for its “enormous wit and invention, making waste and horror seem almost redeemable.”

To borrow the wonderfully apt words of her publisher, Karen’s poems are “double-edged, tense and tender, an edgy blend of irony and guts, of snarl and praise, of sharp intelligence and quizzical ambiguity.” In 2011 Karen was the University of St Andrews’ International Writer-in-Residence, and we’re delighted to welcome her back to the town in celebration of The Living Option, her first UK publication.

This is a splendid opportunity to connect with a unique voice on the international scene,  whose work has been showered with high praise by critic Michael Hoffmann, calling the collection an “exhilarating volume…there is hardly a poem in The Living Option that I wouldn’t cite with alacrity and delight.”

Karen Solie has been awarded the Canadian Griffin Prize, the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, Pat Lowther Award and Trillium Book Award for Poetry.