Carcanet online book launch: The City by Stav Poleg

Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor

Book now

The City by Stav Poleg: Carcanet Book Launch

6 April 2022

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Poet Stav Poleg
Poet Stav Poleg.
Book now

Stav Poleg launches her much-anticipated debut collection The City with an online reading and discussion with fellow Carcanet poet Lisa Kelly. The new book (out in the UK on 31 March) includes work from her 2017 pamphlet Lights, Camera, along with pieces that featured in the New Poetries VIII anthology, published by Manchester’s Carcanet Press last year. Some of the poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry London, Poetry Ireland Review and PN Review.

The new book (out in the UK on 31 March) includes work from her 2017 pamphlet Lights, Camera, along with pieces that featured in the New Poetries VIII anthology, published by Manchester’s Carcanet Press last year.

Divided into three sections – “Camera”, “Another City” and “After-Party” – as the collection’s title suggests, it is about cities: what they contain and what they lack. The title poem includes the lines: “London. A waitress with eyes like stained glass. / Think Soho stilettoes, fake mascara, cheap champagne.

The poems feel cinematic and in constant motion, as the publisher’s blurb says: “fascinated by the freedom of motion and its constraints: how by means of technique they defy the gravity that draws them down the page to a conclusion. They subvert what they see and, as language, they also subvert how they see: we are always seeing but with all our senses, including our ears and our semantic facilities, our echo detector, how the poems relate to one another and how they relate to the worlds of art and invention in different modes and ages.”

Stav Poleg regularly collaborates with fellow poets, artists and filmmakers – her graphic-novel installation, Dear Penelope: Variations On An August Morning, created with artist Laura Gressani, was acquired by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2014. She teaches for the Poetry School, London, and serves on the editorial board of Magma Poetry.

She is joined for this event by another Magma Poetry board member (and the current co-Chair with Gboyega Odubanjo), Lisa Kelly. Lisa’s debut collection, A Map Towards Fluency, was published by Carcanet in June 2019 and shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize 2021.

As always with Carcanet Press events, extracts of the text will be shown during the reading so that you can read along, and audience members will have the opportunity to ask their own questions. Registration for this online event is £2, redeemable against the cost of the book – attendees will receive a discount code and details of how to get hold of the new book during and after the event.

cover of The City by Stav Poleg
The City by Stav Poleg

Where to go near Carcanet online book launch: The City by Stav Poleg

Manchester
Food hall
Kargo MKT

Mighty food hall in Salford Quays, with around twenty street food vendors, serving a huge range of cuisines.

Asap Coffee Interior/ Counter
Manchester
Café or Coffee Shop
ASAP Coffee

If you’re looking for quality coffee and a decadent brunch in a setting that nails the Northern Quarter brief, you’d struggle to do better than ASAP Coffee.

Interior of George St Chapel
Manchester
Event venue
George Street Chapel

This beautifully restored former Independent Methodist Chapel in the heart of Oldham is as much a creative hub as a heritage landmark.

Chinatown
Restaurant
Pho Cue

Family-run Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown. Prepare to queue for Pho Cue.

Come to Swithens Farm for a great family day out in Leeds. Our farm has plenty to offer whatever age you are!Swithens Farm is a working farm. For many years now Ian and his wife Angela have built a following that they welcome in all year around. We now have a farm shop, café, playbarn and petting farm. When we first opened we only had the usual farm animals – cows, pigs, sheep, chickens and it was free entry. We now have llamas, alpacas, meerkats, rabbits, guinea pigs, donkeys and a pony.On the working farm, we breed our own cows, pigs and sheep and we sell the meat through the farm shop and the café. If you buy a sausage sandwich from the café the sausage will be from the butcher who has made the sausage by hand using our own pork. We also produce our own free-range eggs.
Leeds
Swithens Farm

Swithens Farm is a working farm. For many years now Ian and his wife Angela have built a following that they welcome in all year around.

Peak District
Restaurant
The Chequers Inn

The Chequers Inn is a 16th century, family-run, traditional country inn with an impressive dining space. The Peak District at its best.

Testbed Main Space
Leeds
Event venue
TESTBED

TESTBED is a newly renovated 10,000 sq foot event venue in Leeds that offers endless possibilities for creating unique and inspiring experiences.

Manchester
Restaurant
Salt & Pepper

Chinese inspired British food in the centre of Manchester, backed up by plenty of well-deserved local hype.

Morning Glory - Coffee Cup
Manchester
Café or Coffee Shop
Morning Glory

Morning Glory positions itself as a grab-and-go spot, with just 12 seats inside serving coffee, bagels and sweet treats.

What's on: Literature

Deryn Rees-Jones. Credit Alison Dodd Photography
LiteratureLiverpool
Deryn Rees-Jones at Open Eye Gallery

For the seventh Matt Simpson Memorial Reading, hosted by Liverpool Poetry Space (LiPS), Deryn Rees-Jones will be reading from her new collection, Hôtel Amour.

Free entry

Culture Guides

A white mattress is burning in a black rocky landscape.
Exhibitions in the North

Galleries in the North are far from spooky this October - instead you'll find tactile sculptures, plant magic and curatorial experiments.

Hofesh Shechter - Theatre of Dreams at Lowry
Theatre in the North

Picks this month include bold visual art, wondrous opera and cinematic dance - plus a touch of ghostly storytelling for the Halloween season.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Cinema in the North

It's busy month across the cinemas of the north as Halloween programming leads into two of the region's biggest film festivals.

Poet Helen Mort.
Literature Events in the North

One to add to your TBR pile, our latest round-up is a bumper edition and features some amazing events in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and beyond...

Music in the North

From New York’s experimental underground to the most exciting sounds coming from local scenes, we're lining up a noisy autumn of gigs.