Poets and Players returns to the International Anthony Burgess Foundation on Saturday 26th September for a line up of poets and musicians.

The poets this time are Jean Sprackland, Isabelle Baafi and Carlton Rose. The event is free and everyone is welcome (no need to book tickets). Performers often bring along books and CDs to sell – please note they are only able to accept cash payments.

About the Poets

Jean Sprackland‘s latest collection Goyle, Chert, Mire is a book-length sequence about place, time, illness and recovery. Her previous collections include Tilt, which won the Costa Poetry Award in 2008. Jean is also the author of three books of non-fiction, most recently Night Vision: In search of the true dark. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Manchester Met.

Isabelle Baafi is the author of Chaotic Good (Faber & Faber/Wesleyan University Press, 2025), which won the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection, and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Her pamphlet Ripe (ignitionpress, 2020) won a Somerset Maugham Award and was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. Her work has been published, or is forthcoming, in Granta, the TLS, Wasafiri, The Poetry Review, Callaloo and elsewhere. She edits at Poetry London, Magma and ignitionpress.

Carlton Rose is a poet from Wolverhampton who lives in Manchester. He recently won New Writing North’s Northern Debut Award for Poetry. Carlton’s work has appeared in The Poetry Review, Magma, Ambit and various other publications.