This year’s annual Rylands Poetry Reading is delivered by Karen Solie.

Her latest collection Wellwater, exploring the profound impact of economic and environmental crises on human culture alongside vivid childhood memories of growing up in rural Canada, won both the T.S. Eliot Prize and Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2025. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear one of the most astonishing and vital voices in world poetry perform her award winning poems and discuss her craft.

‘An essential writer: anyone remotely interested in 21st-century literature, or 21st-century life, should read her . . . Her writing swerves from gritty to sublime, philosophical to street-smart.’ Tristram Fane Saunders, Telegraph

Karen Solie has published six collections of poetry including Pigeon, which won the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Pat Lowther Award, and the Trillium Award for Poetry. She teaches at the University of St Andrews, is an Associate Director for the Banff Centre’s Writing Studio programme and the recent recipient of a prestigious Windham Campbell Award.

Presented in partnership with the Centre for New Writing and Creative Manchester. Please join us for a pre-event drink from 6pm.

Location: The John Rylands Library