Poetry@Leeds News: Spring 2026
A selection of recent news from Poetry@Leeds:
- Professor John Whale and Professor Simon Armitage led our poets on a creative exchange in Chengdu, China.
- Professor Simon Armitage released his latest book, Gilgamesh: A New Verse Translation, in the USA.
- Postgraduate researcher Dr Kate Simpson completed her PhD, Polytemporal poetics: Reimagining deep time, as part of the Extinction Studies Doctoral Training Programme.
- Dr Kate Simpson was also invited to perform at the 2026 European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, where her reading was highlighted as a key event of public interest.
- Dr JR Carpenter published a new poetry collection, p a u s e., a new chapbook, shore thing, and two new poems in The Manchester Review 28.
- Dr JR Carpenter delivered a keynote address at the University of Porto for the Poetry and Performance IV conference.
- Professor Kimberly Campanello’s IGNITE-funded project, The Seacroft Canto: A Documentary, premiered at the Leeds Literature Festival.
- A limited-edition letterpress of Professor Kimberly Campanello’s version of Dante’s Purgatorio X is currently exhibited at the Borthwick Institute for Archives until June.
- Professor Kimberly Campanello’s poetry-object, MOTHERBABYHOME, has been digitised by Cultural Collections and is now available online.
- Dr Jess Richards’ redaction poem, Surveillance: the Route to Heaven, appeared in the Ten Poets Do Their Bit For The Secret Service anthology.
- Dr Jess Richards was shortlisted for The Papers School Inaugural Poetry Chapbook Competition Prize for her work-in-progress, Everything Becomes Ghost.
- Emeritus Professor Mike Baynham organised and presented two programmes for the 2026 Chapel FM Writing on Air Festival, showcasing poets from the multilingual supplement Other Tongue / Mother Tongue.