Imaginative, gripping, compassionate, entertaining

5th June  - review

Once again Settle Sessions provided a wonderfully varied programme of prose and poetry.

Jean Harrison

Local writer Jean Harrison, well known as a poet, read extracts from her debut novel 'On a Wandering Planet,' a highly imaginative book which gripped her listeners from the start.

Neil Curry

Jean's prose impresses as much as her poetry and the themes of loss, search and redemption are woven into an exciting story that challenges the way society chooses to live. Her characters are rich, complex and alive on the page. 
 

Neil Curry, an established poet and literary critic, read from the poems in his new book 'Some Letters Never Sent' as well as from his earlier work. His poems have a great depth rooted in scholarship and knowledge but are accessible through a careful choice of words, a compassionate tone and perfectly judged humour, and he drew the audience in by entertainingly giving us the background to his work.

Annie Neligan and Ali Easton

Sarah Wiltshire and Anne Richer

In Read Two, Sarah Wiltshire read poems described as 'noticing in words'; Ali Easton read poems in response to the natural world; Annie Nelligan read poems which gave us vivid pictures of people; and Anne Richer read from the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy's book '1914 Poetry Remembers'.

Jean Stevens