University of Wolverhampton's video: Artsfest Online - Subsidence: Liz Berry Chats Dialect and Poetry with R M Francis

Join Liz Berry as she interviews R. M. Francis about his new poetry collection, Subsidence (Smokestack Books). Liz and Rob will chat about how they use dialect and sense of place in their poetry and poetics and share their own creative ideas and inspirations. This talk was recorded on 16th December 2020. R. M. Francis is a lecturer in Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Wolverhampton where he completed his PhD. He's the author of five poetry pamphlet collections. His novel, Bella, was published by Wild Pressed Books, and Smokestack Books will publish his poetry collection, Subsidence, in December 2020. In 2019 he was the David Bradshaw Writer in Residence at the University of Oxford and is currently Poet in Residence for the Black Country Geological Society. Liz Berry was born in the Black Country and now lives in Birmingham. Her first book of poems, Black Country (Chatto 2014), described as a ‘sooty, soaring hymn to her native West Midlands’ (Guardian) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, received a Somerset Maugham Award and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award and Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2014. Her pamphlet The Republic of Motherhood (Chatto, 2018) was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet choice and the title poem won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2018. Liz is a patron of Writing West Midlands and works as a tutor for organisations including the Arvon Foundation and The Poetry School.