In the Spring Term we choose and invite the poets we would like to read at our Summer Celebration which this year is to be held on June 25th.
We can hardly believe our good luck as we have managed to secure two very highly esteemed poets for this year’s Summer Celebration. These are Mimi Khalvati and Myra Schneider :-
Mimi Khalvati – (from pages at www.poetrypf.co.uk)
Mimi Khalvati
Mimi Khalvati was born in Tehran, Iran, and grew up in England. She has published eight collections with Carcanet Press, including The Meanest Flower, shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2007, and Child: New and Selected Poems 1991-2011, a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation.
She was poet in residence at the Royal Mail and has held fellowships with the Royal Literary Fund at City University and at the International Writing Program in Iowa. She is also the founder of The Poetry School. Her awards include a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors, a major Arts Council Writer’s Award and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of The English Society. Her most recent collection, The Weather Wheel, is a Poetry Book Society recommendation. Her new pamphlet, Very Selected Poems, is forthcoming from Smith|Doorstop Press in 2017.
(see sample poems and more at www.poetrypf.co.uk/mimikhalvatipage.shtml/ and http://www.mimikhalvati.co.uk/)
Myra Schneider – (from pages at www.poetrypf.co.uk)
Myra Schneider
Myra Schneider was born in North London and grew up in Gourock on the West coast of Scotland, South London and Chichester, West Sussex. She studied English at London University. Myra started writing stories, poems and plays as a child and from the age of nine, was a compulsive writer. She is married to a computer consultant (now retired) and her son works as a freelance computer consultant as I.T. Guy. She has worked as a publicity assistant in an educational publishing firm, a teacher in a comprehensive school and as a private tutor to adolescents and an adult with literacy problems.
This last led to an interest in dealing with learning difficulties and 25 years in sessional work with severely disabled adults. For several years she wrote mainly fiction and her first published book was a novel for children called Marigold’s Monster (Heinemann 1976).
This was followed by two novels for teenagers: If Only I could Walk and Will The Real Pete Roberts Stand Up. Towards the end of the Seventies she began to write more poetry and, since her first collection of poetry was published in 1984, she has concentrated on writing poetry. Her work, as well as interviews with Myra, has also been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Radio 2 and the BBC World Service.
Writing for Self-Discovery, written with John Killick (Element Books 1998), had an immediate success and was reprinted after six months. It was also published in the USA (Barnes and Noble 1998). Writing My Way Through Cancer (Jessica Kingsley, 2003) is Myra’s fleshed-out journal for the year 2000 and contains poem notes, poems and therapeutic writing ideas. 2000 is the year in which she was diagnosed with breast cancer and she turned to writing to help her come to terms with the experience. The book offers practical support in the form of therapeutic writing suggestions for cancer sufferers, whether they are experienced authors or have never written before.
She is co-editor of several anthologies see Second Light books. Myra is consultant to the Second Light Network of women poets. She runs writing workshops and courses and is a tutor for the Poetry School.
(see sample poems and more at www.poetrypf.co.uk and www.myraschneider.co.uk/)
