Book launch for J. R. Carpenter's new poetry collection: p a u s e

Join us to celebrate the launch of Dr J. R. Carpenter's new collection of ecopoetry: p a u s e.

This special event will consist of readings from J. R. Carpenter's collection, a conversation between the author and Kate Simpson, editor of Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency, and a Q&A. 

In p a u s e. J. R. Carpenter turns the simple act of going for a walk into a radical practice of attention. Written over the course of a year of daily encounters with kisiskâciwanisîpiy (the North Saskatchewan River) as it runs through amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton) in Treaty 6 Territory, this long poem listens closely to water and weather, birds and trees, mudstone, and ice, while never forgetting that no geology, no language, and no river are neutral. 

Written in short, breath-like fragments, p a u s e. drifts between field note, love poem, and land acknowledgement, refusing settled as a genre. Fossils, wildfire haze, trumpeter swans, city traffic, and pandemic isolation all pass through its pages, as the poem keeps returning to one insistent question: what happens when we treat noticing as a form of care, and listening as a way of giving something back.

This free event will take place in the foyer of the School of English at 10 Cavendish Rd on the University of Leeds campus.  Admission to the launch is free but in order that we can track numbers please reserve your seat for in-person attendance by following this link.

Teams access will be available via this link. 

p a u s e. is out now with Broken Sleep Books.