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Poetry

Celebrated performance poet, writer and illustrator Laura Dockrill is an alumna of Middlesex University. In addition to Laura's successful series of children's books, she has explored the themes of motherhood and mental illness in her publication What Have I Done? Motherhood, Mental illness & Me (2020), her performance poetry, her poetry collection My Mum's Growing Down (2017) and the edited poetry collection And How Is Mum? (2021).

Also, renowned poet Mario Petrucci is an alumnus of Middlesex University. His first major collection, Shrapnel and Sheets (1996), won a recommendation from the Poetry Book Society (founded by T.S. Eliot and later chaired by Philip Larkin). Petrucci was the first poet to be resident at the Imperial War Museum and with BBC Radio 3. His poetry has also been featured heavily in a number of films. For instance, Heavy Water: a film for Chernobyl and Half Life: a Journey to Chernobyl were based on his award-winning poetry collection on Chernobyl. In 2012, Petrucci was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award with a vast poetry soundscape (among the largest ever created) entitled Tales from the Bridge. This installation spanned the Thames (on the Millennium Bridge) as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

Middlesex University teaches poetry as a part of its BA English. In addition to that, the university has a strong tradition in both writing and researching such literature. For example, visiting lecturer Kate Potts publishes both academic research into poetry as well as her own poetry collections. Most recently, she published Feral (2018) with Bloodaxe Books, which was a Poetry Book Society recommendation and a Telegraph poetry book of the month.

Another of our visiting lecturers is the poet and academic Sara Law. Sara has published a number of collections, most recently Therese (2020) with Paraclete Press. You may also want to read her interview with Vita Brevis magazine here.

Current students of the BA English at Middlesex have also seen their poetry recognised and published via the Fairtrade UK Poetry Competition. The 2021 winner was Marisa Mustafa, with her poem ‘Mirage of Eden’, and Leonardo Simoes was successfully shortlisted with ‘A Product of the Here and Now’. Both were published in Haringey Unchained.

If you would like to access some free learning materials related to creative writing, please find them here.

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