Join Jane Burn, the current Environmental Poet of the Year, for a poetry reading and conversation in the Jerwood Centre at Wordsworth Grasmere. Learn more about how to write for the prize, join in with discussions about the environment, and hear Jane talk about her work.

Jane will read from her winning pamphlet A Thousand Miles from the Sea. Speaking of the pamphlet, the judges said ‘These are tightly-controlled pieces which examine every aspect of whaling…. The poems haunted each of us, even bringing us to tears. It has the impact that this prize is all about.’

Jane will discuss her ways into writing about place, and how research helps her connect deeply to imagined environments. She will be in conversation with the Lindsey Forster-Holland, who manages the Michael Marks Awards, and Jane Caven, Wordsworth Grasmere’s prize judge. They will discuss the prize and how to write for it. There will then be a Q&A.

Jane Burn is also leading a writing workshop from 2.00-5.00pm on the same date. A workshop ticket includes access to this reading.

About Jane Burn

Jane Burn is an award-winning poet, artist, and hybrid writer. She is a working-class, pansexual person with autism and has an MA in Writing Poetry from Newcastle University, where she won the 2022 academic prize for best overall performance. In 2022, Jane explored her neurodivergent writer’s theories funded by Arts Council England and is currently putting these ideas into a book. In 2023 she was awarded a grant by the Royal Literary Fund to continue her writing. Her poems are widely published and anthologised. Her collection, Be Feared, is available from Nine Arches Press, and her forthcoming collection, The Apothecary of Flight is due out in 2024, also from Nine Arches Press. Passionate about nature and the environment, she lives off-grid with her family in a painstakingly restored 1920s wooden cottage in Northumberland for most of the year. Jane is hoping to find the right establishment in which to pursue a creative writing PhD.

About A Thousand Miles from the Sea

A Thousand Miles from the Sea examines every aspect of whaling, from the human perspective and in the voice of the whale. It is a rare and remarkable collection of poems which shows a great capacity for empathy and an impressive command of form. It is a wholly original pamphlet, packed with brilliant images, visceral and raw, tender and heartfelt. Weather doesn’t just act upon land, it ‘gobbles colour from the walls’. A whale is ‘the colour of ages’. This poetry haunted each of us, even bringing us to tears. It has the impact that this prize is all about.

The poems carry a message not only of our destructive human behaviours but also of hope. We can change. A Thousand Miles from the Sea is remarkable, beautiful, and we can only urge you to read it

— Judges