Dead [Women] Poets Séance

Who are the Dead Women Poets? How dead are they? And what is our relationship to them, as contemporary writers, artists, ‘queens of the whole world’?

Join The London Library as they join forces with Dead [Women] Poets Society, who, since 2015, have been resurrecting women and non-binary poets of the past. At the perfect venue for resurrecting the ghosts of poets past, our spooky poet-mediums Sophie Herxheimer and Clare Pollard will commune with the spirits of Amy Levy and Christina Rossetti, two subversive, darkly imaginative, outsider Victorian poets (whose friends and family once wandered the Library stacks). We’ll hear more about their lives and works, and the influence they’ve had on our two living poets. We’ll also be treated to readings by our poet-necromancers, haunted by the ghosts of these two dead women poets and all will be compered by poet Helen Bowell of the D[W]PS.

The resurrections will continue with the popular Dead [Women] Poets Society open mic, for which we welcome poets and performers of all and no genders to the stage. The only rule: for every poem of your own, you should also read/perform one by a dead woman or non-binary poet.

There’ll also be the chance to get your hands on books by our guest poets, dead poets and D[W]PS merch.