The Lost Poets of Abney Park Cemetery
Join poet and writer Chris McCabe as he shares his findings from his forthcoming book, Buried Garden (October 2021), which documents the lost poets of Abney Park Cemetery. This event continues Chris' ongoing project to discover the great lost poets of London’s Magnificent Seven cemeteries.
From the comfort of your home, Chris will take you around Abney Park and reveal its not-so-obvious literary history that has been waiting for rediscovery. After the virtual tour, there will be a live Q&A session with Chris where you will be able to interact and find out more about these writers.
Of those laid to rest in Abney, Chris will explore the poetry of the married couple George Linnaeus and Isabella Varley Banks as well as the spiritual work of Isaac Watts and Thomas Toke Lynch. You will also hear about the recently discovered female poet of the First World War, Alison Cron.
Additionally, McCabe will highlight the cemetery’s graffiti as a form of literature, and ensure that William Blake adds his spirit of dissent to the poets buried in Abney Park Cemetery.
Abney Park Trust hosts this event in preparation for Chris' up and coming book release in October. As well as talking about the content of this new book, Chris will detail the process of researching and writing this book.
Biography: Chris McCabe
Chris McCabe’s work crosses art forms and genres including poetry, fiction, non-fiction, drama and visual art. He is the author of 12 books which have been shortlisted for awards such as the Ted Hughes Award and the Republic of Consciousness Prize. His most recent books are The Triumph of Cancer (Penned in the Margins, 2018), his novel Mud (Henningham Family Press, 2019) and Poems from the Edge of Extinction: An Anthology of Poetry in Endangered Languages (Chambers, 2019). He works as the National Poetry Librarian.)
Twitter: @mccabio