Blue on a Blue Palette by Lynne Thompson - author talk & book signing

Join Lynne Thompson, poet laureate, for her author talk and book signing of Blue on a Blue Palette on Wednesday 8th May at 5pm. Lynne will be joined in conversation by Nazneen Ahmed Pathak, a British Bangladeshi writer, historian and visual artist who lives in Southampton.

Blue on a Blue Palette reflects on the condition of women—their joys despite their histories, and their insistence on survival as issues of race, culture, pandemic, and climate threaten their livelihoods. The documentation of these personal odysseys—which vary stylistically from abecedarians to free verse to centos—replicate the many ways women travel through the stages of their lives, all negotiated on a palette encompassing various shades of blue. These poems demand your attention, your voice: “Say history. Claim. Say wild.”

The adopted daughter of Caribbean immigrants, Lynne Thompson was Los Angeles’ 2021-22 Poet Laureate and received a Poet Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. She is the author of three previous collections of poetry: Beg No Pardon, Start With A Small Guitar, and Fretwork, winner of the 2019 Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of multiple awards and fellowships.

Nazneen Ahmed Pathak spent most of her teen years in commuter belt suburbia writing, reading, and listening to melancholy indie music, going on to study English literature at the University of Warwick and completing a PhD in Bangladeshi literature at the University of Oxford. As a historian she researches the geography and history of migration, a subject which is also at the heart of much of her fiction, poetry and visual arts practice. She was selected as one of 12 mentees from 2000 applicants for the 2016/17 inaugural round of Penguin Random House's Write Now mentorship scheme which aims to support and publish underrepresented writers.

The cost of the ticket goes towards helping support your local independent bookshop and community space and means we can continue to run events like this. Free tickets are available as part of our commitment to making our events accessible to all.

17:00-18:30 8 May 24

General Admission: £3.00 + £0.20

Accessible Ticket: FREE