VALENTINES HOT & COLD

What is love? Still unsure? Love your pet? Love being alone?

Unleash the language your heart speaks: queer joy or winter blues, tricksiness or comradeship, sweet and bitter foolishness Sometimes silence or stumbling words can be the most expressive, and just how can we love in dark times?

We'll dip in and out of sad, glad, and in-between moods, inspired by ancient and modern material.

You might find yourself writing a letter to St Valentine in prison, or changing the mottos on love heart candies. The creative prompts in this workshop will encourage you to rethink your definition of love, where to find it, and how to express it. ABOUT THE POET Anthony Vahni Capildeo FRSL is a Trinidadian Scottish writer of poetry and non-fiction. Currently Professor and Writer in Residence at the University of York, their site-specific word and visual art includes responses to Cornwall’s former capital, Launceston, as the Causley Trust Poet in Residence (2022) and to the Ubatuba granite of the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds (2023), as well as to Scottish, Irish, and Caribbean built and natural environments. Their numerous books and pamphlets, from No Traveller Returns (Salt, 2003), Person Animal Figure (Landfill, 2005) onwards, are distinguished by deliberate engagement with independent and small presses. Their work has been recognized with the Cholmondeley Award (Society of Authors) and the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection. Their publications include Like a Tree, Walking (Carcanet, 2021) (Poetry Book Society Choice), and A Happiness (Intergraphia, 2022). Their interests include silence, translation theory, medieval reworkings, plurilingualism, collaborative work, and traditional masquerade. Recent commissions include research-based Windrush poems for Poet in the City and for the Royal Society of Literature. Capildeo served as a judge for the Jhalak Prize (2023).