Literary Events at the Whipple Museum

"Darwin's Bards: Poetry in the Age of Evolution"

Thursday October 22nd, 6-7.30pm

Over the hundred and fifty years since Darwin discovered Natural Selection, poets have explored the implications of his ideas for what it means to be a human being. Poetry not only makes us think about Darwinism in new ways, it enables us to feel more acutely and to understand more completely our own Darwinian condition.

In this talk, John Holmes, the author of Darwin's Bards, will explore some of the ways in which modern and contemporary poets have responded to Darwinism in their poems. With readings from Ted Hughes, Edwin Morgan, Amy Clampitt and others, he will make the case for poetry's crucial role at a time when we need more urgently than ever to come to terms with Darwin's legacy.

John Holmes is a lecturer in English at the University of Reading and Director of the Modern Studies Centre for Research in 19th, 20th and 21st Century Literature. He is the author of Darwin's Bards: British and American Poetry in the Age of Evolution (Edinburgh University Press, 2009), Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Late Victorian Sonnet Sequence: Sexuality, Belief and the Self (Ashgate, 2005) and numerous articles on Victorian, modern and Renaissance literature.

"Object Stories" creative writing workshop

Katy Price and Kelley Swain (Whipple Museum Poet in Residence) will be giving a creative writing workshop. Pre-booking essential.

Thursday 29th October 2009, 6-8pm
Whipple Museum of the History of Science
Tickets for this event are free and may be reserved by emailing jf411@cam.ac.uk