Poetry And… Seeing with Lavinia Greenlaw & Neil McGregor, Chaired by Ruth Padel

Two magical and widely-loved writers on the attention poetry gives, which we all give, to the visual image and physical objects in our lives and in our art.

Lavinia Greenlaw is a prize-winning poet, novelist, non-fiction writer and documentary-maker. Her research interests include image-making and problems of perception, her most recent poetry collection is The Built Moment, and her latest book is Some Answers Without Questions: part memoir, part manifesto, exploring what enables anyone, especially a woman and an artist, to create and respond even when no one asks her.

Neil McGregor is an art historian, former Director of the National Gallery and British Museum, and a radio and TV documentary-maker. His books, such as A History of the World in 100 Objects, Living with the Gods and Shakespeare's Restless World, are often accompanied by a radio or TV series and an exhibition. In them, he often uses objects as a means of interrogating the world, the past, people’s beliefs and ways of living, or themes in Shakespeare’s plays.

This event is taking place online via Microsoft Teams. The link to join the event will be emailed to you on registration and the morning of the event.

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Join writer Lavinia Greenlaw in conversation to find out about what she discovered when she dived head first into finding out the limits and freedoms of wanting to speak up, particularly as an artist and woman. Part memoir, part manifesto, ‘Some Answers Without Questions’ is a rigorous and lyrical new work of self-investigation.

Greenlaw sets out to explore the impulse to say something, to write, or to sing, or create something even when not invited to do so. She finds herself confronting matters of presence and absence, anger and speechlessness, authority and permission. ‘Some Answers Without Questions’ is the result of decades of answering questions that don’t really matter – and not being asked the ones that do.

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What is it that gives us the urge to say something, to write or to sing? At the beginning of the year, when we were congratulating her on her successful appearance on Celebrity University Challenge, Lavinia Greenlaw mentioned to us that she had a new book in preparation. ‘It’s a short little thing about voice, presence, art, speechlessness that began in me trying to understand why I wrote a book about music without mentioning having been in a band, made a record, etc. I don’t really know what it is.’ Today we are delighted to help Greenlaw search for understanding, in the launch of her book Some Answers Without Questions. Somewhere between a memoir and a manifesto, it is an exploration of how we find the means to speak and to create even when we are not invited to do so. Greenlaw is renowned for her poetry, novels and plays, as well as her non-fiction works about music, perception and art. Join her for what is perhaps her bravest, most speculative work to date.

This is a live event, with an author Q&A. If buying a ticket to watch the event in-person, the author will be on stage, in the venue.

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As a writer and as a woman Lavinia Greenlaw has spent her life being forced to answer questions that don’t really matter and not being allowed to ask or answer the ones that really do. In her powerful new book Some Answers without Questions (Faber) she sets out to redress the balance.

Greenlaw will be in conversation with Joanna Pocock, author of Surrender (Fitzcarraldo Editions).

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