Philip Gross Launch Readings
'Philip Gross’s latest collection, his twenty-eighth book, begins and ends with meditations on, among other things, silence. Between these two sections, entitled ‘Translating Silence’, we meet the prose-poetry of Evi and The Devil. […] Alongside his extraordinary yet historically based imaginative quest, he gives us glimpses which allow the reader to centre. For sharing a lifetime of seeing and feeling, and for honing and polishing the lens of his vision/craft, we can be deeply grateful.' – Dana Littlepage Smith, The Friend, on The Shores of Vaikus
Philip Gross's 28th book of poetry, The Shores of Vaikus (his 13th from Bloodaxe) is published in November 2024. In the course of forty years an increasingly subtle conversation has evolved between words and silence at the core of Philip Gross's poetry. This is never more so than in the poems of this new collection, an edgy homage to Estonia, the country of his refugee father’s birth.
His previous collection The Thirteenth Angel was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Winter 2022, and was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize 2022. Philip took part in the T S Eliot Prize Readings at London's Royal Festival Hall on 15 January 2023 - see video below. In his 2020 collection Between the Islands Philip Gross returned to the theme of water and the sea, one he explored in his T S Eliot Prize-winning 2009 collection The Water Table.
FORTHCOMING READINGS
Thursday 23 January 2025, 6pm
Estonian Embassy, London
In-person launch event for The Shores of Vaikus at the Estonian Embassy.
Full details to be confirmed.
PAST READINGS
Bloodaxe joint online launch event, Friday 8 November 2024
Philip joined Marie Howe and David Constantine as all three poets read from their new books and discussed their work with each other and with Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley.
Available to watch via the video below or on our YouTube channel here: https://youtube.com/live/lEW5RAH5R-g
T S Eliot Prize Readings, Royal Festival Hall, London, 15 January 2023
All ten poets shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize 2022 read at this event hosted by poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan. Philip Gross read poems from his shortlisted collection The Thirteenth Angel.
Ian McMillan introduces Philip Gross at 59:20.
ONLINE LAUNCH FOR THE THIRTEENTH ANGEL
Tuesday 22 November 2022, 7pm, joint online launch
Bloodaxe Books hosted this livestreamed launch reading by Philip Gross and Aleš Šteger celebrating the publication of their new poetry collections.
Both poets read live and discussed their collections with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley. This free Bloodaxe launch event was streamed on YouTube Live and is now available to watch below. Aleš Šteger read first in each set.
PAST READINGS FROM BETWEEN THE ISLANDS
Friday 7 May 2021, 6pm, The Stay-at-Home Literary Festival - via Zoom
Solace in Sound – Three Bloodaxe Poets Explore the Landscape of Grief
A trio of Bloodaxe poets whose recent poetry collections span Scotland, Ireland, England and Estonia read for the Stay-at-Home Literary Festival in May 2021. Each shares a powerful sense of their formative landscapes; whether farmland, forest, mountains, estuaries, rivers or beyond. In poems that consider the impact of loss – of friends and friendships, parents, or a communal event of the most traumatic kind – these collections foster sympathy and strength. The poets will read from their own work, and also from each other’s, creating a unique conversation about memory and resonance in the landscape.
With Heidi Williamson, Jane Clarke and Philip Gross. They were reading from their recent collections Return by Minor Road, When the Tree Falls and Between the Islands, and read poems by each other to start and end their own readings. The start of the video below has been cut off - Philip was in the middle of reading 'The Fisherman' from Jane's debut collection The River.
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Philip Gross reads from Between the Islands
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Philip Gross contributed to Wales Arts Review's feature 'Writers' Rooms' in 2016. His piece about the room he writes in, complete with photographs, can be seen here.
[05 March 2020]
