I'm always happy to consider invitations to take part in readings, workshops and panels — online and in-person — at festivals, schools, bookshops, libraries, universities & elsewhere! Just drop me a line via the Contact Page of this website.

You can see more about school visits and workshops here.

EVENTS COMING UP:

More reading, festival and exhibition news for 2025 to be confirmed soon!

Please do check in later or send me a query via the Contact page.

ALREADY BEEN & GONE:

Friday 10 January 2025, Poetry Lit! Online Reading Series

7pm-8.30pm (GMT), 10 January 2025 - Online.
I’m looking forward to being a featured guest poet alongside Alyson Hallett for the first Poetry Lit! event of 2025. Please do join us on Zoom to brighten a bleak midwinter Friday night together. There will be a Q&A and open mic afterwards.

Thank you to Stephanie Green and Milla van der Have for the invitation. See the Poetry Lit! reader introductions from Facebook below:

Over here at Poetry Lit! (Stephanie Green and Milla van der Have) we are excited to welcome Isobel Dixon as one of our featured poets for the January 10 event. Be sure to reserve a free spot!

Isobel Dixon grew up in South Africa, where her debut, Weather Eye, won the Olive Schreiner Prize. She has lived in Edinburgh and London, and is now based in Cambridge, returning when possible to her family home in South Africa’s Karoo region. Her fifth collection, A Whistling of Birds (with illustrations by Douglas Robertson), was published in 2023: in the UK by Nine Arches and in South Africa by Human & Rousseau. Of A Whistling of Birds, David Constantine wrote: ‘As D.H. Lawrence says, “The essential quality of poetry is that it makes a new effort of attention.” Isobel Dixon’s A Whistling of Birds does just that. Doing so, she gets, and shares with her readers, new slants on life on earth. I felt alerted again to things, fellow creatures, deeds, I hadn’t paid due attention to, or had once and had become accustomed and needed to be shown afresh. This book gives shocks of pleasure and gratitude in equal measure.’

Isobel and Doug’s poetry-art collaboration stemmed from a conversation about D.H. Lawrence’s 1923 collection Birds, Beasts and Flowers, but the poems branch out more widely, with echoes from other writers and artists, including Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, William Blake and Georgia O’Keeffe. In 2024, she and Doug appeared at the Edward Thomas Festival and at a London Literature Festival event at the National Poetry Library. Isobel’s poems have appeared in international publications like the Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, The Hudson Review, Harvard Review, New Statesman, Poetry London, The Dark Horse, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal and Bad Lilies and in anthologies including Penguin’s Poems for Love, The Forward Book of Poetry, The New Century of South African Poetry (3rd edition) and the Places of Poetry anthology (Oneworld, 2020).

Nine Arches also published Isobel’s earlier collections A Fold in the Map, The Tempest Prognosticator and Bearings. Isobel co-wrote and performed in the Titanic centenary show The Debris Field (with Chris McCabe and Simon Barraclough) and her work is recorded for the Poetry Archive.

Poetry Lit! (Stephanie Green and Milla van der Have) are thrilled to have Alyson Hallet as one of our featured poets at next week’s event! Don’t miss the chance to hear her read live.

Alyson Hallett was born in Somerset to a working class family. She refused at the age of seventeen to apply to Oxford or Cambridge because it was elitist and was the first generation to go to university. She chose the University of East Anglia where she studied comparative literature. Her love of world literatures, translation and diverse cultural traditions has never diminished. Alyson has published more than eighteen books of poetry, prose and collaborative work with scientists, visual artists and poets. She has written for Radio 3 and 4, won first prize in the Scintilla Long Poem competition, and established her own writing school during the Pandemic, The Guerilla College of the Free Arts. Alyson is a Hawthornden Fellow, has taught at Arvon and Moniack Mhor and worked for the Royal Literary Fund for nine years as a Fellow, mentor and reading round convenor. For the past twenty years she has curated the international poetry and public art project, The Migration Habits of Stones, and sited stones with words carved into them around the world.

Alyson is currently working on a project to decolonise a university rock collection and translating a novel from French to English with Fiona Hamilton. The novel was written by Emma Santos, who was in a psychiatric hospital in Paris for many years. She is also finishing a new book of poems and working on a fascinarium about meteorites and their impact.

Wednesday 11 December 2024, Four Poets Series at The Wheatsheaf

6.30pm for 7pm start (GMT), Wednesday 11 December 2024 | The Wheatsheaf, 25 Rathbone Place, Fitzrovia, London W1T 1JB
It was wonderful being back in the beautiful, historic upstairs room of The Wheatsheaf for a reading again, after many years since my last time there. As the pub website says, their infamous customers and performers include Anthony Burgess and Dylan Thomas, among many more recent others… The night was art of Roisin Tierney’s ‘Four Poets Series’ and I read along with Helen Ivory, Martin Figura, David Crystal and Peter Daniels (yes, I know that makes five!).

Wednesday 30 October 2024, D.H. Lawrence Celebration, London Literature Festival at the National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre

8pm - 9.15pm (GMT), Wednesday 30 October 2024 |National Poetry Library, Level 5, Blue Side, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, SE1 8XX. | See more detail here.

From the National Poetry Library website: Hailed as a precursor of modernism, D.H. Lawrence was best known for such notorious novels as Lady Chatterley’s Lover, but he was also a prolific poet. Hear his words read live, along with a brand new artistic response to Lawrence from poet Isobel Dixon and artist Douglas Robertson. The pair worked together on the 2023 publication A Whistling of Birds, Dixon’s striking poetry collection responding to nature writers and artists through the ages – including Lawrence – with illustrations by Robertson. A Whistling of Birds shares points of creative contact with Lawrence’s iconic collection Birds, Beasts and Flowers, which had its 100th anniversary in 2023. The collection’s title echoes Lawrence’s World War I essay ‘Whistling of Birds’, and there are poems that speak directly to aspects of Lawrence’s life and nature writing, but Dixon’s gaze ranges more widely across continents, centuries and creators.

Isobel Dixon grew up in South Africa, where her debut, Weather Eye, won the prestigious Olive Schreiner Prize. Her further collections are A Fold in The Map, Bearings and The Tempest Prognosticator, which J.M. Coetzee described as ‘a virtuoso collection’. A Whistling of Birds contains 12 illustrations by Douglas Robertson.

Douglas Robertson is an acclaimed Scottish artist, well known for his collaborations with poets. His main collaborators over the last decade have been Isobel Dixon and Donald S Murray. His collaborations with Murray, The Guga Stone and Herring Tales, were included in The Guardian’s Best Nature Books of 2013 and 2015. In 2020 his assemblage piece Emigrants – Wake won second prize at the Southampton City Art Gallery Biennial Open Exhibition, In Search of a New World.

Friday 4 October, A WHISTLING OF BIRDS Poetry-Art Workshop at the Edward Thomas Festival, Petersfield

Friday 4 October 11am -1pm at the Petersfield Museum, 1 St Peter’s Road, Petersfield GU32 3AX
Join poet Isobel Dixon and artist Douglas Robertson for a lively poetry-art workshop inspired by nature and nature-loving creators over the centuries. Over the course of two-hour workshop there will be chance to listen, reflect, engage in conversation and turn your own hand to some writing, drawing and/or making. Writers and artists of all abilities are welcome! See more here.

Tues 16 July 2024, Simon Barraclough Divine Hours Launch, Chener Books

7:30pm (British Summer Time), Tuesday 16 July 2024 | Chener Books, 14 Lordship Lane London SE22 8HN
Join us to celebrate the publication of Simon Barraclough's new collection of poetry, Divine Hours, published by Broken Sleep Books. Simon will read from his new collection, alongside guest poets, Isobel Dixon and Chris McCabe.

Friday 12 July 2024, Poetry London Summer Reading, Royal Society of Arts

7pm (British Summer Time), Friday 12 July 2024 | RSA House 8, John Adam Street, London WC2N 6EZ
This event will take place in RSA’s historic Great Room and will feature readings from Isobel Dixon, Annemarie Ni Churreanin and Romalyn Ante. There will also be an opportunity to purchase the summer edition of the magazine and networking. Come together for an exciting evening of poetry.

Saturday 11 May 2024, Magdalene Poetry Society, Cambridge

8pm (British Summer Time), Saturday 11 May 2024 |For more information see Instagram @magdalenepoetrysoc
Isobel Dixon will be the May guest reader for the Magdalene Poetry Society in Cambridge and read from her latest collection A Whistling of Birds as well as a selection from her earlier books. Magdalene Poetry Society provides an open, friendly space for those who want to share a love of all forms of poetry.

Monday 8 April 2024, Café Writers, Isobel Dixon & Laura McKee, Zoom

7:30pm (British Summer Time), Monday 8 April | Isobel Dixon will be the Café Writers featured poet for April, joined by Laura McKee. The poets’ readings will be followed by an Open Mic session. See more here.

Wednesday 27 March 2024, 7pm (GMT), DH Lawrence Society, Zoom Only

Isobel Dixon repeated an updated version of her 2023 Paris Nanterre Conference talk: “Homemaking, Home-breaking & Finding Space to Breathe: D.H. Lawrence in Flight & Creative Flux.” She also read some poems from her new collection A Whistling of Birds, linked to D.H. Lawrence’s Birds, Beasts and Flowers. You can watch the video of the Zoom talk here

Isobel writes: ‘Even to experts and informed enthusiasts, the ground D.H. Lawrence covered in his short life is positively dizzying. It can be hard to keep up, to track the voyages, pin all the sojourns in one’s mind. For many of us, I imagine, this restlessness and seeking is part of the mercurial fascination Lawrence holds, also for the way his travels from both background and lens for his multi-faceted work. I will be looking at (some of) these travels, habitations and transit points in the context of his nature writing in particular, with a significant stop-over with his 1923 collection, Birds, Beasts and Flowers (which in its published form is now just over 100 years old). Along the way I will speculate as to where he may have felt most at home.’

Monday 4 March 2024, 7:30pm (SAST), Off the Wall Poetry, Zoom Only

Join us for a reading by Isobel Dixon. An Open Mic will follow the reading of our featured poet, so feel free to read your own work, or the work of another poet.

Tuesday 13 February 2024, 7pm (GMT), Launch of Virgula by Sasja Janssen, The Music Room, Great Ormond Street, London

Please join us for the London launch of Virgula, the award-winning collection by Dutch poet Sasja Janssen, translated by Michele Hutchison. Sasja and Michele will be joined by Isobel Dixon. Made possible with funding from the Dutch Foundation for Literature/Nederlands Letterenfonds (NLF).

Thursday 8 February 2024, St Mungo’s Mirrorball Reading, CCA, Glasgow

CCA (Centre for Contemporary Arts), 350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, G2 3JD. 7-9pm (doors open 6.30pm). 18+ event.
Free to members, guests £7/£5. To find out more about St Mungo’s Mirrorball membership, see here.
Award winning poet Mary Jean Chan will be headlining, live streamed from London, supported by poets in the room: Isobel Dixon, Shehzar Doja, Stephanie Green, Charlie Gracie and Peter Clive.

EVENTS IN 2023

Tuesday 31 October 2023, A Whistling of Birds Art & Poetry, Churcher’s College, Petersfield: Reading, discussion & exhibition with Douglas Robertson

6pm-8pm (GMT), Tuesday 31 October — with canapes and drinks at the interval
Donald Brooks Auditorium, Churcher's College Senior School, Ramshill, Petersfield, Hampshire, GU31 4AS

As part of their year-long ‘Inspire and Create’series, the Churcher’s College Art Department invites you to an inspiring evening of poetry and art. ‘A Whistling of Birds’ is the title of a collection linked to a collaboration project by South African-born poet Isobel Dixon and Scottish artist Douglas Robertson. The resulting collection by Isobel, with Doug’s illustrations, is a work deeply concerned with nature and the paths we track through our environment. It draws inspiration from several poets and artists, and at times the poems and images are in dialogue with D.H. Lawrence’s 1923 collection, Birds, Beasts and Flowers.

Isobel and Douglas will be in discussion about their collaboration, and Isobel will be reading poems from A Whistling of Birds and containing a dozen of Douglas Robertson’s beautiful, intricately detailed pencil drawings. An exhibition of the drawings in the book — and some more besides — will be in the foyer gallery of the Goodfield Centre. Please come along for a stimulating evening of poetry and art, and enjoy drinks and canapes during the interval. And as it is Halloween, we promise to include some bats, snakes and other creepy crawlies for your entertainment!

September 2023:
A WHISTLING OF BIRDS South African publication (Human & Rousseau)

‘In this collection, creature-rich, the poems themselves are creaturely – sinuous and revelatory, bearing entire landscapes and architectures. To write them, Isobel Dixon has been near to, in the company of, enchanted by, for a long time, a hoard of paintings, phantasms, writing – animal-besotted and world-mad all – to which she calls us close in these verses. I can almost not breathe for being in their presence.’ – Gabeba Baderoon

Tuesday 12 September, Cape Town launch for A Whistling of Birds:
A reading by Isobel Dixon, & a discussion with Finuala Dowling

5.30 for 6pm, Tuesday 12 September, Exclusive Books, Cavendish Square, Vineyard Road, Claremont, Cape Town.
Finuala Dowling will introduce Isobel Dixon and her new collection A Whistling of Birds, Isobel will read from the collection and there will be a conversation and Q&A, after which Isobel will sign copies. All welcome! Free, booking essential.
Refreshments will be provided — and of course, copies will be on sale and Isobel will be very happy to sign them.

Friday 8 September, Two Events at Open Book Festival, Cape Town

I’m excited to return to this wonderful festival in Cape Town, always a fascinating weekend. I was happy to launch The Tempest Prognosticator at the 2011 Festival in conversation with the late, great Gus Ferguson, wonderful poet and publisher of my debut collection Weather Eye. My new collection A Whistling of Birds is dedicated to him.

Friday 8 September, Open Book Festival: Writing the Natural World
Avalon Theatre, HCC Homecoming Centre, District Six Museum

4-5pm, Friday 8 September at the Avalon Theatre, HCC Homecoming Centre, District Six Museum, Corner of Buitenkant St & Caledon St, District Six, Cape Town, 8001 | Tickets: R5.
Isobel Dixon, Pieter Odendaal and Bridget Pitt explore questions of writing, creativity and spiritual connections to the land in the company of Kanya Viljoen. The event coincides with the publication of Isobel’s new collection A Whistling of Birds.

Friday 8 September, Open Book Festival: Salon Hecate at Open Book
5pm at The Electric (close to the Homecoming Centre)

Join Helen Moffett for a Salon that will switch focus from local authors and creatives to a global line-up. This event will feature Sipho Banda, Isobel Dixon, Sarah Lubala, Athambile Masola and Hilda Twongyeirwe. The event coincides with the official publication date of Isobel’s new collection A Whistling of Birds (Human & Rousseau).
5-6.30pm, Friday 8 September at The Electric, 48 Canterbury St, District Six, Cape Town, 7925 | Tickets: R50 — book here.

Wednesday 6 September, A Whistling of Birds Reading @ Red Wheelbarrow
7.30pm at The Commons, Muizenberg, Cape Town

Thank you to Jacques Coetzee and The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Collective for this invitation. I’ll be reading largely from my new collection A Whistling of Birds (with possibly a couple of poems from earlier collections) for about 30-35 minutes, followed by some Q&A. There will then be an open mic session after the break.
Time: 7.30pm Wed 6 September (SAST). Venue: The Commons, Surfers’ Corner, Beach Rd, Muizenberg, Cape Town, 7970

Saturday 24 June 2023, 3.30pm BST (British Summer Time) — Live
Burnley Words Festival: Isobel Dixon — Finding Inspiration in Nature

Isobel Dixon read from her new collection A Whistling of Birds and engaged in a conversation about favourite nature writers and subjects, also drawing on the audience’s experiences. A lively and thoughtful session.
Venue: Burnley Words Fest Hub, Market Square, Charter Walk, Burnley
Lyrical, vigorous, inventive, A Whistling of Birds shares points of creative contact with D.H. Lawrence’s iconic collection, Birds, Beasts and Flowers, but also ranges widely through the worlds of other writers, artists and musicians – from Emily Dickinson to Ted Hughes, Albrecht Dürer to Georgia O’Keeffe, in moments closely examined and delicately drawn. Syrian roses, an abundance of apricots in Santa Fe; bats, bees, tortoises, snakes, the generous body of a whale. Threaded throughout is the beautiful complexity and vulnerability of the planet, and the joy and difficulty of making art, also in times of war and displacement.
See more detail on the festival website here.

Thursday 22 June 2023, 7pm-9pm BST (British Summer Time):
Isobel Dixon, L. Kiew, Gregory Leadbetter & James McDermott celebrate 15 Years of Nine Arches at Voce Books, Birmingham

An evening of poetry celebrating 15 years of Midlands-based publishers Nine Arches Press, held in Independent Bookshop Week. It was also publication day for Isobel Dixon’s A WHISTLING OF BIRDS.
Venue: Voce Books, 54-57 Allison Street, Birmingham B5 5TH.
Celebrating their 15th year of publishing some of the most exciting new & emerging poets, the wonderful Midlands-based Nine Arches Press invite you to join us for an evening of poetry exploring all the kaleidoscopic ways human life collides with the natural world. The event will feature readings from the following acclaimed Nine Arches Press poets: Isobel Dixon, L. Kiew, Gregory Leadbetter and James McDermott.

Wednesday 7 June 2023, 7:30pm BST (British Summer Time) — Online Event
Nine Arches Triple Launch: Isobel Dixon, Rishi Dastidar & James McDermott

Join Rishi Dastidar, James McDermott and Isobel Dixon for their online Triple Book Launch, celebrating the publication of their latest poetry books, Neptune's Projects, Wild Life, and A Whistling of Birds. This event (which runs from 7.30-8.30pm BST) will be streamed live through the Nine Arches Press YouTube channel and live captioned. Those who register to 'attend' will receive an event link by email on the day of the event. Each poet will read for approximately 15 minutes. See more on the poets and their new collections and sign up to attend on Eventbrite here. The video will be available online two weeks’ after the event.

Tuesday, 13 April 2021, 7:30 pm BST (British Summer Time):
Three Poets: Simon Barraclough, Isobel Dixon & Rob A. Mackenzie

In April, that poetic month, I'll be reading in an online event with poets Simon Barraclough and Rob A. Mackenzie (on what would have been Samuel Beckett's 115th birthday). Old tunes/poems & new, maybe one or two even a little bit Beckettian.
Free, but register beforehand on Eventbrite here.

Sunday, 21 March 2021, 7pm on BBC4: THE GREATEST POEM OF WORLD WAR I: David Jones’s In Parenthesis

I was delighted to contribute to a television documentary produced by Ian Michael Jones and presented by Owen Sheers about David Jones's great World War I poem In Parenthesis. It was broadcast on BBC4 on 21 March 2021, World Poetry Day and available to UK viewers on iPlayer here, till 20 April.

See information on past events, dating back to the launch of A Fold in the Map in 2007, on the Events Archive page.