We are delighted to have commissioned Sean O’Brien - poet, critic, playwright, broadcaster, anthologist and editor – to create a new poem, especially for Northern Stage's birthday project. Sean O’Brien grew up in Hull, lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, and is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

Inspired by our project and the ideas of northernness we have been exploring, Sean's new work can be listened to here on our website (in the right column.) He gave an inaugural reading of the new poem, at our Northern Voices event in Autumn 2010.

Sean O’Brien is a poet, critic, playwright, broadcaster, anthologist and editor. He grew up in Hull and lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and 2007 recipient of the Northern Rock Foundation Writer’s Award.

His books include, in 1998, essays on contemporary poetry, The Deregulated Muse, and the acclaimed anthology The Firebox: Poetry in Britain and Ireland after 1945, and in 2006, a new verse version of Dante’s Inferno. His selected poems, Cousin Coat: Selected Poems 1976-2001 was published in 2002.

His six individual poetry collections have all won awards, most recently The Drowned Book, which won both the 2007 Forward and T S Eliot Prizes, the first time a book has won both awards. His fiction includes a collection of short stories, The Silence Room (2008) and a novel, Afterlife (2009). In 2009 Night Train, featuring new poems and artwork by Birtley Aris, was also published.

‘…the bard of urban Britain’ - Times.

‘…a terrific language technician’ - Guardian.

'His work is elegiac and satirical, interested in history, politics and the imagination' - Independent on Sunday

'A poet of unabashed political engagement, wit and humour' - Guardian

When is it happening?

TBA

Where is it happening?

Stage 3

Ticketing Information

TBA