Isobel Dixon at MTS

Isobel Dixon read at MTS on Tuesday 7th October, beginning appropriately enough with the poem that is set as part of the boys' IGCSE examination and moving on to read poetry from her collection A Fold in the Map that deals with the experience of loss and exile from the people and places of childhood, via meditations upon the death of her father (a Scottish scientist and Minister who moved to South Africa to teach in a Church School) the legacy of her mother and those poems remembering the "Christmas Beetles" of childhood Xmases.

Isobel spoke movingly of her personal history, her attitude towards the morality of publishing autobiographical material, whether her verse was "given" or crafted, her preference for naturally occurring half-rhyme and fielded a host of highly astute questions from her young audience, who displayed an impressively technical knowledge of poetry. She also spoke more practically of getting involved in the London poetry scene and her meetings with Daljit Nagra, Paul Farley and Simon Armitage (all of whom have read at MTS in the last three years).

Isobel was born in South Africa, and studied at the universities of Stellenbosch and Edinburgh. She won the Sanlam Literary Award 2000 for Weather Eye, subsequently published by Carapace Poets (2001). Her poems have been published widely in The Guardian, London Magazine, and Paris Review.  Her latest book, A Fold in the Map, has been very favourably reviewed.

All the boys obviously enjoyed the evening, those studying Isobel's work at GCSE  as much as those reading English at A level.