News | Thursday, 20th May 2021
Andrew McMillan’s new collection ‘pandemonium’ released ahead of University celebration event
Award-winning poet’s third collection explores mental health and the natural world
Multi-award-winning poet and Manchester Metropolitan University lecturer Andrew McMillan has released a new poetry collection called pandemonium, exploring his own mental health, as well as the natural and political world.
After two prize-winning collections which examined the intimacies and intricacies of the physical body, McMillan's third book explores the fragility and depth of the human mind, and has already been picked as one of the books of the year by The Guardian and the Financial Times.
McMillan, a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing School, Manchester Metropolitan University, celebrates the launch of pandemonium at a special online event hosted by the Writing School and Manchester Poetry Library on 26 May.
He will perform readings from the collection, followed by conversation with fellow Writing School poet Malika Booker and an audience Q&A. The event will also feature an introduction by Becky Swain, Director of Manchester Poetry Library.
Opening its doors later this year, Manchester Poetry Library is only the fourth UK poetry library, and the first within a university. Public lending, the Library will build on the University’s existing strengths in poetry in recording, for children and in the 200 community languages spoken in the city.
McMillan said: “I’m looking forward to the book being out in the world and chatting to the wonderful Malika Booker about it. It’s a difficult book, indeed it’s been a difficult few years, but I’ve been able to continue to use poetry to make sense of the world around me, and to move forward”.
McMillan’s first collection, physical, was the first poetry collection to win the Guardian First Book Award; it also won a Somerset Maugham Award, an Eric Gregory Award, a Northern Writers' Award and the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. In 2019 it was voted as one of the top 25 poetry books of the past 25 years by the Booksellers Association. His second collection, playtime, won the inaugural Polari Prize.
While teaching at Manchester Metropolitan, McMillan was also in contention to be the next Oxford Professor of Poetry, and is a passionate advocate for arts and literature in the north, championing the new Manchester Poetry Library and being instrumental in organising the Forward Prize’s first northern preview in 2019.
He spoke about pandemonium in a two-part conversation with Malika Booker for a special World Poetry Day edition of MetCast, the University’s podcast, which can be downloaded here.
