Finding the Words with Elizabeth Gibson, Ian Harker and Alex McCrickard
Finding the Words with Elizabeth Gibson, Ian Harker and Alex McCrickard
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Come and listen to some of the best poets from Yorkshire and beyond at Finding the Words, our relaxed and welcoming online poetry evening.
Elizabeth Gibson is a poet, performer, and workshop facilitator from Wigan, based in Manchester, who writes about city life, nature, and animals through a queer and neurodivergent lens. Elizabeth's poems have appeared in journals including Atrium, Banshee, Butcher's Dog, Dust Poetry, Lighthouse, Magma, Modron, The North, and Under the Radar, as well as the young adult anthologies He, She, They, Us and You're Never Too Much from Pan Macmillan. Elizabeth's debut poetry collection is A love the weight of an animal (Confingo, 2025).
Ian Harker is a poet and editor. His latest book Gain Access is published by the Poetry Business, after co-winning their International Book & Pamphlet Competition in 2025, judged by Kim Moore. He’s an Honorary Fellow of Leeds Trinity University, was shortlisted for the inaugural Tempest Prize from New Writing North, judged by Andrew McMillan and Patience Agbabi, and was an Ilkley Lit Fest New Northern Poet in 2024.
Image of Ian Harker by Mark Dolby Photography
Alex McCrickard was born in Scotland just before the 1960s and educated on Merseyside. He has worked in construction as a registered architect, and more recently in retail. Based in York since 1989 he has also lived in London and Cumbria, he has three children and two grandchildren.
Alex has been writing seriously since 2006 and found inspiration and discipline through classes with Carole Bromley and Antony Dunn. Exposing his work to rigorous reading in these arenas has had a profound impact, he believes, sharpening focus and eliminating redundancy. His work is varied in voice and subject, with images from the natural world, film, music, family and personal experience. The poems strive to achieve some small revelations about the complexity and ambiguity of life through language which is as direct as possible. he has experimented with form and structure but usually finds that free verse does the job.
His work has been published in The Guardian’s website, Spelt, Stone of Madness, Poetry News Gutter and Carmen et Error
At Explore we keep all our events free or low cost to enable everyone to attend. When you book your place, if you can, please make a donation to help with Explore's costs and enable us to continue running events like this one.
Accessibility: We want our online poetry events to be accessible to everyone. Readings take place on Zoom, and we display each poem on screen so you can read along. Zoom’s built in accessibility features, including optional captions, are also available. If you have specific access needs, please contact us at arts@exploreyork.org.uk and we’ll do our best to help.
