W N HERBERT and Hannah Lowe share the stage in the next reading event in the Wordsworth Trust poetry series on May 21.

One of Scotland’s leading voices, Bill Herbert is a poet of great variety, an eminent figure within the poetry world and beyond, whose work draws from tradition and contemporary culture to create poems of humour, sentiment and ideas.

Born in Dundee, he established his reputation with two English/Scots collections from Bloodaxe, Forked Tongue (1994) and Cabaret McGonagall (1996), followed by The Laurelude (1998), The Big Bumper Book of Troy (2002), Bad Shaman Blues (2006) and Omnesia (2013).

He is Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Newcastle University and lives in a lighthouse overlooking the River Tyne at North Shields.

Twice shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize, his collections have also been shortlisted for the Forward Prize, McVities Prize, Saltire Awards and Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award.

Hannah’s first book of poems Chick was published this year by Bloodaxe and takes readers on a journey round her father, a Chinese-black Jamaican migrant who disappeared at night to play cards or dice in London's old East End to support his family. With London as their backdrop, Hannah's deeply personal narrative poems are often filmic in effect, brimming with sensory detail in their evocations of childhood and coming-of-age, love and loss of love, grief and regret.

The Wordsworth Trust’s fortnightly, Tuesday evening poetry gatherings are staged at Grasmere’s Daffodil Hotel.

Clare Shaw and Jacob Sam-La Rose are pencilled in for June 4; Fred D’Aguiar and William Letford, June 18; and Simon Armitage (at St Oswald’s Church) will wax lyrical on July 2.

Jacob Polley and Helen Mort feature on August 27 and Roger McGough pays his first visit to the trust’s season, reading at St Oswald’s Church on Tuesday, October 8.

Readings start at 7.30pm.

Meanwhile, at the trust’s Jerwood Centre on Wednesday, September 25 (11am), wordsmiths Michael Schmidt and Peter Sansom read some of their favourite poems by poets from Carcanet’s famously varied stable, from Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery to Elizabeth Jennings, Jorie Graham, Gillian Clarke and Edwin Morgan. Newcomers and established favourites will feature, and audience requests, received a week before the event, will be welcome.

For further information telephone 015394-35544.