Kenneth Allott/Poetry Society Annual Lecture

The annual Kenneth Allott Lecture, established by Miriam Allot In the 1970s, in memory of her late husband, has attracted many distinguished scholars and poets to the university. Frequently run now in collaboration with The Poetry Society, it enables an eminent poet to give a public talk and reading. Lecturers have included Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Terence Hayes, Don Mee Choi, Denise Riley, and Anne Carson.

Diane Seuss

Diane Suess

Monday 25 November, 2025

Book your place here

About Professor Kenneth Allott

Professor Kenneth Allott (1912-1973) was born in Glamorganshire, and was later brought up on Tyneside. He studied English at Durham, and Oxford, eventually taking up a post at Liverpool in 1948 and becoming the A.C.Bradley Professor of Modern English Literature in 1964. An inspirational teacher, and a well-known and highly-respected poet of the 1930s, Allott published two collections of poetry: Poems (1938) and The Ventriloquist’s Doll (1943) as well as plays, and a book on Jules Verne. Between 1936 and 1939 he was an editor of New Verse. His anthology, English Verse (1950, revised 1962) was a formative book for many later poets. A definitive edition of his Collected Poems was published in 2008.

Emeritus Professor Kenneth Allott

Back to: Centre for New and International Writing