Mark Oakley and Sally Read

The Dean of Southwark Cathedral the Very Rev’d Dr Mark Oakley and poet and writer Sally Read discuss how poetry can shift our perceptions of the world and faith.

Oakley has written books on poetry and spirituality and is a winner of the Michael Ramsey Prize for theological writing and the Lanfranc award for education and scholarship. In The Splash of Words: Believing in Poetry, he explores poems from the 14th century to the present day. Oakley says a poem, like a pebble in water, causes a splash of words whose ripples can transform the way we see ourselves, the world and God.

Read is a poet and writer and former psychiatric nurse based in Rome. Her dramatic conversion to Catholicism is told in her memoir Night’s Bright Darkness. Her most recent book, The Mary Pages, is a literary memoir that focuses on the role of the Virgin Mary in her life. She has also edited an anthology, 100 Great Catholic Poems, with her commentaries to make them fully accessible to readers.

Part of a series of festival events on the Christian tradition.