books review

Dalgit Nagra and Sean O'Brien

Brighton Festival

Dalgit Nagra's England is filled with Indian shop-keepers, almost uncookable vegetables and parental threats of character-shaping Sikh faith schools. Sean O'Brien's consists of watery landscapes and the derelict mining communities of Northern towns. In this afternoon poetry reading and talk, the two versions of the country complemented each other beautifully. Nagra said he chose the form of poetry because it allows you to do "funny things with language and get away with it" and the playfulness and wit of his writing captures perfectly the feeling of new experiences and emerging plural identities. O'Brien's heavily poetical work, on the other hand, seems to want to anchor the present with its strong sense of history and place. Two personal visions – both equally real.

Pavilion Theatre, 11 May, 4:30pm, £7.50, fpp 34

tw rating: 3/5

published: Aug-2008

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