Camborne’s Red River: Listening to a Polluted River 

Although only 7.5miles in length, and little more than a stream, the Red River passes through a remarkably diverse ecological and cultural landscape. It rises among neolithic standing stones on the moors above Camborne, flows through a valley that has been worked for tin since at least Roman time, then passes under the A30 to finally emerge into the clear waters of St Ives Bay at Gwithian.

Join us as poet John Wedgwood Clarke, who grew up Carbis Bay, treats us to a reading from his long poem exploring the Red River’s troubled past and present, and talks about his experience of writing about a watercourse so unlike our more celebrated literary rivers.

Red River: Listening to a Polluted River is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council through their Leadership Fellowship scheme. www.redriverpoetry.com

John Wedgwood Clarke is an award-winning poet. His poetry collections include Ghost Pot (2013) and Landfill (2017), both of which explore place, ecology and science. He presented The Books that Made Britain (2016) & Through the Lens of Larkin (2017) for BBC4 and lectures in creative writing at the University of Exeter.