Oxford Launch: Blood Tundra, Sophia Argyris
About this Event
Sophia will read from her new poetry pamphlet, Blood Tundra (Broken Sleep Books). There will also be readings from Alan Buckley, Victoria Spires and Andrew Hykel Mears & Claire Carrol, plus music during the break from i4M2.
Blood Tundra is a fierce and luminous pamphlet where memory, loss, and survival collide. Sophia Argyris navigates grief, survival, and desire with an unflinching gaze, pulling the reader through landscapes of frost and fire, body and shadow. These poems are a study of endurance—of the self, the body, and the planet. Argyris writes with sharp lyricism, weaving tenderness and violence, intimacy and estrangement. Here, voices rise against absence, against erasure, against the weight of histories both personal and collective. These are poems of reclamation—haunting, visceral, and alive with possibility. Blood Tundra is arresting, unsettling, and unforgettable.
Vasiliki Albedo
A book of incantations, imaginary missives, prophecies, warnings, notes of joy - Blood Tundra is a collection you won't want to look away from. These poems work their subtle magic on the reader, drawing you in.
Helen Mort
Poet Bios:
Sophia Argyris is of British-Greek heritage, living near Oxford. She was recently placed in the Ledbury Prize. Her pamphlets include Heronless (Palewell Press) and Blood Tundra (Broken Sleep).
Alan Buckley is the author of two pamphlets, and the full collections Touched (HappenStance,2020), and Still (Blue Diode Press, 2025). His poems have been highly commended in the Forward and Bridport prizes.
Victoria Spires’ debut pamphlet Soi-même was published by Salo Press and her micro-chapbook Rube Goldberg Machine is available with Shadow & Sax. In 2025 she won the Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize.
Claire Carroll and Andrew Hykel Mears will be reading together from their collaborative pamphlet Treatment.
Claire’s writing has been published in The Stinging Fly, The London Magazine, The White Review. Her debut collection of short stories, The Unreliable Nature Writer, was released in 2024 with Scratch Books.
Andrew has been published by PN Review, Poetry Birmingham and, Propel. His latest pamphlet is Rivering (Scarlett Tiger Press, 2026). Andrew is founder and managing editor of the ecological arts journal Ambient Receiver.
Music by local electronic musician i4M2, bringing back-of-the-bus street sounds & questing experimental vibes https://i4m2.bandcamp.com
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 6.80 to GBP 16.00
