University of Oxford LGBT+ History Month Lecture 2025

Losing and Finding Oneself Through Queer Poetry

Fiction and poetry are doses, medicines. What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination. – Jeanette Winterson

In this 2025 LGBT+ History Month lecture, Costa Poetry Prize winner Dr Mary Jean Chan explores the role of queer poetry in their own journey of becoming a poet, editor and lecturer of creative writing. Through close reading a range of poetry and prose by renowned queer poets within the Anglo-American canon including Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich and Mary Oliver, as well as contemporary poets such as Kei Miller and Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo, Chan traces a personal history of reading and writing queerly.

Doors will open at 5:45pm, with the lecture itself taking place from 6-7pm. A drinks reception will be held afterwards, with catering from Dasmascus Rose Kitchen.

Host or Publisher University of Oxford - Equality and Diversity Unit