The Sheffield Hallam Launch of Apropos Paradise Square

The Sheffield Hallam Launch of Apropos Paradise Square (Pamenar Press, 2025) by Ágnes Lehóczky hosted by Professor Harriet Tarlo

Old Post Office

Sheffield Hallam University / Creative Writing Master Class - Series

Weds 29 October at 5.30pm

Apropos – to the purpose, from propos "thing said in conversation, talk; purpose, plan” -here Agnes Lehoczky converses, talks, plans towards a poet’s consolation and thinks in the ‘blue zone’ about the materials of the worlds circling around her. Consolation is more than alleviation of grief, anxiety, distress – it is from Old French consolacion "solace, comfort; delight, pleasure". That is the ambition, the seeking of Elysium. There is no place to stop in that search, as we ‘tear through the world’ with our bodies, in this restless sparsely punctuated paragraph of a poem ‘remembering/disremembering’ touching past and present poet companions, girl companions – except perhaps in the images that arrest the text in moments of women’s solidarity in the public square, the small working rooms of poets or the rural stone settlements. ‘Solace, comfort; delight, pleasure" flicker in and out of the spaces Lehoczky builds, but, ultimately, they are all irredeemably haunted – Hades is a ruin, Elysium is uninhabited. Here are the workings - ‘by which I mean,’ ‘ by which I mean’ – the ‘where we are when we think.’ (Harriet Tarlo, for Apropos Paradise Suare)

All warmly welcome.