Alumni and guests are invited to join the Cambridge Society, for their ninth Norfolk lecture with guest speaker Dr Corinna Russell, Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and a member of the university's Faculty of English. She will speak on “Why Poetry Matters” and will explore the profound contributions that poetry has made to the world, drawing on the works of Keats, Wheatley, and others.

We are particularly delighted that Dr Russell has agreed to be our ninth distinguished lecturer as she is from Norfolk (describing herself as a Bloater from Great Yarmouth). She is also an alumna of East Norfolk Sixth Form College, which she says she feels very fortunate to have attended.

Salman Rushdie has described a poet's work as being “to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep”.

Shelley described poets as “the unacknowledged legislators of the world”. Plato regarded poetry as being “nearer to vital truth than history.” It is for these reasons and many others that we thought “why poetry matters” an excellent subject for a lecture series celebrating the rigorous pursuit and dissemination of truth.