IF soggy sandwiches aren't really doing it for you, there are more inspiring lunchtime environments than the staff canteen.

This event by Manchester Literary Resource Inc features two of their leading poets. Peter Lewin grew up in Silverdale, North Lancashire and that location is the inspiration for his latest collection.

A nostalgic thread begins with the unfettered enthusiasm of the opening poem 'The Snow Machine': 'Saturday, snow falls thickly'/ Silverdale snow at its best - powdery and light, never slushy.'

As the collection continues it takes in a child's experience of his parent's separation, lush recollections of nature and the poignancy of loss.

Also reading at this event is Yorkshire-born poet Ian Parks, whose collections include 1998's A Climb Through Altered Landscapes (Blackwater).

Many of Parks' poems are concerned with love. There is love kept apart by distance, such as that in 'Departures And Rendezvous': 'It had to end like this: with rain/ and muted headlights streaming through/ the station porticoes.'

In 'Nero And Agrippa', it is love that spoils: 'She holds him and she lets him go -/ a naked lithe and ruined boy/ who soon will put her to the sword.' And then there is parental love, as found in 'Victoria Road': 'It was there that you said you felt/ the first tentative flutter of new life.'

While Lewin's poems capturing the fragile, unforgotten sense of childhood innocence, Parks is equally skilled at portraying that much-laboured theme of love: simply, and without sentimentality or self-indulgence. A combination which is sure to promise a lunchtime well spent.

Ian Parks and Peter Lewin are at the Central Library, Manchester, on July 8.

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