Kim Moore
What the trumpet taught me

Extraordinary poetry (“sensual, perceptive, entertaining” Carol Ann Duffy; “An absolute delight.” Cerys Matthews) interspersed with great tunes from one of Yorkshire’s finest brass bands.

Award winning poet Kim Moore studied music and for several years was a trumpet teacher. From first lessons through to music college, from teaching the trumpet in schools and running a brass band, right through to playing in working men’s clubs in a ten-piece soul band, these are vivid and immediate snapshots. They’re also meditative and often funny, always open to experience and clear-eyed about the vagaries of class-prejudice and the intricacies of gender in a predominantly male world. The trumpet is the central character that we always return to as we are asked to consider its pivotal role in both an individual and social history.

“The world is a better place for writing like Kim’s. And here, in her new book, we see the world through the prism of the trumpet. An absolute delight.”  Cerys Matthews

Kim Moore’s pamphlet If We Could Speak Like Wolves was a winner in the 2011 Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition. Her first collection The Art of Falling won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and her second collection All The Men I Never Married won the 2022 Forward Prize for Best Collection. Her first non-fiction book What The Trumpet Taught Me was published by Smith/Doorstop in May 2022. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. A hybrid book of lyric essays and poetry Are You Judging Me Yet? Poetry and Everyday Sexism will be published in March 2023

“These are terrifically assured poems – sensual, perceptive, entertaining – which bridge the gap between feeling and utterance with a genuine lyric gift” Carol Ann Duffy

The Yorkshire Volunteers Band can trace its history back to 1860 when it was formed as the Band of the 7th Yorkshire West Riding Rifle Volunteer Corps (Leeds Rifles), which had been formed in 1859. Today the band forms an integral part of the Yorkshire Volunteers Regimental Association, performing throughout the UK and Europe in both concert and marching band formations. The band maintains the long traditions of the Yorkshire Volunteers adding a touch of pomp and circumstance to any event from traditional summer bandstand concerts to country shows with everything in between.