AN award-winning poet is aiming to turn the written word into works of art and sound when he hosts his first exhibition in collaboration with neo:artists, the Bolton-based arts organisation.

Matthew Curry has created an exhibition of poster poems for the town's neo:gallery 32, in Corporation Street.

The exhibition, Imagery, features 12 poems on subjects as diverse as sewing machines and ancient myth. Sound recordings of the work will play in the gallery space alongside the posters. Mr Curry, from Manchester, has also produced an e-book, Twelve Villanelles, to accompany the exhibition.

He said: “I like putting poetry in new places, shoving it in people’s faces.

“The art pieces were inspired by the poems, as a kind of commentary on them.”