RIDING Lights presents the sixth and final Poetry Doubles evening at Friargate Theatre, York, on Thursday. For each double bill, an established poet chooses a promising new writer to recite alongside, and next week Anna Stevenson will be performing with Angela Leighton.

Since the series was launched last May, the Poetry Doubles have featured Andrew Motion with Colette Bryce, Douglas Dunn with Henry Shukman, Wendy Cope with Joanne Limburg, Fleur Adcock with Julian Stannard, and Bernard O'Donoghue with Helen Farish.

Anne Stevenson, the inaugural winner of the £60,000 Northern Rock Writer Award in 2002, has published 12 collections of poetry; a book of essays, Between The Iceberg And The Ship; a critical study, Five Looks At Elizabeth Bishop; and a biography of Sylvia Plath, Bitter Fame.

Of her books, Granny Scarecrow was short-listed for the TS Eliot Prize, and last year's A Report From The Border was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Angela Leighton was born in Wakefield, educated in Edinburgh and Oxford, and teaches at the University of Hull. She began writing poetry after the death of her father. Her first volume, A Cold Spell, was published by Shoestring Press in 2000 and her poems have appeared in the Poetry Review, Times Literary Supplement, London Magazine, Agenda, Rialto, Thumbscrew and Metre. She is working on a second collection.

Thursday's poetry evening at Friargate Theatre, Lower Friargate, starts at 7.30pm, and tickets cost £7.50, concessions £5, on 0845 961 3000.

Updated: 16:33 Thursday, March 25, 2004