Poets' Cafe in Reading with Guest Poet Clare Pollard: Friday 16th February

Poet’s Café in Reading

Reading’s longest-running poetry event, renowned for the quality of its open mic readers, its enthusiastic audiences and fine guest poets, takes place at South Street Arts Centre at 21 South Street in Reading, on the third Friday of every month. The open mic space is available for both the experienced and the new to the scene to share some of their own work, as well as a longer reading by a specially invited guest poet.

Entry is £6/£4(concessions and readers) on the door. Doors open at 8pm for 8.30pm start to the poetry. Arrive early to sign up to read.

Friday 16th February: Poets’ Café special guest is Clare Pollard

Clare Pollard was born in 1978. She survived a Bolton comprehensive and three years at Cambridge to end up in London, where she is now working on a novel. She published her first collection, The Heavy Petting Zoo with Bloodaxe in 1998; won an Eric Gregory Award in 2000; and took to the road in the First Lines young poets tour in 2001. Her second collection, Bedtime, was published in 2002. She has presented two TV documentaries, one for Channel Four with a verse commentary on the break-ups and piss-ups of Bolton's 16-year-olds. Her first play, The Weather (2004), was staged at the Royal Court in Autumn 2004. Her latest collection of poetry is Look, Clare! Look! (2005).

Once the enfant terrible of the British poetry scene with her poems of drunkenness and young people, she’s now settled into a respected position of pain, anxiety and wisdom, with a deep eroticism and a palpable thrill running through her work. Some people have gone so far as to suggest she is one of the true voices of this turn of the century generation, now plunging into its thirties; others just point out what a great poet she is – either way Clare is utterly worth watching, reading and listening to.

Future dates for your diary: -
Friday 20th April – Lorraine Mariner
Friday 18th May – Gill Learner
Friday 15th June – Jane Holland
Friday 20th July – Anthony Wilson
Friday 17th August – Open Mic Special