Swindon Festival of Literature

You have probably noticed a new look to Poets On Fire! Apart from the fantastic new colours, Charlotte has provided a sidebar with magic links to festival websites (scroll down). Swindon is just a click away but, just to be extra helpful, here is a taster of the poetry events on offer:

12 May - Bloodaxe Poets
6.30pm, £5 (£4)
Arts Centre, Devizes Road
Tel 01793 614837

BLOODAXE POETS – a reading and celebration with MONIZA ALVI & IMTIAZ DHARKER
For 30 years, Bloodaxe Books have been publishing the best in contemporary poetry, moving with the times, however confusing, happy, or troubling they may be.

Moniza Alvi, whose latest collection is Europa, and Imtiaz Dharker, The Terrorist at My Table, are two poets who are part of these times. Moniza’s work relates to both ancient and modern traumas, including enforced exile and alienation. In her challengingly-titled collection, Imtiaz asks crucial questions about how we live now and what any of us knows about our neighbours.


16 May - Poems & Pints
7.30pm, £4.50 (£3.50)
Arts Centre, Devizes Road
Tel 01793 614837


POEMS & PINTS & MUSIC! – a night of verbal and musical high jinks,with Elvis, Ashley, Sara-J, Maggie, and the Minnesota Twins!

Performance poetry from four fabulous versifiers, and the music of youth.

Here is a quartet of experienced stand-up poets and young musicians who bring linguistic thrills, musical spills, and excitement, plus not a little food for thought to the Festival’s antepenultimate night at the Arts Centre.

Radio 4 wit, 2006 World Slam Champion, armchair revolutionary and recumbent rocker, Elvis McGonnagall is the sole resident of The Graceland Caravan Park, where he writes verse while drinking malt whisky.

Reading bard with a comical beard, and assorted poetry collections to his name, including Postcards from the Hedgehog, Ashley Harrold is a multiple Slam winner and a tasty dish for word and poetry lovers, whatever their diet.

Sweet-talking Sara-Jane Arbury makes words mean more than they lay claim to in even the best dictionaries. She excels at short, sharp, gentle shock treatment. Former winner of the Guyana Prize for Literature, Maggie Harris is a prolific writer of prose and poems. Her work takes her, and her readers, across land and sea to you and me.

Talented, home-grown, young, and beautiful, the Minnesota Twins, aka Casey, Jaz, Kit, Ben, Mike, and Jacob make music that reaches parts you really want reached. They also make you want to write home, or at least to your lover.

This promises to be an evening that will make you like people you already like a little bit more!