Friday, May 28, 2010

EDINBURGH: Ash Dickinson @ The Roxy

Sunday, 13th June, 2010, 7.30pm doors, 8pm show, £5/£4
Roxy Art House
2 Roxburgh Place,
Edinburgh
EH8 9SU

Multiple slam champion Ash Dickinson twists quick-fire rhymes and offbeat lines into a mash-up of stand-up, theatre and rap. Expect old faves and devilish new material as Ash ruminates on Facebook, the rubbishness of men's fashion, knitwear for apes and has his fridge fall in love with him.

MILTON KEYNES: Tongue In Chic anthology launch

Saturday, June 12th, 2010, FREE
Central Library,
Milton Keynes

Reflections from Mirror City is a new poetry collection which features the best of the current scene in Milton Keynes. Tongue in Chic is a regular open mic poetry event which acts as a showcase for local writers and brings in professional poets.

This same ethos is carried forward in the book as local scribes are next to some of the country’s leading poets such as John Hegley, Zena Edwards, AF Harrold, Niall O’Sullivan and Paul Lyalls. Founder of Tongue in Chic Mark Niel sees the book as a natural extension of the regular events held at Madcap:

“It’s been a privilege to watch local poets grow in confidence and stature over the last couple of years. The inspiration gained by watching our guest poets has been plain to see. MK Poets have raised their game and can now be seen regularly performing at different events and festivals all over the country. “Reflections from Mirror City” is both a testament and a showcase for their talents. I’d like to thank Arts Gateway MK for their financial support which has made the anthology a viable project”.

There will be readings from local poets and other poetry activities throughout the day.

The adventure won’t stop there as Tongue in Chic is hitting the road over the summer when they take a showcase to the Buxton Fringe Festival from 16 to 18 July.

ST AUSTELL: Word M'Art

Tuesday June 1st to Saturday June 5th, 2010, 10.30 am-4pm, FREE
The Market House
Market Street
St Austell
PL25 5QB
Tel: 07971 687120

WORD M’ART – A POETRY REVOLUTION IN OUR SHOPS
UK-based, international action-poet Sally Crabtree's Word M'Art project is kickstarting a wordy revolution by bringing poetry down from its ivory towers and into the brightly-coloured aisles of supermarkets and local shops. The ambitious project will launch at The Market House in St Austell from 1st - 5th June 2010 and promises a plethora of poetic delights with a permanent special offer on food for the soul.

Word M'Art is an interactive supermarket themed installation, which can be set up in empty shops, bustling supermarkets, as a market stall for fetes, carnivals and festivals or as a museum or gallery installation. The week-long launch event in St Austell will see interactive performances such as the Trolley Waltz, Poems in a Tin, I'll Eat My Words edible poetry cakes, Shopping List Lotto, poetic cures at the Word M'Art Pharmacy and live musical poetry from the Story Aisle Word M'arts in-store band – viva la poetry!

Sally Crabtree is an ex-world class gymnast who has been busy turning the poetry world upside down with her cart wheeling poems and magical Poetree. Word M’Art is her new poetic endeavour and the project was inspired by Sally’s Poems in a Tin as featured on BBC television and Radio 4.

In the run-up to the launch Sally will be working with the groups from the St Austell community to run Word M’Art workshops so that people can write their own poems for the tins. She is also keen for members of the public to open up to their inner poet and send their poems to her for inclusion in the Word M’Art installation. Sally, who has been invited to appear at the International Poetry Festival in Havana, Cuba in May, hopes that Word M’Art will be rolled out in supermarkets across the UK encouraging shoppers all over the country, young and old, to get involved in writing, performing and reading poetry.

“Poetry should be taken down from its ivory tower and given back to the people where it belongs,” she says. “In Cuba, the factory workers have poems read to them while they work and for them poetry is celebrated. It is as natural a part of their lives as living and breathing and they are not afraid to show their emotions. Here, it is only when there is a marriage, death or a birth that most of us are brave enough to get poetry out! I want to change all that and show people that poetry doesn’t have to be boring, stuffy or elitist. It can be fun, exciting, engaging and uplifting. There’s a poetry revolution going on and I want to encourage people to sign up!”

If you would like to submit your own poetry to the Word M’Art or would like further information please contact Sally on sally@thepoetree.net
To see more of Sally’s work, take a look at her (very brightly coloured) website: www.thepoetree.net

LONDON: Contemporary Romanian poets

Saturday, May 29th, 2010, 7pm, FREE
The Rich Mix arts centre,
London (Shoreditch/Brick Lane)
www.richmix.org.uk

3am magazine presents contemporary Romanian poetry - Elena Vladareanu, Ruxandra Novac and Adrian Urmanov.

For the first of the Maintenant interview series readings, 3am magazine presents three of the most exciting and acerbic contemporary poets emerging from Romania since the millenium. Challenging, caustic and resolute, their poetry retains the dark humour so prevalent under dictatorship with the utterly modern vernacular of a generation that has come to fruition post-1989. Attacks on misogyny, sexual repression, political idealism and linguistic correctness are interspersed with exactingly crafted free poetry, literary and resounding, distinct for it’s energy and image, and despite a textual tendency to the climactic, this reading will remain very much literary in style. Performing as part of a national tour, this is a chance to see the brightest young talent from a distinct and vivid European poetical tradition.

Selections of their work have recently been published by Cleaves Journal http://www.cleavesjournal.com/issue2/romania/romania2.htm.

Interviews with each poet are available here at 3am, Cadaverine and Pomegranate magazines respectively.
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-2-elena-vladareanu/
http://www.pomegranate.me.uk/submission/read/well-sing-for-the-third-millenium-an-interview-with-ruxandra-novac
http://web.mac.com/thecadaverine/Site/Interviews/Entries/2010/2/3_Adrian_Urmanov.html

Thursday, May 27, 2010

LONDON: Express Excess

Wednesday, 9th June, 2010, doors 8.30pm, show 9pm, £5
The Enterprise,
2 Haverstock Hill,
London
NW3
(opposite Chalk Farm Tube station)

Will Self and Mark Gwynne Jones play Express Excess, hosted by the effervescent Paul Lyalls. What a hoot!

Info 020 7 485 2659
expressexcess/myspace.com

BRISTOL: Ash Dickinson & Kreg Viesselman

Friday, May 28th, 2010, 7.30pm, £7/£6
The Lansdown
8 Clifton Road
Bristol

An intriguing night of competition-winning stand-up poetry and masterful acoustic music. Ash Dickinson, making a return to Bristol, is paired with Kreg Viesselman, a Norway-based American, on a series of UK dates.

Ash Dickinson - Multiple slam champion twists quick-fire rhymes and offbeat lines into a mash-up of stand-up, theatre and rap. Expect old faves and devilish new pieces as Ash ruminates on Facebook, the rubbishness of men's fashion, knitwear for apes and has his fridge fall in love with him.
"Impressive wordplay" - The Times
"Brilliantly surreal invention...fabulous poems" - Edinburgh Evening News
"Not only an incredibly gifted poet, but also a great comedian with a sharp eye for social commentary" - Winnipeg Free Press
www.ashdickinson.com

Kreg Veisselman - An intense experience. powerful and visceral. Guitar styles learnt from Taj Mahal coupled with the weathered tones of a guy who has really been there, this unassuming Minnesotan exudes authenticity. His last album spent several weeks at number 1 in the Euro-Americana charts ahead of the latest offerings from Eric Clapton, JJ Cale and Tom Waits.
"An incisive writer who uses dazzling imagery" - Maverick
""Rarely does a talent so exceptional and unique come along, this man deserves to be heard" - Blues Matters
"Enchanting simplicity...I really believe him when he sings" - Acoustic Magazine
www.myspace.com/kregviesselman.

Book tickets at Ash Keys Music: www.ashkeysmusic.com. Info 07855 826 228

DERBY: Mark Gwynne Jones

Friday, 28th May, 2010
Bar One,
Derby,
DE1 1JD.
Tel: Antoinette 01332 743 922 (Entry by donation: A fundraiser for Macmillan)

Prepare to be dazzled: Thomas Traux, Mark Gwynne Jones, The Face that Boils Itself, Neon Sky & Jo Lewis. Plus live art from Ms. Mischief and the Raffle of Shame.

http://misachievement.wordpress.com/events/cogmachine-2010/

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

LONDON: Book launch

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010, 3pm-3am
Amersham Arms
New Cross,
London
SE14 6TY

Music:

SKY LARKIN
http://www.myspace.com/skylarkinskylarkin

TANGLED HAIR
http://asktangledhair.tumblr.com

CROOKED MOUNTAIN CROOKED SEA
http://www.myspace.com/crookedmountaincrookedsea

SUFFER LIKE G DID
http://www.myspace.com/sufferlikegdid

JAMIE 'N' COMMONS **Resident**
http://www.myspace.com/jamiencommons

Plus

***Triple Album Launch***
SHOES AND SOCKS OFF
http://www.shoesandsocksoff.co.uk

JAMES MOSS
http://www.myspace.com/jamesmossband


TAKE COURAGE GALLERY
PRIVATE VIEW // FROM 3PM

Exhibition curated by illustrator SEAN PARKER and photographer BENJAMIN THOMAS, in the TAKE COURAGE gallery.

Poetry:

SAM RIVIERE // JOCELYN PAGE // KAYO CHINGONYI // OLLY TODD // CHRISTOPHER HORTON // DECLAN RYAN // MALENE ENGELUND

alongside the three Clinic residents:
RACHAEL ALLEN // ANDREW PARKES // SAM BUCHAN-WATTS

This night will exhibit some of the most exciting and current artists, poets and musicians working today, and celebrate the launch of the first Clinic publication and partnering EP with BSM, all at a very small price:
£3.00 entry with flyer // £4.00 without
EP: £2 // Book: £4 // Book & EP bundle: £5

www.clinicpresents.com
077958292322

BIRMINGHAM: Milorad KrystanovichMilorad Krystanovich

Thursday, 27th May, 2010, from 7.30pm, FREE
The Quaker Central Hall,
The Priory Rooms,
Bull Street,
Birmingham
B4 6AF

The launch of Improvising Memory, by Milorad Krystanovich
www.ninearchespress.com

Please join us to celebrate the arrival of Milorad Krystanovich’s sixth collection of poetry with an evening of readings from the book by Milorad Krystanovich and David Hart, Julie Boden, Hazell Hills, John Alcock, Cathy Perry, Martin Underwood, Don Barnard and Jane Commane. Readings will be complimented with music composed on the cello and violin in response to Milorad's poems.

In Improvising Memory, Milorad Krystanovich releases the characters trapped in a tableaux of negatives and breathes into them a remarkable life of their own. Portraits step down from their frames and exist amongst us; before our eyes they age and alter, ponder their own flaws, confines and mysteries. These beautifully-detailed poems explore the spaces between images with a patient and delicately-balanced language that moves in circles and echoes, creating a lyrical resonance in the act of both observing and being observed. Freeze-frame fragments become striking and graceful poem-scenes, alive with moments tangible and fleeting, just out of reach or coming into focus at the edge of sight.

“In this subtle book, full of verbal, atmospheric, relational surprises, there is shadowy light, the moods of weather, light and dark, day and night, of moonlight, of sea, a beach, between waking and dusk, of dreams and day dreams” - From the Foreword by David Hart

GALWAY: May Over The Edge Open Reading

Thursday, May 27th, 2010, 6.30pm-8pm
Galway City Library
St. Augustine Street,
Galway

Over The Edge in association with the Galway-Lorient Twinning Committee presents the May Over The Edge: Open Reading. The featured readers are David Mohan, Michael Maye and Patrick Argenté.

David Mohan is based in Dublin and writes poetry and short stories. He has been published in The Sunday Tribune, The Stony Thursday Book, Southword, and the anthology Night and Day. He won the Hennessy/ Sunday Tribune Poetry Award, as well as the 2008 overall New Irish Writer Award. He is the winner of the 2009 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year competition.

Michael Maye is a native of Tralee, Co. Kerry. He has lived in Galway for the past 32 years, where he worked in public relations with Udarás na Gaeltachta. He retired in1991. He writes with the Salthill Active Retired Association’s (SARA) Writers’ Group, guided by the group’s tutor Kevin Higgins. Stories by Michael appeared in two books published jointly by SARA group and the Knocknacarra Writers’ group. He has read his work a number of times at the Over The Edge open-mic and delighted audiences with the dark, Surrealist wit in his tales of small town Ireland past and present.

Patrick Argenté was born in Dinan (Brittany) in 1945. He studied literature and became a teacher, then a social worker and a further education counsellor. Today he is retired in Lorient and he dedicates part of his time to writing. He has published four collections of poems: Voisinage du vent (La Part Commune 2005), Les jours lâchent leurs porcelaines (La Part Commune 2006), Oeil effaré plume et les dents (Manoirante 2009) and Ernestine ou Julie (Manoirante 2010).

There will be an open-mic when the Featured Readers have finished. This is open to anyone who has a poem or story to share. New readers are always especially welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

LONDON: Lumen Poetry Series

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010, doors open 6.30 for 7pm, £5/£4, WINE
LUMEN
88 Tavistock Place
London
WC1
Tubes: Russell Square , Kings Cross, St Pancras.

Ruth O'Callaghan presents Staple Magazine.

Poets from the floor very welcome (some longer spots available). Please bring a copy of your poem if you wish to be considered for the new anthology.

LONDON: Joolz Denby

Wednesday, 26th May, 2010, 8pm, £8/£6
Soho Theatre,
21 Dean Street,
London
W1D 3NE
Booking: 020 7478 0100 / www.sohotheatre.com

Apples & Snakes in Soho, featuring Joolz Denby

Joolz Denby is an award-winning spoken-word artist and Orange Prize-shortlisted novelist. Hard-hitting yet charismatic, she has been a phenomenon on the international live lit scene for nearly three decades. Tonight she’ll be accompanied on acoustic guitar by Mik Davis of New York Alcoholic Anxiety Attack. R&P (that’s rock & poetry) has never sounded so good.

Also featuring sets from respected spokenwordalist Anthony Joseph and new poet on the block Bridget Minamore.

Two barnstormingly wordy events to book early for. Go, go, go!

Friday, May 21, 2010

LONDON: Camden Poetry Series

Friday, 4th June, 7pm, doors open 6.30pm, £5/£4, wine
Trinity United Reform Church
1 Buck Street,
Camden Town
2 minutes Camden Town tube

Ruth O'Callaghan presents Anthea Bennett, Pauline Drayson, Hannah Kelly, Judith Miller and Jean Wallis. Poets from the floor very welcome. Longer spots available. Please bring a copy of the poem if you wish to be considered for the new anthology.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

ST AUSTELL: Word M'Art

Tuesday June 1st to Saturday June 5th, 2010, 10.30 am-4pm, FREE
The Market House
Market Street
St Austell
PL25 5QB
Tel: 07971 687120

WORD M’ART – A POETRY REVOLUTION IN OUR SHOPS
UK-based, international action-poet Sally Crabtree's Word M'Art project is kickstarting a wordy revolution by bringing poetry down from its ivory towers and into the brightly-coloured aisles of supermarkets and local shops. The ambitious project will launch at The Market House in St Austell from 1st - 5th June 2010 and promises a plethora of poetic delights with a permanent special offer on food for the soul.

Word M'Art is an interactive supermarket themed installation, which can be set up in empty shops, bustling supermarkets, as a market stall for fetes, carnivals and festivals or as a museum or gallery installation. The week-long launch event in St Austell will see interactive performances such as the Trolley Waltz, Poems in a Tin, I'll Eat My Words edible poetry cakes, Shopping List Lotto, poetic cures at the Word M'Art Pharmacy and live musical poetry from the Story Aisle Word M'arts in-store band – viva la poetry!

Sally Crabtree is an ex-world class gymnast who has been busy turning the poetry world upside down with her cart wheeling poems and magical Poetree. Word M’Art is her new poetic endeavour and the project was inspired by Sally’s Poems in a Tin as featured on BBC television and Radio 4.

In the run-up to the launch Sally will be working with the groups from the St Austell community to run Word M’Art workshops so that people can write their own poems for the tins. She is also keen for members of the public to open up to their inner poet and send their poems to her for inclusion in the Word M’Art installation. Sally, who has been invited to appear at the International Poetry Festival in Havana, Cuba in May, hopes that Word M’Art will be rolled out in supermarkets across the UK encouraging shoppers all over the country, young and old, to get involved in writing, performing and reading poetry.

“Poetry should be taken down from its ivory tower and given back to the people where it belongs,” she says. “In Cuba, the factory workers have poems read to them while they work and for them poetry is celebrated. It is as natural a part of their lives as living and breathing and they are not afraid to show their emotions. Here, it is only when there is a marriage, death or a birth that most of us are brave enough to get poetry out! I want to change all that and show people that poetry doesn’t have to be boring, stuffy or elitist. It can be fun, exciting, engaging and uplifting. There’s a poetry revolution going on and I want to encourage people to sign up!”

If you would like to submit your own poetry to the Word M’Art or would like further information please contact Sally on sally@thepoetree.net
To see more of Sally’s work, take a look at her (very brightly coloured) website: www.thepoetree.net

LONDON: Shearsman Reading Series

Friday, 21st May, 2010, 7.30pm, FREE
Swedenborg Hall
Swedenborg House
20/21 Bloomsbury Way
London WC1A 2TH

Featured readers are Michael Heller, Elaine Randell and Robert Vas Dias.

Details of the books that will be officially launched on the evening:
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2010/heller.html
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2010/randellFM.htmll
and
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2010/vasdias.html

Author bios here:
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/authors/hellerA.html
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/authors/randellA.html
&
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/authors/vasdiasA.html

Entrance is around the corner on Barter Street. Closest Tube Stations: Holborn (Central & Piccadilly Lines : 4 minutes' walk), Tottenham Court Road (Central & Northern Lines: 6 minutes), Covent Garden (Piccadilly Line: 10 minutes). Several buses stop a few yards from the Hall. There is an underground carpark close by, underneath Bloomsbury Square.

Disabled access is available, but please let us know in advance if it is required.

READING: Poets Cafe

Friday, 21st May, 2010, 8pm for 8.30pm, £6/£4
South Street Arts Centre,
South Street,
Reading

Poets Cafe
The regular monthly night, now in its hundred and forty-second year, continues full steam ahead towards the horizon with more open mic and one very special guest in the shape of Peter Robinson, who will be launching his latest collection from Two Rivers Press, English Nettles. Come and be a part of a warm welcoming live literature event at which the people are as important as the words. Or some such nonsense.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

LEWES: Lewes Poetry

Thursday, 20th May, 2010, doors 8pm, show 8.30pm
Lewes Arms,
1 Mount Place,
Lewes
BN7 1YH

An Open Mic poetry night for page poets and performance poets. Compere is Oliver Gozzard and there is a prize limerick competition which all the poets must enter!

All acts are welcome.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

LONDON: Contemporary Romanian poets

Saturday, May 29th, 2010, 7pm, FREE
The Rich Mix arts centre,
London (Shoreditch/Brick Lane)
www.richmix.org.uk

3am magazine presents contemporary Romanian poetry - Elena Vladareanu, Ruxandra Novac and Adrian Urmanov.

For the first of the Maintenant interview series readings, 3am magazine presents three of the most exciting and acerbic contemporary poets emerging from Romania since the millenium. Challenging, caustic and resolute, their poetry retains the dark humour so prevalent under dictatorship with the utterly modern vernacular of a generation that has come to fruition post-1989. Attacks on misogyny, sexual repression, political idealism and linguistic correctness are interspersed with exactingly crafted free poetry, literary and resounding, distinct for it’s energy and image, and despite a textual tendency to the climactic, this reading will remain very much literary in style. Performing as part of a national tour, this is a chance to see the brightest young talent from a distinct and vivid European poetical tradition.


Selections of their work have recently been published by Cleaves Journal http://www.cleavesjournal.com/issue2/romania/romania2.htm.

Interviews with each poet are available here at 3am, Cadaverine and Pomegranate magazines respectively.
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-2-elena-vladareanu/
http://www.pomegranate.me.uk/submission/read/well-sing-for-the-third-millenium-an-interview-with-ruxandra-novac
http://web.mac.com/thecadaverine/Site/Interviews/Entries/2010/2/3_Adrian_Urmanov.html

BRISTOL: Ash Dickinson & Kreg Viesselman

Friday, May 28th, 2010, 7.30pm, £7/£6
The Lansdown
8 Clifton Road
Bristol

An intriguing night of competition-winning stand-up poetry and masterful acoustic music. Ash Dickinson, making a return to Bristol, is paired with Kreg Viesselman, a Norway-based American, on a series of UK dates.

Ash Dickinson - Multiple slam champion twists quick-fire rhymes and offbeat lines into a mash-up of stand-up, theatre and rap. Expect old faves and devilish new pieces as Ash ruminates on Facebook, the rubbishness of men's fashion, knitwear for apes and has his fridge fall in love with him.
"Impressive wordplay" - The Times
"Brilliantly surreal invention...fabulous poems" - Edinburgh Evening News
"Not only an incredibly gifted poet, but also a great comedian with a sharp eye for social commentary" - Winnipeg Free Press
www.ashdickinson.com

Kreg Veisselman - An intense experience. powerful and visceral. Guitar styles learnt from Taj Mahal coupled with the weathered tones of a guy who has really been there, this unassuming Minnesotan exudes authenticity. His last album spent several weeks at number 1 in the Euro-Americana charts ahead of the latest offerings from Eric Clapton, JJ Cale and Tom Waits.
"An incisive writer who uses dazzling imagery" - Maverick
""Rarely does a talent so exceptional and unique come along, this man deserves to be heard" - Blues Matters
"Enchanting simplicity...I really believe him when he sings" - Acoustic Magazine
www.myspace.com/kregviesselman.

Book tickets at Ash Keys Music: www.ashkeysmusic.com. Info 07855 826 228

DERBY: Mark Gwynne Jones

Friday, 28th May, 2010
Bar One,
Derby,
DE1 1JD.
Tel: Antoinette 01332 743 922 (Entry by donation: A fundraiser for Macmillan)

Prepare to be dazzled: Thomas Traux, Mark Gwynne Jones, The Face that Boils Itself, Neon Sky & Jo Lewis. Plus live art from Ms. Mischief and the Raffle of Shame.

http://misachievement.wordpress.com/events/cogmachine-2010/

GALWAY: May Over The Edge Open Reading

Thursday, May 27th, 2010, 6.30pm-8pm
Galway City Library
St. Augustine Street,
Galway

Over The Edge in association with the Galway-Lorient Twinning Committee presents the May Over The Edge: Open Reading. The featured readers are David Mohan, Michael Maye and Patrick Argenté.

David Mohan is based in Dublin and writes poetry and short stories. He has been published in The Sunday Tribune, The Stony Thursday Book, Southword, and the anthology Night and Day. He won the Hennessy/ Sunday Tribune Poetry Award, as well as the 2008 overall New Irish Writer Award. He is the winner of the 2009 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year competition.

Michael Maye is a native of Tralee, Co. Kerry. He has lived in Galway for the past 32 years, where he worked in public relations with Udarás na Gaeltachta. He retired in1991. He writes with the Salthill Active Retired Association’s (SARA) Writers’ Group, guided by the group’s tutor Kevin Higgins. Stories by Michael appeared in two books published jointly by SARA group and the Knocknacarra Writers’ group. He has read his work a number of times at the Over The Edge open-mic and delighted audiences with the dark, Surrealist wit in his tales of small town Ireland past and present.

Patrick Argenté was born in Dinan (Brittany) in 1945. He studied literature and became a teacher, then a social worker and a further education counsellor. Today he is retired in Lorient and he dedicates part of his time to writing. He has published four collections of poems: Voisinage du vent (La Part Commune 2005), Les jours lâchent leurs porcelaines (La Part Commune 2006), Oeil effaré plume et les dents (Manoirante 2009) and Ernestine ou Julie (Manoirante 2010).

There will be an open-mic when the Featured Readers have finished. This is open to anyone who has a poem or story to share. New readers are always especially welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

NORTH-EAST SCOTLAND: May events

May 19th-27th, 2010
A series of performances and workshops promoted by local venues and groups in association with North East Writers

This year for the first time, North-East Scotland's month-long festival of new writing in performance takes place in September instead of May, and the festival will now be called New Words instead of Wordfringe.

However we do have a short season of literary events in late May to whet your appetite for the main feast in September. This programme has been created by a partnership of North-East venues, promoters and publishers in association with North East Writers.

New Words artistic director Haworth Hodgkinson launches this season with a poetry workshop at Woodend Barn exploring the use of places as inspiration. Aberdeen-based novelists Bill Kirton and Olivia McMahon will read from their latest books at Cellar 35, and Knotbrook Taylor will be the guest poet at one of the ever-popular open poetry nights at Better Read Books that have become a part of the literary calendar.

Michael William Molden will be signing copies of his new novel, there's a launch of a new anthology of art-inspired poetry at Aberdeen Arts Centre, and Poetry Aberdeen rounds the season off with the launch of the first collection from Aberdeenshire's young and highly talented poet Bryony Harrower.

See www.northeastwriters.co.uk for full details of these events.

LONDON: Shearsman Reading Series

Friday, 21st May, 2010, 7.30pm, FREE
Swedenborg Hall
Swedenborg House
20/21 Bloomsbury Way
London WC1A 2TH

Featured readers are Michael Heller, Elaine Randell and Robert Vas Dias.

Details of the books that will be officially launched on the evening:
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2010/heller.html
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2010/randellFM.htmll
and
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2010/vasdias.html

Author bios here:
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/authors/hellerA.html
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/authors/randellA.html
&
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/authors/vasdiasA.html

Entrance is around the corner on Barter Street. Closest Tube Stations: Holborn (Central & Piccadilly Lines : 4 minutes' walk), Tottenham Court Road (Central & Northern Lines: 6 minutes), Covent Garden (Piccadilly Line: 10 minutes). Several buses stop a few yards from the Hall. There is an underground carpark close by, underneath Bloomsbury Square.

Disabled access is available, but please let us know in advance if it is required.

LONDON: Jawdance

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010, 7.30pm, FREE
Rich Mix,
35–47 Bethnal Green Road,
London,
E1 6LA

Jawdance is a crunchy, chewy, new poetry concoction: fresh poets, seasoned poets, poetry books, poetry films and singers (who are poets by any other name). Come and savour your free sample every third Wednesday. Get there early to grab a sought after open mic slot. Because, deep down, we’re all poets, aren’t we?

Brought to you by the cranked up culture dispensers that is Apples & Snakes.

Info: Russell@applesandsnakes.org / 020 8465 6154

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

LEAMINGTON SPA: PUREandGOODandRIGHT

Sunday, 23rd May, 2010, 7.30pm, £3/£2
The Fox,
Leamington Spa

Each month we also invite a fabulous guest performance poet and this month we have the lyrical and engaging charms of Fay Roberts. Fay is a 35-year-old classically-trained singer from Cardiff who has been getting on stages since the early 80s. She was finally bitten by the performance poetry bug in spring 2006 after a favour to a friend turned into a place in the final of a poetry slam.

She has co-managed and co-hosted Poetry Kapow since 2007 in Milton Keynes, frequently performs in various parts of the Midlands and South East, and is part of a Milton Keynes poetry collective calling themselves Bardcore. She is currently a professional pedant, still sings in choirs and everywhere else and, since summer 2009, has been based in Cambridge.

Fay’s poetry is both thoughtful and heartfelt, with plenty thrown in about love, relationships, the perils of getting older, illusion, delusion and problems with the colour orange. Fay has performed poetry in pubs, clubs, theatres, tents, shopping centres and stately gardens, in Open Mic, showcases, features, support, collaboration, competition and costume. Sometimes she bangs a drum, and sometimes she performs in silence, while the words flutter in front of her...

For more information please see www.faithhope.co.uk/poetry/performance

DEFINITELY AN EVENING NOT TO BE MISSED!

With open mic support from…….yes……YOU!
Come and share your poems - seasoned poets & first time performers most welcome! As we aim for a 7.30pm start please arrive a bit earlier to book a slot!!!

If you're planning to come along, or would like to know more about the night, please email pgrpoetryandpints@talktalk.net

LONDON: Ambit Reading

Thursday, 13th May, 2010, 6.45pm, FREE
The Reliance,
336 Old Street,
London
Telephone: 020 8340 3566

Ambit's 200 words competition – winners' reading
Featuring David Gaffney and Naomi Foyle – hear the winners of the Ambit 200 Words Competition read their entries. Meet the Ambit team and enjoy a drink at one of the funkiest bars in London.

LONDON: Joolz Denby

Wednesday, 26th May, 2010, 8pm, £8/£6
Soho Theatre,
21 Dean Street,
London
W1D 3NE
Booking: 020 7478 0100 / www.sohotheatre.com

Apples & Snakes in Soho, featuring Joolz Denby

Joolz Denby is an award-winning spoken-word artist and Orange Prize-shortlisted novelist. Hard-hitting yet charismatic, she has been a phenomenon on the international live lit scene for nearly three decades. Tonight she’ll be accompanied on acoustic guitar by Mik Davis of New York Alcoholic Anxiety Attack. R&P (that’s rock & poetry) has never sounded so good.

Also featuring sets from respected spokenwordalist Anthony Joseph and new poet on the block Bridget Minamore.

Two barnstormingly wordy events to book early for. Go, go, go!

Wurm Press Launch, Dublin, Thursday 13th May

The little Room
57 Smithfield Square
Dublin

Thursday 13th May
8pm
FREE ENTRY

This is the Dublin launch of Dylan Harris's book "antwerp", and Kit Fryatt's chapbook "Caoimhghin Shea and various legends and lyrics". Both are published in Ireland by wurm press.

Kit is the recent winner of the Stinging Fly poetry prize.

Your MC for the evening will be Anamaría Crowe Serrano.

All welcome. Admission free, refreshments served.

Monday, May 10, 2010

LEWES: Lewes Poetry

Thursday, 20th May, 2010, doors 8pm, show 8.30pm
Lewes Arms,
1 Mount Place,
Lewes
BN7 1YH

An Open Mic poetry night for page poets and performance poets. Compere is Oliver Gozzard and there is a prize limerick competition which all the poets must enter!

All acts are welcome.

READING: Poets Cafe

Friday, 21st May, 2010, 8pm for 8.30pm, £6/£4
South Street Arts Centre,
South Street,
Reading

Poets Cafe
The regular monthly night, now in its hundred and forty-second year, continues full steam ahead towards the horizon with more open mic and one very special guest in the shape of Peter Robinson, who will be launching his latest collection from Two Rivers Press, English Nettles. Come and be a part of a warm welcoming live literature event at which the people are as important as the words. Or some such nonsense.

WARWICK: Peter Gizzi and Michael Heller

Monday, May 10th, 2010, 3pm-5pm, FREE
The Chaplaincy,
University of Warwick,
Coventry

Poetry Reading: Peter Gizzi and Michael Heller

Peter Gizzi's books include The Outernationale (Wesleyan, 2007), Some Values of Landscape and Weather (Wesleyan, 2003), Artificial Heart (Burning Deck, 1998), and Periplum (Avec Books, 1992) along with an expanded edition of his first collection, published in Britain: Periplum and other poems 1987-92 (Salt Publishing, 2004). He is a winner of the Lavan Younger Poet Award from the Academy of American Poets (1994, selected by John Ashbery) and has held fellowships in poetry from The Fund for Poetry (1993), The Rex Foundation (1993, selected by Robert Hunter), Howard Foundation (1998, selected by Barbara Guest), The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (1999, selected by Jasper Johns), and The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2005). He is currently Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and poetry editor of The Nation magazine.

Praise for Peter Gizzi:
‘Peter Gizzi's disturbing lyricism is like no other—the innermost whir of the daily curtain rising on outer catastrophe. His phrasing can wrench the heart, his eye refracts ordinary light into acute images. In The Outernationale we are “listening to a life / unlived any other way”—unmistakably, as poetry.’
—Adrienne Rich

LONDON: Apples and Snakes Open Mic

Monday, 10th May, 2010, 6.30pm, FREE
Free Word Centre,
60 Farringdon Road,
London,
EC1A 1BB

It’s simple: a roomful of poets, performers and people who just want to hear poetry. Newcomers meet the seasoned performers on equal terms. Arrive early and claim your all important slot in the spotlight. Featuring Jill Abram and Mark Niel.

Info: Russell@applesandsnakes.org / 020 8465 6154

LONDON: Les Murray lecture

Tuesday, 11th May, 2010, 7pm
Tickets: £12 (£8 Poetry Society members and concessions). Tickets can be booked on line at www.poetrysociety.org.uk or telephone 0207 420 9886. All welcome.
Beveridge Hall,
University of London
Senate House, Malet Street
London
WC1E 7HU

Les Murray, Australian “super-league” poet, delivers the Poetry Society’s Annual Lecture - Infinite Anthology: Adventures in Lexiconia, a talk about words and the poems they inspire.

In a rare UK appearance, Australian poet Les Murray gives the Poetry Society's annual lecture, in which he'll explore his life-long fascination with word-collecting. From the folk words and country speech he heard as a child, to the new coinages he collects for the Macquarie Dictionary, Murray explains how he has used poetry as a word-store. From rangas and pobbledonks to belly leggings and jail tats Murray serves up some of the words that have most inspired him, while discussing how he's chosen to direct each word's unique potency. He finishes the evening with a poetry reading.

"There is no poetry in the English language now so rooted in its sacredness, so broad-leafed in its pleasures, and yet so intimate and so conversational." Derek Walcott on Les Murray.
Supported by the Institute of English Studies, University of London

LONDON: Lumen Poetry Series

Tuesday, 11th May, 2010, doors open 6.30pm for 7pm, £5/£4, Wine
88 Tavistock Place
London
WC1
Tubes: Russell Square , Kings Cross, St Pancras.

Ruth O'Callaghan presents Jan Fortune Wood's The Cinnamon Press Anthology off The Cold Weather Shelter Poets.

LONDON: Flambard Press 20th anniversary reading

Monday, May 10th, 2010, 8pm-10pm
The Troubadour
263-267 Old Brompton Road,
London
SW5 9JA

Celebrate Flambard’s twentieth with Rebecca Goss, Cynthia Fuller, Ellen Phethean, Kelley Swain, Anna Mckerrow, SJ Litherland, Nancy Mattson and Wanda Barford.

Newcastle-based Flambard Press celebrates 20 years of poetry publishing with special emphasis on promoting North-of-England writers:
- Rebecca Goss - The Anatomy of Structures (2010) - grew up in Suffolk, lives in Liverpool;
- Durham-based Cynthia Fuller teaches for Open University & Newcastle University - fifth Flambard collection, Background Music (2009);
- Ellen Phethean (Breath, 2009) co-founded Diamond Twig;
- Kelley Swain (Darwin's Microscope, 2009) is Secretary of the British Society for Literature & Science;
- Anna McKerrow, 1st collection, The Fast Heat of Beauty, 2008, is Associate Editor for New Fairy Tales;
- SJ Litherland (b. Warwickshire, lives in Durham City), is a founding member of Vane Women Writers – latest collection, The Absolute Bonus of Rain (2010);
- Nancy Mattson (b. Canada, moved to London, 1990) organises Poetry in the Crypt readings – latest publication (Writing with Mercury, 2006);
- Wanda Barford (b. Milan, fled Mussolini's Italy as a child and now lives in London): fourth collection What is the Purpose of Your Visit? (2006).

Directions by tube and train:
The Troubadour is 2 minutes’ walk from West Brompton tube (which is on the Wimbledon branch of the District Line and is also an overground station) or 4 minutes from Earls Court, which is very easy to get to on either the District or Piccadilly lines.

Saturday, May 08, 2010

Manchester Poetry

Susana Gardner, Peter Manson and Nicole Mauro work together for the good of the nation.

Wednesday 2nd June, 7.00 pm.

The Old Abbey Inn, 61 Pencroft Way, Manchester, M15 6AY. Admission free.

Hope to see you there.

James Davies
Tom Jenks
Scott Thurston

Thursday, May 06, 2010

WARWICK: Peter Gizzi and Michael Heller

Monday, May 10th, 2010, 3pm-5pm, FREE
The Chaplaincy,
University of Warwick,
Coventry

Poetry Reading: Peter Gizzi and Michael Heller

Peter Gizzi's books include The Outernationale (Wesleyan, 2007), Some Values of Landscape and Weather (Wesleyan, 2003), Artificial Heart (Burning Deck, 1998), and Periplum (Avec Books, 1992) along with an expanded edition of his first collection, published in Britain: Periplum and other poems 1987-92 (Salt Publishing, 2004). He is a winner of the Lavan Younger Poet Award from the Academy of American Poets (1994, selected by John Ashbery) and has held fellowships in poetry from The Fund for Poetry (1993), The Rex Foundation (1993, selected by Robert Hunter), Howard Foundation (1998, selected by Barbara Guest), The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (1999, selected by Jasper Johns), and The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2005). He is currently Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and poetry editor of The Nation magazine.

Praise for Peter Gizzi:
‘Peter Gizzi's disturbing lyricism is like no other—the innermost whir of the daily curtain rising on outer catastrophe. His phrasing can wrench the heart, his eye refracts ordinary light into acute images. In The Outernationale we are “listening to a life / unlived any other way”—unmistakably, as poetry.’
—Adrienne Rich

GALWAY: Poetry Extravaganza

Friday, May 7th, 2010, 8pm, FREE
Sheridan’s Wine Bar,
14-16 Church Yard Street,
Galway

Over The Edge presents readings by poets Chris Agee, Louis de Paor, Chris Nikkel and Kevin O’Shea.

Chris Agee was born in 1956 in San Francisco and grew up in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island but since 1979 has lived in Ireland. He is the author of three books of poems, In the New Hampshire Woods (The Dedalus Press, 1992), First Light (The Dedalus Press, 2003) and Next to Nothing (Salt, 2009), as well as the editor of Scar on the Stone: Contemporary Poetry from Bosnia (Bloodaxe, 1998, Poetry Society Recommendation). He is currently completing a collection of essays, Journey to Bosnia. He reviews regularly for The Irish Times and is the Editor of Irish Pages, a journal of contemporary writing. Next to Nothing was shortlisted for the first Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry, funded by the Poet Laureate and organized by the Poetry Society in London.

Born in Cork in 1961, Louis de Paor has been involved with the contemporary renaissance of poetry in Irish since 1980 when he was first published in the poetry journal Innti which he subsequently edited for a time. A four times winner of the Seán Ó Ríordáin/Oireachtas Award, the premier award for a new collection of poems in Irish, he lived in Australia from 1987 to 1996. He is the recipient of the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award 2000, the first poet in Irish to achieve that distinction. His bilingual volume agus rud eile de/and another thing was published recently by Cló Iar-Chonnacht.

Chris Nikkel was born in Canada, and grew up in Winnipeg. In 2003 he moved to Ireland to be with his wife, and currently lives in Fahan, Co. Donegal. A poet and non-fiction writer, his work has been published in Canada, Ireland and the UK, for magazines such as Fortnight, Prairie Fire, Canada's History, and most recently the anthology Landing Places: Immigrant Poets in Ireland. He is currently completing his first book, a creative non-fiction story set in the boreal forest in Canada. Chris holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and a BA from the University of Winnipeg. He works for Five Door Films as documentary screenwriter and researcher.

Kevin O’Shea lives in Moycullen within earshot of the old Galway-Clifden Railway line. He recently retreated from the world of technology to consult the imagination and the garden. He is a survivor, reasonably intact, of multiple Creative Writing Classes with Susan Millar DuMars and Kevin Higgins. In 2009 he was selected to participate in the Cúirt poetry masterclass with Jane Hirshfield and greatly enjoyed the experience. He was shortlisted in the 2009 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition and for the 2010 Cúirt Festival Over The Edge Showcase reading. Kevin is currently a participant in the Advanced poetry workshop at Galway Arts Centre.

All welcome. For further information contact 087-6431748.

LONDON: Camden Poetry Series

Friday, 7th May, 2010, 7pm (doors open 6.30pm), £5/£4, Wine
Trinity United Reform Church,
1 Buck Street,
Camden Town
London
2 mins. Camden Town tube

Ruth O'Callaghan presents Overstep Books, with readers David Grubb, Alwyn Marriage and Andrew Nightingale. Poets from the floor very welcome. Longer spots available. Please bring a copy of the poem if you wish to be considered for the new anthology.

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

LONDON: Jawdance

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010, 7.30pm, FREE
Rich Mix,
35–47 Bethnal Green Road,
London,
E1 6LA

Jawdance is a crunchy, chewy, new poetry concoction: fresh poets, seasoned poets, poetry books, poetry films and singers (who are poets by any other name). Come and savour your free sample every third Wednesday. Get there early to grab a sought after open mic slot. Because, deep down, we’re all poets, aren’t we?

Brought to you by the cranked up culture dispensers that is Apples & Snakes.

Info: Russell@applesandsnakes.org / 020 8465 6154

LONDON: Apples and Snakes Open Mic

Monday, 10th May, 2010, 6.30pm, FREE
Free Word Centre,
60 Farringdon Road,
London,
EC1A 1BB

It’s simple: a roomful of poets, performers and people who just want to hear poetry. Newcomers meet the seasoned performers on equal terms. Arrive early and claim your all important slot in the spotlight. Featuring Jill Abram and Mark Niel.

Info: Russell@applesandsnakes.org / 020 8465 6154

INISHBOFIN: Arts Festival

Saturday, May 8th, 2010, 5pm
Inishbofin Library

John Liddy, an Irish poet who has lived in Madrid for many years, will read at the Inishbofin Arts Festival. He writes poems of recollection, spirituality, politics and nature.

A section of John’s reading in Inishbofin will mark the centenary of the birth of the Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez. The poet Edward Hirsch has described Hernandez as “one of the most open-hearted and heart-breaking Spanish-language poets in the 20th century. His emotionally charged poetry is filled with human difficulties, so full of the earth and the spirit of freedom." Hernandez stands out as one of the most human and honest poets, truly loyal to the common peoples' cause.

As a poet who has lived in Madrid since 1982, where he works as a librarian and teacher at the British Institute, a poet now as profoundly Irish as he is Spanish, a man who draws from the deep sources of tradition and history, a poet who should be read as an importer of new directions, it is fitting that at his Inishbofin reading Liddy will honour the memory of the great Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez.

Miguel Hernández, a goatherd born in 1910 in a village in eastern Spain, received limited formal education. He spent the last three years of his tragic life in Franco's prisons, where he died on March 28, 1942, before he was 32 years old.

To travel to the beautiful island of Inishbofin please check:
http://www.inishbofinislanddiscovery.com/

Saturday, May 01, 2010

CHELTENHAM: Buzzwords Poetry Night

Sunday, 2nd May, 2010, 7pm, minimum £3, £5 if you are able
upstairs at The Exmouth Arms,
Bath Road,
Cheltenham

Guest poet: June Hall

7pm Workshop led by June Hall
8pm - Readings and open mic

Do please have a look at the first Chipping Campden Literature festival, starting on May 4th. Events in the school hall are free for students http://www.campdenlitfest.co.uk/