EDINBURGH: Inky Fingers Open Mic

Tuesday, 26th June, 2012, 8pm-11pm, FREE

Negotiants,

45-47 Lothian Street,

Edinburgh

This month, we're featuring the poetry of Anita Govan and Mark Mace Smith.

Anita Govan was born in Stirling, and has been active in the artistic communities of Edinburgh and Scotland for many years, producing, directing and showcasing creative industry. She travels around Scotland facilitating performance poetry workshops for schools, communities, festivals and universities, and has been described as a 'driving force' in many successful events and clubs for seasoned and emergent performance poets. The Guardian described her poetry as 'Direct and pressing …[with] bright, glittering vocabulary.'

Mark Mace Smith was born in London and now lives and works in Manchester. He is a poet, actor, photographer, painter, publisher, percussionist, events manager and political activist. He facilitates art therapy workshops in painting, poetry and spoken word performance.

Mark is the Commonword Northern Slam Champion 2011. BBC North/MediaCityUK Poet in Residence. Glastonbury Festival Poetry Slam winner 2008 (RU 2009). BBC slam finalist 2007 & 2009. He is the founder and host of 'Off The Beaten Track' Arts Exhibitions & Events and is also co-founder of THUD DUB BOOKS, publishers of his underground cult classic, Jobseeker's Annoyance. Mark Mace Smith’s fourth collection of poetry, Power - Stance - Perception, is due for release in spring 2012.

The Inky Fingers Open Mic takes place every fourth Tuesday of the month, from 8-11pm. It’s free to come and free for anyone to perform, regardless of style, experience, or identity.

We want to hear from everybody. We want your poems, your rants, your ballads, your short stories, your diaries, your experimental texts, your heart, your mind, your body. We want the essay on your summer holidays you wrote when you were four, your adolescent haiku, and extracts from your eventually-to-be-completed epic fantasy quadrilogy. We want to hear your best new work as well. And we want people to care about the way words are performed.

Open Mic slots are five minutes long; e-mail inkyfingersedinburgh@gmail.com to sign up and be sure of a slot, and check our website at http://inkyfingersedinburgh.wordpress.com for more details.