Wordsmiths & Co.

The UK’s first live poetry talk show, featuring poets you know from the pages of books and from festival stages. A rare opportunity to witness them sharing stories, poems and opinions as they engage in no-holds-barred conversation right before your widened eyes. Gasp as words are made to perform daring feats of sound and meaning! Shudder as you discover how your favourite poems came to be! Cheer wildly at the apparent humanity of their creators! This is live poetry. Not for the faint of heart. This is Wordsmiths & Co.

LINE UP FOR WED 13 MAR:

Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze has released five poetry books, Riddym Ravings (Race Today), Spring Cleaning (Virago), and On the Edge of an Island, The Arrival of Brighteye and The Fifth Figure (all Bloodaxe), as well as several records and CDs. Third World Girl: Selected Poems (with DVD, Bloodaxe 2011). She has performed her work throughout the world and now divides her time between Jamaica and Leicester. She received a NESTA Award in 2003.

Daljit Nagra currently lives in Willesden where he works in a secondary school. His first collection, Look We Have Coming to Dover!, won the 2007 Forward Prize for Best First Collection and was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. In 2008 he won the South Bank Show / Arts Council Decibel Award. His second collection Tippoo Sultan’s Incredible White-Man-Eating Tiger Toy-Machine!!! was published by Faber and Shortlisted for the 2012 TS Eliot Prize.

Angela France has had poems published in many of the leading journals, in the UK and abroad and has been anthologised a number of times. She has an MA in ‘Creative and Critical Writing’ from the University of Gloucestershire and is studying for a PhD. Publications include Occupation (Ragged Raven Press) and Lessons in Mallemaroking (Nine Arches Press). Angela is features editor of Iota and runs a monthly poetry cafe, Buzzwords. Her new collection, Hide will be published by Nine Arches Press (March 2013).

Charlie Jordan is a familiar radio voice, with a 20 year career presenting programmes for national and local stations. As a former Birmingham Poet Laureate, and ‘Writer in residence’ at WBA football club, Charlie runs dynamic workshops in schools that lift words off the page to engage pupils with literacy. She’s a regular on the local live poetry circuit and has appeared at festivals such as The Big Chill and Manchester’s Literature Festival. Charlie is also a founding member of poets’ collective Write Down Speak Up.

This series of events is a collaboration between Apples and Snakes and Nine Arches Press, with support from Bloodaxe Books and Warwick Arts Centre.

This is a series of monthly events.

Running Time: Approx 90 mins

For an idea of what to expect, check out Chris Bradley’s Wordsmiths & Co videos.

Lemn Sissay

LEMN SISSAY at Wordsmiths & Co. from Chris Bradley on Vimeo.

Dates & Times