The Box Office for Exeter Poetry Festival 2018 is open!
Event: Launch of PLAY anthology
Date: Monday 1st October
Time: 19.30
Price: Free
Venue: City Gate Hotel, Iron Bridge, Exeter, EX4 3RB
Map: Location
In place of the usual Festival edition of The Broadsheet, Simon Williams and Susan Taylor will be hosting a pre-launch reading of poems from a new anthology of poetry about play, a labour of love to commemorate their grandson Reuben and to raise money for a new play area on Vire Island in Totnes. There will be readings by contributors, projected images from the book and the opportunity to pre-order copies.
Event: The Alex Cluness Memorial Reading
With: Fiona Benson, Ann Gray, David Woolley and Alasdair Paterson
Date: Thursday 4th October 2018
Time: 19.30
Price: £3 (£2 concessions)
Tickets: Exeter Phoenix Box Office or on the door
Venue: City Gate Hotel, Iron Bridge, Exeter, EX4 3RB
Map: Location
Alex Cluness, who died earlier this year at the age of 49, was a poet and arts administrator who was a driving force behind the establishment of the Exeter Poetry Festival. We are pleased to offer this tribute event on National Poetry Day.
The evening will feature readings from Fiona Benson and Ann Gray, with contributions from other South West poets who knew Alex: David Woolley, and Alasdair Paterson. Some of Alex’s poetry will also be read. Prices are lowered for this event because of financial assistance from Literature Works, for whom Alex once worked.
Event: Matt Harvey and Kimwei McCarthy
Date: Friday 5th October 2018
Time: 19.30
Price: £6 (£5 concessions)
Tickets: Exeter Phoenix Box Office or on the door
Venue: Exeter Community Centre, 17 St Davids Hill, Exeter EX4 3RG
Map: Location
With book titles such as ‘Where Earwigs Dare’, ‘Mindless Body Spineless Mind’ and ‘The Element In The Room’ Matt Harvey has built a national reputation as a poet and performer, at once charismatic, hilarious and profound; he has been, in his time, Official Wimbledon Championship Poet, presenter of Radio 4’s Wondermentalist and ecological columnist.
Kimwei McCarthy is this year’s Bard of Exeter. As well as a writer and performer of beguiling poetry, she is a formidably accomplished musician and singer-songwriter with a long involvement in the Exeter performance and spoken word scene.
Event: Afternoon Workshop with Anthony Wilson
Date: Saturday 6th October 2018
Time: 14.00-16.00
Price: £20 (limited to 12)
Tickets: Exeter Phoenix Box Office
Venue: City Gate Hotel, Iron Bridge, Exeter, EX4 3RB
Map: Location
Poet, teacher and blogger Anthony Wilson has had several collections of poetry published, with another imminent from Worple Press. He is co-editor of the Bloomsbury titles ‘Making Poetry Matter’ and ‘Making Poetry Happen’, and editor of the acclaimed Bloodaxe anthology ‘Lifesaving Poems’. Intriguingly, he has chosen ‘work’ as the theme of today’s workshop.
Event: Family Workshop with Jan Dean
Date: Saturday 6th October 2018
Time: 11.00-16.00
Price: Free
Venue: Exeter Library, Castle Street, Exeter EX4 3PQ
Map: Location
‘Poetry as you Pass’ Stop by and look for hidden poems. Find fabulous words and fit them together. Join Jan Dean to search for poems that are just waiting to be discovered.
Event: Jacqueline Saphra and Melanie Branton with Michelle Madsen
Date: Saturday 6th October 2018
Time: 19.30
Price: £6 (£5 concessions)
Tickets: Exeter Phoenix Box Office or on the door
Venue: Exeter Phoenix Dance Studio, Gandy St, Exeter EX4 3LS
Map: Location
Jacqueline Saphra’s collection from Nine Arches Press, ‘All My Mad Mothers’, was shortlisted for the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize and in the same year ‘A Bargain with the Light: Poems after Lee Miller’ was published by Hercules Editions. She lives in London and teaches at The Poetry School.
Melanie Branton’s first collection of poetry is ‘My Cloth-Eared Heart’ (Oversteps Books, 2017); her second will be published by Burning Eye in late 2018. Her full-length poetry show has been showcased at the Edinburgh Fringe and she represented Bristol at the Superheroes of Slam 2017 national finals.
Michelle Madsen is a poet, theatre maker, activist and investigative journalist. From giant salad tosses to interpretive haiku to compulsive mountaineering, Michelle’s work uses the absurd, the unexpected and the subversive to question power, privilege and the structures we live by.
Event: Morning Workshop with Michelle Madsen
Date: Sunday 7th October 2018
Time: 10.15-12.30
Price: £20 (limited to 12)
Tickets: Exeter Phoenix Box Office
Venue: City Gate Hotel, Iron Bridge, Exeter, EX4 3RB
Map: Location
A spoken word workshop with the host of Hammer and Tongue Slam Nights in Camden. Michelle Madsen is a poet, theatre maker, activist and investigative journalist. From giant salad tosses to interpretive haiku to compulsive moutaineering, Michelle’s work uses the absurd, the unexpected and the subversive to question power, privilege and the structures we live by. Michelle is a member of Poetry on the Picket Line, BP or Not BP and has appeared on BBC1 and BBC Radio 4, Resonance FM and NTS Radio.
Event: South-West Poetry Writing Groups
With: Company of Poets, Poetry Teignmouth, Moor Poets and Fire River Poets
Date: Sunday 7th October 2018
Time: 14.00
Price: Free
Venue: City Gate Hotel, Iron Bridge, Exeter, EX4 3RB
Map: Location
Members of Company of Poets, Poetry Teignmouth, Moor Poets and Fire River Poets will be reading some of their recent work and demonstrating the range and accomplished strength of the South West poetry scene.
Event: Exeter Slam
Date: Sunday 7th October 2018
Time: 19.30
Price: £8 (£6 concessions)
Tickets: Exeter Phoenix Box Office or on the door
Venue: Exeter Phoenix Main Auditorium, Gandy St, Exeter EX4 3LS
Map: Location
The prestigious annual Festival Slam will be staged this year in a new venue but to the traditional formula. Tim King and Samantha Boarer will introduce a clutch of 12 duelling slammers who will perform to an enthusiastic audience and an expert panel of judges, in pursuit of a £75 cash prize and the chance to headline at Taking the Mic. Prepare to be amazed.
Uncut Poets with Ben Banyard and Mark Totterdell at Exeter Phoenix on Thursday 26th July 2018 at 7.30pm
July brings in our last Uncut before the (some would say well-deserved) August holiday. So put down the bucket and spade (and the sunblock, panama, bikini, mankini, rickety deckchair and butterfly net) and come along for an evening in the cool oasis of Devon poetry.
Our guests this month are Ben Banyard and Mark Totterdell. Mark’s latest beguiling wanderings through Ordnance Survey sheets and whole taxonomies of birds, beasts and pubs have just been published as Mappings (Indigo Dreams 2018). Ben is sole proprietor of the Clear Poetry blog, an respected outlet for accessible poetry, and his own reflections on the relationships we make in this world have been published as Communings (Indigo Dreams 2016).
The evening will be hosted as usual by Alasdair Paterson, together with the equally familiar Mystery Co-presenter. The usual 10 5-minute slots are available to first responders, either here on Facebook, by email at a.t.paterson@exeter.ac.uk or by phone at 07783 734523.
Admission £5 (£3 open mic and concessions). Bring a fan. Bring several fans.
Exeter Poetry Festival 2018 will be the week of National Poetry Day 4th October 2018; save the date!
As in previous years, Exeter Poetry Festival 2018 will have events programmed around Exeter throughout the week of National Poetry Day which is Thursday 4th October 2018.
This 10th Festival will be in memory of our founder Alex Cluness who sadly died earlier this year.
We are grateful to the City Gate Hotel and Literature Works for their support.
The programme includes:
- Poetry cabaret with Matt Harvey
- Jacqui Saphra and Melanie Branton in performance, with Michelle Madsen
- A Poetry Workshop on the theme of work with Anthony Wilson
- A Spoken Word workshop with Michelle Madsen
- Family Workshop with Jan Dean
- The Poetry Slam with Tim King
- A reading by poets including Fiona Benson, Alasdair Paterson, Damian Furniss, Ann Gray and David Woolley in memory of Festival founder, Alex Cluness
- Kimwei Mccarthy, Bard of Exeter
- The launch of the ‘Play’ anthology in memory of Reuben Williams
- Readings from some of the South-West’s finest poetry group
Uncut Poets at 7.30pm on Thursday 28th June 2018 at Exeter Phoenix with Angela Topping
June’s Uncut (as the days begin to shorten, sorry about that) features Angela Topping, a well-known name to many Uncut regulars but making her first appearance here as guest poet. Angela’s life in poetry has been centred in the North-West and has included a teaching career and a long history of leading workshops at all levels; she has also been poet-in-residence in a wide variety of venues, including schools and libraries. Her latest books are Hearth (Mother’s Milk Books) and The Five Petals Of Elderflower (Red Squirrel Press).
The evening will be presented by Alasdair Paterson and the obligatory Mystery Co-Presenter.
There are 10 5-minute open mic spots and these can be reserved on a first-come-first-served basis by applying to Alasdair here on FB, by phone at 07783 734 523 or at a.t.paterson@exeter.ac.uk.
Admission is £5 (£3 open mic and concessions) and the reading begins at 7.30pm.
Uncut Poets at Exeter Phoenix on Thursday May 31st 2018 at 7.30pm with Julie Mullen and Helen Boyles.
The end of May, that happy time between incessant rain and hosepipe bans, brings to Uncut two bright sunshiny days in the persons of Julie Mullen and Helen Boyles.
Julie Mullen is an actor, performance poet and the moving spirit of Word Café in Totnes; her Erotic Poetry for Vegans and Vegetarians has been described (by Brian Patten) as doing for vegetables what Wordsworth did for daffodils.
Helen Boyles‘ new book, Transitions (Indigo Dreams), showcases her continuing fascination with landscape and the human stories emerging from or shaping it, finding the exact, evocative language for the histories of change.
The evening will be compered by Alasdair Paterson and the ever-reliable Mystery Co-Presenter. 10 open mic slots of 5 minutes each are available to those quickest off the mark, though last month’s reserves who came along but didn’t get the call will have priority. Apply to Alasdair here on FB, at a.t.paterson@exeter.ac.uk or by phone at 07783 734523.
Admission is pegged at £5 (£3 open mic and concessions). The bar will be open.
Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival on 25th to 27th May 2018 at Sterts Theatre and Arts Centre, Liskeard, PL14 5AZ
W.S. GRAHAM: ‘…BETWEEN / THIS WORD AND THE NEXT’
Welcome to BMPF Seven. We have joined with a wide variety of partners to make this year even more varied and exciting. Our line-up of poets runs from the newest voices on the block to some of the UK’s most established and respected figures. We continue to explore poetry’s relationship with dance, and we once again celebrate the centenary of a 20th century great, this time W.S Graham, a Scottish poet who lived most of his adult life in Cornwall.
Our readings and workshops range from the traditional to the experimental, from the local primary school to the Celtic fringes. We draw out the art of book illustration, the relationship between a great poet and his artist friends, and the poet as the artist.
We move from the dialect of the Black Country to Spain, from Cardiff via Beat & Black Mountain to poetry on film, from the Moomins to memes as we savour the many marvellous voices poetry can inhabit.
Our chief partner this year is Guillemot Press, along with clinic, Periplum and Shearsman, all small independent presses so vital in continuing to pump the life-blood around poetry’s system. We are also working with Hillfort Primary School, and both Plymouth and Falmouth Universities, as they encourage our future generations of poets. We look forward to seeing you.
Ann Gray and David Woolley
Language Club on Tuesday 29th May 2018 at 19.00 in the Lecture Theatre at the Plymouth College of Art
The next Language Club event will be on Tuesday 29th May, in the Lecture Theatre at Plymouth College of Art. Please arrive by 7.00 pm for a prompt start at 7.15.
Our extended session on this occasion is from Ric Hool. Originally from Northumberland, Ric is now resident in Abergavenny where he is the organiser of a regular series of poetry events. He has published nine collections of poetry, including Between So Many Words (Red Squirrel Press, 2016), A Way of Falling Upwards (Cinnamon Press, 2014) and Hut (Woodenhead Press, 2016). He was the Welsh Academy poet for the Abergavenny Food Festival in 2009.
His poetic themes are the psychological and geographical impact of place and space on the human experience. Water is a recurring feature in his work. Fiona Owen has commented on his work that ‘the word that most characterises this collection (No Nothing – The Collective Press, 2009) is ‘fluidity’. If water is its central element then winter is the season that Ric Hool seems most at home in, with its qualities of darkness, receptivity and the music of weather’.
Marion Clare is a performance poet and organiser of Soapbox, an open mic event which occurs on the first Wednesday of the month, currently at Bread and Roses in Ebrington Street. She works with a group of musicians named The Spoils and her solo projects have included ‘The End of the Party’ and a piece based on an encounter with a whale, inspired partly by the late Heathcote Williams’ Whale Nation.
Sam Richards is a musician and composer as well as a poet and has also written a number of books on music, including Soundings (essays, Plymouth University Press, 2017) and The Engaged Musician (2013). He has also published a mammoth history of Dartington Arts – Learning by Doing. He is a regular reader of his poetry in the South West and his work has appeared in The Broadsheet and The Plymouth Herald. A first collection is overdue.
Rachel Gippetti‘s first poetry collection, Birthright, was published by Eyewear in 2017. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Plymouth and works as a Higher Education study manager at Plymouth College of Art. Her poetry has also appeared in a number of magazines, including Shearsman, and deals with questions of genetic inheritance, birth, fertility and her Jewish ancestry.
We look forward to seeing you there. Entry is by donation: the Language Club receives no public funding so the more we receive, the greater our ability to invite readers from further afield.
Uncut Poets at the Exeter Phoenix on 26th April at 7.30pm with Roselle Angwin and Rose Cook
So April has been doing that thing of stirring dull roots with spring rain – quite a lot of rain actually – and a plume of sun and it’s already time for the next monthly edition of Uncut Poets. Mixing memory and desire will be our two guest poets, Roselle Angwin and Rose Cook.
Roselle’s new book from Pindrop Press, A Trick Of The Light, is a luminous, reflective account of the history, landscapes and special atmosphere of the island of Iona, where she leads annual writing retreats.
Rose’s latest collection Hearth, from Cultured Llama, showcases her characteristic mix of lightness of touch and clarity of vision, dealing with the changes, the losses and gains that age brings, as well as the beauty and revelations of the natural world.
The evening in the Phoenix Workshop will be presented by Alasdair Paterson and a mystery co-presenter. There will be the usual 10 open mic spots and anyone wanting to grab one of these 5-minute short cuts to celebrity should contact Alasdair here on FB, at a.t.paterson@exeter.ac.uk or on 07783 734 523.
Admission £5 (£3 for open mic and concessions). Lilacs bred out of the dead earth optional.
Uncut Poets with Louisa Adjoa Parker and John Phillips at 19.30 on 25th January 2018 at Exeter Phoenix
After a full set of post-hibernation calisthenics (and the last of the Christmas nuts), Uncut emerges into the air of 2018 raring to go with an exciting year’s programme of poetry.
We begin with a bumper edition that features two guest poets, both new to the Workshop. Louisa Adjoa Parker’s Blinking in The Light was published by Cinnamon Press in 2016 and chronicles the experience of growing up of mixed heritage in the West Country in the 70s; she also writes fiction, and about BAME history.
John Phillips lives in St Ives, where he runs Hassle Press, publishing American, British and French poets. His most recent collection is last year’s Shape Of Faith (Shearsman). The work is subtle, thought-provoking and concentrated.
The evening will be presented by Alasdair Paterson and, as is customary, a mystery co-presenter. Ten open mic slots of 5 minutes each will be available on a first-come-first-served basis; these can be booked by email at a.t.paterson@exeter.ac.uk or by phone on 07783 734523. Admission £5 (£3 concessions and open mic). Those who wish to toast the Immortal Memory on what is after all Burns Night will find the Phoenix bar close at hand. There is (when last inspected) whisky. We look forward to seeing you.
Uncut Poets with Alwyn Marriage and Julie-ann Rowell at 19.30 on 28th November 2017 at Exeter Phoenix
November’s Uncut is the last of the year, and because of a bit of double booking of the Workshop by the Phoenix we find ourselves convening there on a TUESDAY. So 28th November it is, and we’ll be featuring medieval women – no, not our thoroughly modern guest poets, but rather the voices in their new books. Alwyn Marriage, managing editor of Oversteps Books, has recently launched ‘In the image: portraits of medieval women’ (Indigo Dreams ), a stylistically varied celebration of medieval lives that has many modern resonances. Julie-ann Rowell’s new book, ‘Voices in the garden’ (Lapwing), looks at one famous medieval life, that of Joan of Arc, and explores, with characteristic sensitivity and acumen, its drama and its significance for our times.
The evening will be presented by Alasdair Paterson, reasonably fresh from an elderly birthday tour of Edinburgh, and a mystery co-presenter. Start laying bets now. There are the usual 10 open mic spots to be claimed by contacting Alasdair on Facebook, at a.t.paterson@exeter.ac.uk or on 07783 734523.
Admission £5 (£3 concessions and open mic). 7.30 start. Wimples optional.
Exeter Poetry Festival 