Poetry Party

Coming up this week at Stroud Book Festival!

Poetry has deep historical and cultural connections to music – in so many traditions, poetry and music developed together as a unified form of expression, with poetry being sung, chanted, or performed rhythmically to instrumental accompaniment.

Poetry often took the form of songs or chants in ancient communities that were passed down orally. The term "lyric" itself originates from the Greek word lyra, meaning the lyre which accompanied sung poetry. Then of course we have medieval minstrels and troubadours wandering through Europe singing their poems about love, news and the social mores of the day.

And now, we have poetry and disco or poetry and rave aka poetry and party. Yes, we do! And our Poetry Party at Stroud Book Festival on Saturday 9th November aims to bring together these joyful, life-giving forces of spoken word and music to bring you a brilliant evening of exciting cross-genre poetry.

We will have a series of poetry readings before we push back the chairs and make some space for drinking, dancing and general carousing. The evening features 🥁 beloved Emily Barker joining us not long after landing all the way from Oz, Lalah Simone Springer winging her way over from London town, Bob Beagrie and Harry Man both heading down to us from the North East, Yrs Truly and Caleb Parkin mingling over from Bristol doing double duty later in the evening as ecodisco DJ Lebkin. All compered by the most sparkling Emma Kernahan. It's going to be fun!

EVERYONE is welcome – whether you’re 8 years old or 80, come and enjoy this evening of wild, queer and restless joy. Party wear strongly encouraged, though not compulsory!

In other news, I’ve a new poem out in the latest sold out edition of the London Magazine. ‘Stingers,’ inspired by my residency at Sladebank Woods. Hope you enjoy it!