23 September 8pm

Four poets ­ four new pieces ­ for your delectation

What does it take to be a spoken-word artist? Is it about the writing? The stage presence? The knack of stringing a story together? Actually it¹s about all of these things and more, as tonight¹s line-up will be amply demonstrating.

As part of our ongoing mission to nurture new writing, we¹ve been putting four poets through their paces with top director Mike Kirchner. Their metaphors are now sharper-than-sharp, they¹ve got more presence than Santa Claus (ouch) and their narrative skills are all revved-up and ready to go.

And those poets are:
Cutglass vamp of the Oxford-London poetry axis Sophia Blackwell Unfazeable and level-headed weigher-up of words Kayo Chingonyi Radiant Anglo-Spanish star of a thousand poetry slams Keith Jarrett Keeping-it-real (and how) Somali storyteller Warsan Shire


Tonight they¹ll each be pulling the wraps off their work-in-progress. Join us for this exclusive unveiling.

Brought to you by Apples & Snakes ­ putting poetry into performance and performance into poetry


21 October 8pm
Poetry tubthumper and Whitbread-winning novelist Patrick Neate presents a voyage through the dark waters of his mind. Expect serio-comic, self-effacing brilliance. With suitably streetwise support.
 
25 November 8pm
John Hegley, a man saturated in natural oomph, with unexpectedness up his sleeves and poems coming out his ears, returns with another vegetable-fixated happy hour. He will, he will rock you.