Next Buzzwords Sunday January 5th

Next Buzzwords Sunday January 5th

7pm - workshop led by Julia Deakin

8pm - open mic and guest readings

 

Guest Poet: Julia Deakin

Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Waged £5, unwaged £3

JULIA DEAKIN was born in Nuneaton and worked her way north to Yorkshire via Shropshire, the Potteries and Manchester. Each of her collections is praised by leading UK poets. ‘Crafted, tender poems, written with passion and purpose,’ said Simon Armitage of her first; her fourth, Sleepless (Valley Press 2018) is commended by Gillian Clarke. When not writing, or editing Pennine Platform magazine, Julia enjoys walking and ice skating. A compelling reader, she has featured twice on Poetry Please. www.juliadeakin.co.uk

Next Buzzwords Sunday December 1st

Next Buzzwords Sunday, December 1st

7pm - workshop led by Jean Atkin

8pm - open mic and guest readings

Guest Poet: Jean Atkin

Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Waged £5, unwaged £3

 

Jean Atkin's new collection 'How Time is in Fields' (May 2019) is available from Indigo Dreams Publishing.   Her previous publications include ‘Not Lost Since Last Time’ (Oversteps Books), and six poetry pamphlets.  Her poetry has been commissioned for Radio 4, featured on ‘Ramblings’ with Claire Balding, and added to ‘Best Scottish Poems’ by the Scottish Poetry Library.  She works as a poet in education, wellbeing and community. She is currently Troubadour of the Hills for Ledbury Poetry Festival, and BBC National Poetry Day Poet for Shropshire.  www.jeanatkin.com 

 

Next Buzzwords Sunday November 3rd

Next Buzzwords Sunday, November 3rd

7pm - workshop led by Alasdair Paterson

8pm - open mic and guest readings

Guest Poets: Alasdair Paterson

Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Waged £5, unwaged £3

 

Alasdair Paterson’s most recent collections are Elsewhere Or Thereabouts (Shearsman Books 2014), My Life As A Mad King (Oystercatcher 2016) and Silent Years (Flarestack Poets 2017). Born in Edinburgh, he is now retired after a career directing academic libraries in Britain and Ireland. He lives in Exeter, where he organizes and presents the monthly Uncut Poets event.

Next Buzzwords Sunday, October 6th

 

Next Buzzwords Sunday, October 6th

7pm - workshop led by Brenda Read-Brown

8pm - open mic and guest readings

Guest Poets: Rachael Clyne and Brenda Read-Brown

Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Waged £5, unwaged £3

 

RACHAEL CLYNE, from Glastonbury, is a psychotherapist & has published self-help books as well as poetry. She is well known on the poetry circuit. Her prizewinning collection, Singing at the Bone Tree, is published by Indigo Dreams. Her work appears in anthologies & journals including: Tears in the Fence, Prole, The Rialto, Under the Radar, The Interpreters House, Obsessed with Pipework, Lighthouse & Acumen.  Her pamphlet, Girl Golem is published by 4Word press

 

‘These thought provoking and deftly crafted poems are a playful and powerful examination of identity, sexuality, heritage and family dynamics’. Julia Webb

In 2001, BRENDA READ-BROWN gave up a secure career as a project manager to be a poet; it seemed a good idea at the time. Since then she’s won many poetry slams, and performed her poetry on Radio 4, and in Texas , Denmark , the House of Lords, the middle of the Atlantic , lots of festivals, and any number of low dives. She is the current Gloucestershire Poet Laureate, and has published two collections of her poems: Arbitrary edges (2013), and Like love (2018). She’s also a prizewinning playwright. So far, she seems to be getting away with it all, but she’s sure she’ll be found out some day soon.

“The poems in Like love are uncluttered. They are simple, profound, and immensely touching. There is great empathy at work here, an empathy without which no real poems can exist. Read-Brown deserves a far wider readership than hitherto, and one hopes with this collection she will find it."

Brian Patten

Next Buzzwords Sunday September 1st

Next Buzzwords Sunday, September 1st

7pm - workshop led by Martin Figura and Helen Ivory

8pm - open mic and guest readings

Guest Poets: Martin Figura and Helen Ivory

Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Waged £5, unwaged £3

Martin Figura’s most recent collections Dr Zeeman’s Catastrophe Machine (Cinnamon Press) and pamphlet Shed (Gatehouse Press) were both published in 2016.  The spoken-word show of Dr Zeeman began touring in 2016.  He was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award and won the Best Spoken Word Show Saboteur Award for his previous show Whistle.  A new editIon of Whistle was published by Cinnamon Press in 2018.  

He’s performed all around the UK and abroad, including a number of leading poetry festivals, such as: Warwick Words, Stanza and Ledbury.  He’s performed at a number of Latitude and Port Eliot Festivals, Shambala, Bang Said The Gun, Book Slam and other events. He lives in Norwich with Helen Ivory and sciatica.

www.martinfigura.co.uk

Helen Ivory is a poet and visual artist, her fifth Bloodaxe collection The Anatomical Venus and was published mid-May 2019.  Maps of the Abandoned City was published earlier in 2019 by New poetics.
She has won a Gregory Award and her fourth Bloodaxe Books collection, the semi-autobiographical Waiting for Bluebeard was short-listed for the East Anglian Book Awards (2014). She edits the webzine Ink Sweat and Tears and is tutor and Course Director for the UEA/Writers Centre Norwich online creative writing programme.  

Fool’s World a collaborative Tarot with the  artist Tom de Freston (Gatehouse Press) won the 2016 Saboteur Award for Best Collaborative Work.  Hear What the Moon Told Me is book of collage/ mixed media/ acrylic painted poems was published this year by Knives Forks and Spoons Press.

 www.helenivory.co.uk

Next Buzzwords Sunday 14th July

Next Buzzwords Sunday, July 14th

7pm - workshop led by Rennie Parker

8pm - open mic and guest readings

Guest Poet: Rennie Parker

Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Waged £5, unwaged £3

 

 

Rennie Parker was born in Leeds and currently lives in Lincolnshire, which often forms a background presence in her work. She began publishing in 1987, with a first collection Secret Villages appearing in 2001. This was followed by several collections with Shoestring Press, recently The Complete Electric Artisan (2017). She has published criticism on early 20th century poetry, writing about the pre-1914 Georgian generation. She enjoys landscape in all its forms, but there is always strong element of character and dialogue in her work, because she originally intended being a radio dramatist. For the past ten years Rennie has appeared in readings and festivals around the Midlands, and she is particularly delighted to be reading in Cheltenham.

Next Buzzwords Sunday, June 2nd

7pm - workshop led by Angela France

8pm - open mic and guest readings

Guest Poet: Pam Zinnemann-Hope

Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Waged £5, unwaged £3

Pam Zinnemann-Hope was born in Leeds. She is a poet, children’s author & playwright. Her 4 Ned books for younger children were published in 1986/7 by Walker Books & translated into several languages. Her first full poetry collection, ‘On Cigarette Papers’, was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for best first collection. She adapted it for the BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play of the same name, and acted in it, alongside Eleanor Bron, Greg Wise, Emma Fielding, Susan Engels et al. ‘Foothold’ is her most recent poetry collection and several poems from it have been set to music by Peter Hope & also by David Dubery.

Pam has worked as a TEFL teacher & counsellor. From 2000 – 2007 she co-founded & co-ran Poetry Dorchester.She has held a number of poetry residencies, run numerous workshops & read in  a variety of venues, including Max Gate,(Thomas Hardy’s house), King’s Place London & The Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre. Currently she runs advanced seminars & curates & comperes Poetry & Music evenings at Sladers Yard, West Bay. 

She lives in West Dorset with her husband, the composer Peter Hope.