Buzzwords, Sunday September 4th

Sunday September 4th
Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Guest poet: Angela Topping

Angela Topping is a full time freelance poet who writes for both children and adults. She is the author of four full collections and four chapbooks, the most recent of which is a book to accompany an collaborative exhibition currently in The Brindley, Runcorn, with a textile artist. Angela has co-authored three books on poetry for OUP, edited two books and written three critical books for Greenwich Exchange Press, the most recent of which is on poet John Clare. Angela has performed her poetry in a wide range of venues, including festivals, libraries, art galleries and schools, and is a seasoned workshop leader. She is based in Cheshire.

We will also be welcoming some of the prize-winners from our first poetry competition to read their poems on open mic

Buzzwords, Sunday July 3rd

Sunday July 3rd
Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Chloë of the Midnight Storytellers

After a decade of mixed fortunes trying to show that storytelling is more than kiddyfodder, Chloë has reinvented herself as a 'spoken word artist'. It's the kind of pretentious art-speak she normally avoids: but how else do you describe someone who tells unscripted stories so vivid you'll think you're there; who writes + performs poetry; and whose comedy is irrepressible? Chloë has enchanted audiences at an extraordinary range of venues and events: from Cheltenham LitFest to cruise ships, from the Worcestershire Federation of Women's Institutes to the International Tolkien & Fantasy Art Exhibition. www.midnightstorytellers.co.uk

7pm Workshop: StoryMaking - No writing! No reading! As easy as chatting to your friends! Modern storytellers work from personal experience almost as much as from the heritage of traditional story. Chloë will guide you through gentle exercises in improvised narrative. No storytelling experience necessary. Love of language essential. Be prepared to play and laugh.

From 8pm onwards - open mic and Performance: Moonlight & Mayhem - Chloë's summer story cabaret. From sweet romance to the downright scary. With sound effects from the infamous invisibly controlled keyboard gizmo (not a theramin).

Buzzwords, 5th June

Sunday June 5th
Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Guest poet - Gill Learner

7pm workshop
8pm readings and open mic

£5 or £3 unwaged

Gill Learner began writing poetry in 2001and it has since appeared in many journals and anthologies. Her first-ever published poem appeared in Poetry news and two others have been accepted since, one of which won the Hamish Canham Prize 2008. She was also delighted to be awarded second prize in the Keats-Shelley competition 2010. Her first collection, The agister’s experiment, has recently been published by Two Rivers Press. The PBS Bulletin said of it: ‘ ... The poems here fizz and crackle while exploring the vast range of humanity – they are by turns funny, chilling and angry, but are all diverse in form and content. …[they] leave a lasting impression on the reader in this excellent debut.’

Gill loves reading to an audience and is a member of the Thames Valley-based group Brickwork Poets, five prize-winning women who are becoming increasingly well-known in the south of England. She also enjoys Reading’s Poets’ Café where she has twice been guest poet, and values feedback from her peers at Thin Raft workshops

She takes her inspiration from a wide range of topics: family, friends, travel, myths & legends, the visual arts, technologies, the natural world and music, many of which are reflected in her collection. There is more information at

Next Buzzwords

Sunday May 1st
Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Guest poets - Helen Ivory and Martin Figura

7pm workshop
8pm readings and open mic

£5 or £3 unwaged

Martin Figura work ranges from the biting humour of his Boring The Arse off Young People to the dark subject matter of his Ted Hughes Award shortlisted collection and multi-media show Whistle. He won the 2010 Hamish Canham Prize and has performed from New York to Cromer. He is an Apples & Snakes Associated Artist. His photography’s been widely published and exhibited, including at the National Portrait Gallery.
“moving, brave, unsentimental “ Jackie Kay

"Profoundly honest and at the same time joyfully entertaining" Independent on Sunday

“tender, beautiful, funny ” Chloe Garner, Director Ledbury Poetry Festival

‘the first show I ever gave a standing ovation’ Jo Bell Director, National Poetry Day

www.martinfigura.co.uk


Helen Ivory was born in Luton in 1969 and has a Degree from Norwich Art School. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 1999, and has three collections with Bloodaxe Books: The Double Life of Clocks, The Dog in the Sky, and The Breakfast Machine, and her fourth collection forthcoming next year.

She has taught creative writing for over ten years at all levels and currently runs several workshop groups where she lives in Norwich. She is married to the poet Martin Figura and they run Café Writers –a live literature organization. She is an editor for The Poetry Archive, and editor of the webzine Ink Sweat and Tears: http://ink-sweat-and-tears.blogharbor.com/.

Also a practicing artist, she regularly posts work onto her blog. Find out more here: http://www.helenivory.co.uk/”

Sunday April 3rd

Next Buzzwords - Sunday, April 3rd
Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Guest poet: Pat Borthwick

7pm: Workshop led by Pat Borthwick
8pm: Readings and open mic

£5, £3 unwaged

Pat Borthwick has published three full length poetry collections (with Littlewood Arc, Mudfog and Templar) and several pamphlets. She has won many poetry prizes including the Templar pamphlet prize in 2007 and has had her work translated into Spanish and Italian. In the last few months she was shortlisted for the Keats Shelley award and two of her poems were published in Mslexia as runners up in their poetry competition.
She is known for her sparkling readings and workshops and Billy Collins describes her work as being ‘The real business’. Simon Armitage says that ‘her poems are like maps with which you can truly find your way.’
Pat is a founder member and former chair of NAWE (National Association of Writers in Education) and is one of the Poetry Society’s delegated Poets in Schools.
Her residencies have included a canal, a coalmine, Northern allotments, the Yorkshire Wolds and, for a new AONB (area of outstanding natural beauty), the Howardian Hills. In 2008 she was commissioned by the Festival of London and the Japanese Foundation to work with Japanese and English contemporary composers and produce a libretto for performers and an orchestra made up of half western and half eastern instruments.
Last year she co-ordinated the web based GPS project in East Yorkshire and more recently became the Poetry Society’s Stanza representative for rural Yorkshire.
She received an International Writers Hawthornden Award in 2003 and is currently Writer in Residence for RSPB Bempton Cliffs and poetry tutor for the Open College of the Arts.

Next Buzzwords

Next Buzzwords is Sunday March 6th
Upstairs at The Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham

Guest Poet: Myra Schneider

7pm: Workshop led by Myra Scheider
8pm: Readings and open mic

£5, £3 uwaged


Myra Schneider’s most recent poetry collections are: Insisting on Yellow: New and Selected Poems (2000), Multiplying The Moon (2004), Circling The Core (2008) – all Enitharmon Press. She has had fiction for children and teenagers published by Heineman. In 2003 Jessica Kingsley published her book Writing My Way Through Cancer, a fleshed-out journal with poems and writing suggestions. With John Killick she has written two books about personal writing. The second, Writing Your Self (Continuum 2009), is a resource book of personal writing and literature. Myra taught communication and literacy to severely disabled adults for many years. She is an experienced writing tutor and works for The Poetry School in London where she lives. She is consultant to the Second Light Network of Women Poets and has co-edited anthologies of work by contemporary women poets, most recently, Images of Women (Arrowhead Press 2006.)

Change of venue for February

Please note that we will be at The Brown Jug for February 6th, and back at The Exmouth after that.