Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist and video film maker, awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014, Chancellor of Newcastle University. Her seven collections, all published by Bloodaxe Books, include Over the Moon and the latest, Shadow Reader. Her poems have featured widely on BBC radio, television, the London Underground, Glasgow billboards and Mumbai buses. She has had eleven solo exhibitions of drawings and also scripts and directs video films, many of them for non-government organisations working in the area of shelter, education and health for women and children in India.

Some tickets will be available on the door, but to avoid disappointment we recommend you buy yours in advance here. 

Imtiaz Dharker's visit is part of a Ware Poets collaboration with Presdales and Chauncy Schools. This project is part-funded by the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and we are very grateful for the support of East Herts District Council and Ware Town Council.

Please note that we expect this event to be packed, so will be using the bigger room Upstairs at Southern Maltings rather than our usual space. Entrance is through the main door at the front of the building. Please be aware that there is no step-free access.

The first half of this event will be open mic, so please feel free to bring and read a poem in a friendly and welcoming space.

Photo of Imtiaz Dharker © Ayesha Dharker

Martina Swift loves the wonderful art of poetry. She writes on contemporary issues and the human condition. She blogs at https://martinas498.wordpress.com and has published three books: Poetry for the politicised youth, DEATH: Life and Love and Let's Eat?

Chris Burleigh has been writing poetry all his adult life. His interest is in people, situations, emotions, the natural world, and the human condition. For him, poetry is about having fun with words and meaning, using words cleverly to say things differently, and saying the familiar in unfamiliar ways. He has published two books of poetry Particles of Light (self-published, 2017) and Intersecting Lines (Beercott Books, 2021). He has also been published in anthologies by Fish Publishing and Indigo Dreams.

Peter Hart has been writing poems without great success for at least ten years. Although he does have his own Garret – he has still to master the art of Starving. He did win a prize in a competition some years ago – which was, thankfully, a book on how to write Poetry. Since then, purely on medical advice - he hasn’t looked back. Attending Ware Poets since meetings restarted after lockdown – he’s also performed in support slots at The Four Rivers Folk Club in Hertford and selected open mic sessions in London and elsewhere. His motto - Expect nothing – and you won’t be disappointed!

This is a celebratory evening! We'll hear readings of the winning and commended poems, followed by a special reading from this year’s judge Paul Stephenson.

For this year’s winning and commended poems and more details on Paul, see the competition results page and https://paulstep.com

No open mic this month.

This is our evening where we showcase local poetry talent. It’s a relaxed and welcoming space, so feel free to bring along one or two poems, either your own or someone else’s.  

We want everyone to have a chance to read, so please think in terms of a 5-6 minute slot maximum, including any introduction you may want to give. (Though you’re welcome to have something else up your sleeve just in case there’s any spare time left at the end!)

Richard Price is a writer and editor, and tutor at the Poetry School. He is the Head of Contemporary British Collections at the British Library where he leads a team of sound archivists, librarians, and manuscript curators. His most recent collections are Tinderness, poems which explore the mindscape of dating and its apps, and Late Gifts, poems in a startling range of forms which survey the contemporary world with tenderness shot through with restless urgency.

His own site is hydrohotel.net. The magazine he founded and edits is at paintedspoken.com. 

Rebecca Watts’s debut poetry collection, The Met Office Advises Caution, was published by Carcanet in 2016 and was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. It also featured in the Guardian and Financial Times ‘Best Books of 2016’ lists and was shortlisted for the 2017 Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. Her second collection, Red Gloves, was published by Carcanet in 2020 and won a Gladstone's Library Writers-in-Residence award in 2022. Rebecca lives in Cambridge, where she works as a freelance editor, tutor and Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow.

https://rerebeccawatts.weebly.com

Hannah Copley is a writer, editor and academic based in Hertfordshire. We’ll be celebrating the publication of her second collection, Lapwing, published by Pavilion Poetry in April.

Her first collection, Speculum, was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2021 and her second collection, Lapwing, is out with Pavilion Poetry this Spring. Her work has appeared in POETRY, The London Magazine, Poetry Birmingham, Stand, Under the Radar, Bath Magg, Blackbox Manifold and other publications and anthologies.

She is a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Westminster and a poetry editor at Stand magazine.

Photo credit: Naomi Woddis

Fahad Al-Amoudi is a writer and editor. He is the winner of the White Review Poets Prize 2022 and has been shortlisted for the Brunel International African Poets Prize. His work appears in The Poetry Review, Wasafiri and Mizna. His debut pamphlet, when the flies come, was published by ignitionpress and selected as a Poetry Book Society Winter Choice 2023.

Hilary Davies is an English poet, translator, critic and teacher. She taught for 30 years at St Paul's Girls' School, London, where she was head of modern languages for 19 years until her retirement in 2011. She won an Eric Gregory award in 1983, has been a Hawthornden Fellow, and was Chair of the Poetry Society from 1992-93. More recently, she has been a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at King's College, London, and at The British Library. She has published four collections with Enitharmon, the most recent being Exile and the Kingdom (2016).

Allen Ashley is an award-winning writer, editor and tutor based in north London. He is the author or editor of 18 books. He will be reading from his career-spanning, award-nominated collection Echoes from an Expired Earth (Demain Publishing, 2021) as well as his latest chapbook Journey to the Centre of the Onion (Eibonvale Press, 2023). Allen is a charismatic live performer and this will be an evening to remember and treasure.

Martyn Crucefix is a well-known poet, translator, teacher and reviewer based in London.

He has published seven full collections of original poems. Between a Drowning Man is expected from publisher Salt in autumn 2023. His translations include Rilke's Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus, and selections from the poems of Angele Paoli and Peter Huchel. He has won numerous prizes for his work including a major Eric Gregory award and a Hawthornden Fellowship.

His website is at martyncrucefix.com

Neil is a poet, playwright, and novelist who is also an artist and a jazz musician. His plays have been performed in the professional theatre and on radio and his poems have appeared in a wide range of magazines, one of which, Orbis, recently made him their Featured Writer. His most recent poetry collection, Making Cars and Blues Art Guitars, was published last year and contains his own illustrations.

His website is www.neilbeardmore.com

Fathima Zahra is an Indian poet based in London. She is an alum of the Barbican Young Poets and Roundhouse Poetry Collective. Her poems have won the Bridport Prize, Asia House Slam and Wells Fest Young Poets Prize. She has performed across India and the UK at festivals including Latitude, Hay and Last Word. Her debut pamphlet ’sargam / swargam’ (ignition press) was PBS pamphlet choice.

Fathima Zahra – The Poetry Society: Poems

Hear the winning and commended poems, followed by a reading from this year’s judge Greta Stoddart.

For more details on the competition and Greta, see the competition page.

https://www.gretastoddart.co.uk

Poet, playwright and critic, John taught English for many years. He’s been broadcast on radio and involved in collaborations with musicians. His vast output includes over twenty poetry collections, the latest of which, The Interpretation of Owls, is due to be published by Baylor Press around now.

http://johngreening.co.uk

Lives in East Anglia and spent many years working in education. She has been widely published internationally and has four novels, two poetry pamphlets and three full poetry collections to her name, the most recent of which is Underword (Lapwing Publications 2022)

https://www.jswatts.co.uk

A few months ago someone at Ware commented that hearing a poem read only once doesn't always give enough time for the brain to absorb it (unlike the experience of seeing it on the page when the option of re-reading multiple times is available). This started Frances and I thinking about whether we might use this idea to give a new twist to our April evening. However, not wishing to be too prescriptive, we offer the following choices for you to think about when choosing poems (your own or the work of others) to read on the 14th. We think it should make for an interesting session.

EITHER

Read a poem of your choice with no introduction. Then talk briefly about it, perhaps say why you particularly like it; explain any references it contains; say (if it's your own poem) how it originated - that sort of thing. Then read it for a second time.

OR

Read two poems (yours or others') which come at the same subject from different angles. Maybe two poems which take opposing viewpoints; or two which say basically the same thing / cover the same subject in different ways; or, perhaps, two poems, one of which is a riposte to the other.

OR (the boring option)

Just read two poems.

The usual rules apply regarding length - think in terms of 40 lines max. for each poem, shorter if possible.

Many of you will remember the Far West workshops which Angela set up years ago after moving from Hertfordshire to Penzance. Nowadays she runs workshops which explore the therapeutic power of writing. She has published three books and won several poetry prizes. This is her first full-length reading at Ware.

https://overstepsbooks.com/poets/angela-stoner/

Niall O’Sullivan is well known for running the Poetry Unplugged open mics at London’s Poetry Café and he also hosts the Rusty Sonnets podcasts. He’s published four collections, the latest of which is Werewolf of London (Flipped Eye, 2021) and says of his work, “Highbrow, lowbrow, none of that stuff in the middle.”

http://niallosullivan.co.uk

Having been unable to come in December due to illness, Bryony will be here to read tonight, her second visit to Ware. 

Besides being a writer she's also a community-centre worker and workshop facilitator.  Her pamphlet Giraffe won the Mslexia Pamphlet Prize in 2017 and her new collection Escape Room was published by Seren in Autumn 2022.

https://www.bryonylittlefair.com

Poet, musician and critic and one half of the team that runs poetry readings at London’s Troubadour, Cahal is a past winner of the Strokestown and Keats-Shelley Prizes. His third collection, Beautiful, Lofty Things was published earlier this year.