Michael Smith is a British translator and linocut illustrator of Middle English alliterative romances. We will be celebrating the launch of his new illustrated translation of the fourteenth century poem The Romance of William and the Werewolf (Unbound). This the third in his series of illustrated translations of Middle English alliterative romances, after Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Alliterative Morte Arthure.

As well as reading passages from his new book, Michael will also entertain us with short readings in Middle English (and even Old French) to give us a flavour of how our ancestors enjoyed poetry nearly 700 years ago.

Born in Warrington, Cheshire, Michael is currently studying for his PhD at the University of York, where he is conducting research into the translation, performance and effective modern representation of late medieval Middle English stanzaic poetry. He lives in Ware.

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.

Jen Feroze lives by the sea in Essex. A former Foyle Young Poet, her work has been widely published in journals including Poetry Wales, Magma, Butcher’s Dog, Under The Radar, And Other Poems, Berlin Lit, The Interpreter’s House and Anthropocene. She won the 2024 Poetry Business International Book and Pamphlet Award and placed second in the 2022/2023 Magma Editors’ Prize. Jen has edited anthologies for The Mum Poem Press and Black Bough Poetry, and is the co-host of the monthly Women Poet’s Network open mics with The Rebecca Swift Foundation. Her debut pamphlet Tiny Bright Thorns was published by Nine Pens in 2024. She likes wild swimming, turquoise things and cheese you can eat with a spoon. 

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.

Keith Jarrett’s work explores Caribbean British identity, religion and sexuality. A multiple poetry slam champion, he was selected for the International Literary Showcase as one of 10 outstanding LGBT writers in the UK. His poem, ‘From the Log Book’, was projected onto St. Paul’s Cathedral and broadcast as a commemorative installation. His play, Safest Spot in Town, was performed at the Old Vic and aired on BBC Four. Selah, his poetry collection, was published in 2017. Keith teaches at NYU in London, is a Poetry Society trustee, and he is completing his debut novel.

“lyrically rich poems, charged with emotion, passion and lots of humour” - Sabotage

“articulate, erudite and well-informed... his beat reminiscent of Linton Kwesi Johnson and the dub poets of the eighties, of rap artists emergent since the nineties, and – of the most celebrated poets of the twentieth century.” – BroadwayBaby 

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.

Hetty Cliss is a poet and spoken word artist from the Fens in East Anglia and a graduate of UEA's Creative Writing MA. Her poems can be found in fourteen poems, Propel Magazine, Bi+ Lines, on NewWriting.Net and elsewhere. She won the Ware Poets Sonnet Prize in 2024 and her poems 'Letting Things Lie' and 'Best Not to Bring It Up' were commended in the Ware Poets 2024 main competition.

Her debut poetry pamphlet is forthcoming with fourteen poems in March 2025.

www.hettycliss.co.uk

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.

Pascale Petit was born in Paris and lives in Cornwall, she is of French, Welsh and Indian heritage. Her debut novel, My Hummingbird Father, was published by Salt in 2024. She has published nine poetry collections, four of which were shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. Her seventh, Mama Amazonica (Bloodaxe, 2017), won the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the inaugural Laurel Prize and was the Poetry Book Society Choice. Her eighth, Tiger Girl (Bloodaxe, 2020), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection, and for Wales Book of the Year. Her ninth collection, Beast, published by Bloodaxe in April 2025, won a Society of Authors Arthur Welton Award while in progress.

We are delighted to celebrate Pascale’s new collection Beast, in which mythic and familial beasts roam the swamps and moors. These spirits of the wild haunt the Camargue of Provence, the limestone Causses and gorges of the Languedoc, Indian tiger forests, the Amazon rainforest, and her home by Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. Some of these remote places are vestiges of earth’s pristine habitats, while other wildernesses are encaged in cellars of Paris, along with the world’s last species. Their essence is evoked in lithe and luxurious lines sometimes compressed as a trapped animal.

Author photo credit Derrick Kakembo

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.

Troy Cabida is the author of Neon Manila (Nine Arches Press, 2025), Symmetric of Bone (fourteen poems, 2024) and War Dove (Bad Betty Press, 2020). His work has been published by Seaford Review, TLDTD Journal, and bath magg, anthologised in State of Play, Bi+ Lines, and 100 Queer Poems, commissioned by Tiffany & Co., The R.A.P. Party, and Small Green Shoots, and shortlisted for the Bridport Prize for Poetry 2024. 

We’re delighted to welcome Troy and to celebrate his new collection Neon Manila, an exploration of the queer Filipino body in all of its skin and glitter. Looking at pop music, fashion, jewellery, dating mishaps, and everyday London life, the poems in this collection seek a better grasp of the relationships we build with ourselves, of the internal as constantly contoured by the external. 

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.