Karen Downs-Barton is an award-winning Anglo-Romani poet based in Wiltshire. Her debut collection, Minx (Chatto and Windus / Penguin, 2025), a memoire in poetry, is shortlisted for the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize. Her pamphlet, Didicoy (Smith|Doorstop) won the 2022 International Poetry Book and Pamphlet competition was a 2023 Poetry Book Society recommendation. Karen has appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Verb, headlined Ledbury Festival, Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival, Deptford Literature Festival and Edinburgh International Book Festival. Poetry from her PhD thesis exploring the development of identity through experimental and multilingual poetry won the Cosmo Davenport-Hines poetry competition. Karen has written for the i newspaper and her poetry has appeared in Ink, Sweat, and Tears; The North; Tears in the Fence, Rattle amongst others, is widely anthologised and has been translated into Spanish, Russian and Farsi.

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.

Tickets can be bought in advance or on the door:

Entry prices: £5; £3 for students under 24; Free to ages 18 and under.