A night of electric queer poetry, performed live. These poets spin webs of perfect description about bodies, origins, countries and culture, sex, society, sound and spirit. They will capture your heart and challenge your mind.

Zad El Bacha
Zad El Bacha’s work combines their political and community building experience with Middle-Eastern poetic traditions to write on migration, sexual trauma, and sexual and gender identity. They are the co-founder of Coriander, a theatre collective for queer people of colour, with which they write, direct, and run workshops. They were commissioned to perform on the main stage for 10,000+ people at Ventimiglia Città Aperta, a protest on the border between Italy and France against the racist violence of the Salvini-Five Star Movement government. They were also one of the winners of Italy’s biggest poetry slam, PoverArte, in 2016, and have featured at the Ruskin School of Art and Hatchards with The Mays, among others. They write on migration and decolonial politics for VICE Italy, Red Pepper, and Inutile magazine.   

Annie Hayter
Annie Hayter is a Barbican Young Poet, and a London Writers' Awardee. She has performed on Radio 3, The Brighton Festival, at the Walthamstow Garden Party, and at the Barbican. She has appeared in TimeOut, the Bedtime Stories for the End of the World podcast, and will be published in the upcoming issue of MAGMA.

Keith Jarrett
UK poetry slam champion and Rio International Poetry Slam Winner, Keith Jarrett is a
PhD scholar at Birkbeck University, where he is completing his first novel. His play, Safest Spot in Town, was aired on BBC Four, and his book of poetry, Selah, was published in 2017.

Alex Marlow
Alex Marlow (he/they) is a queer actor, performer, and writer from Rossendale, Lancashire. Now London-based, his writing practice started with the POW! scheme run by Nick Field and Spread the Word last year in September 2018. He has subsequently performed his poetry and devised multi-genre work in venues and nights such as the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, The Glory, Jawdance, and the Arcola Theatre. He's currently working on his premiere solo show - combining theatre, drag, poetry, movement, and music - set for performance in January 2020. 

Golnoosh Nour
Dr Golnoosh Nourpanah's debut poetry collection Sorrows of the Sun was published in 2017 by Skyscraper under her then pseudonym Sogol Sur. Her debut short story collection will be published by Muswell Press in April 2020. She has recently completed her second poetry collection The Rocksong of Sogolsur extracts of which appear in literary magazines such as Culture Matters, Ink Sweat & Tears, Spontaneous Poetics, and Port; Golnoosh has performed both her prose and poetry across the UK and internationally. She is now working on her novel whilst teaching Creative Writing at Birkbeck and The University of Bedfordshire. For more info, visit: https://golnooshwriter.weebly.com/

oakley
oakley is a writer & performer originally from the West Midlands, currently based in South London. They have received development as a playwright from Birmingham REP, National Theatre & gained a place on the Royal Court’s eminent Playwright’s Programme, going on to write This Queer House (Opia Collective). oakley has performed across the UK, a regular poet for Apples & Snakes (The RSC, BAC, 100 Club, Salena Godden’s Live-Wire Poets). They have been published in America for #Queer; an LGBTQIA+ anthology (2017), poems for Wasfari Magazine’s Queer Worlds edition (2019), alongside Verve Poetry Press’ community-themed anthology 'Closed Gates or Open Arms? (ed. Joelle Taylor) for their poem HURST STREET & other forms. oakley’s poems written during their tenure as Worcestershire Young Poet Laureate in the dark times are published by Black Pear Press. In 2018 oakley was a part of Apples & Snakes’ Writing Room led by Roger Robinson & Rallying Cry (BAC), mentored by Zena Edwards. oakley has gone on to write & perform at festivals & theatres, winning the Out-Spoken Prize for Page Poetry 2018 & was a nominee for Jerwood Compton Fellowship for Poetry 2019.

Richard Scott
Richard Scott was born in London in 1981. Soho (Faber & Faber) is his first book. He teaches poetry at the Faber Academy.