Guest Readers and Programme

poetry readings start at 8.00 for 8.30 p.m.

Monday 11th. March

Guest Readers.

Steve Pottinger

SPOT 02

photo: Unholy Racket.

Steve Pottinger is a born story-teller. His latest collection “a fine fine place” was published in autumn 2017, and followed on from the acclaimed “more bees, bigger bonnets”. This year he was one of the winners of the Bread & Roses poetry competition, supported by Unite, and he’s worked closely with the CWU on delivering spoken word and poetry for their members. He has entertained audiences the length and breadth of the UK, and is also a member of the ‘Poets, Prattlers, and Pandemonialists’ collective in Wolverhampton. Expect poems on subjects from the personal right through to the global, with a wild detour via outrageous dreaming.

You’ll find Steve on Twitter at @BigStevePoet. His books are, ‘a fine fine place’ and ‘more bees bigger bonnets’ His third book ‘Island Songs’ is now sold out.

Emma Purshouse

Emma Purshouse was born in Wolverhampton, and is a freelance writer and performance poet.

She is a poetry slam champion (winner of the Shambala Festival Slam 2018) and performs regularly at spoken word nights and festivals far and wide, often using her native Black Country dialect in her work. Her appearances include, The Cheltenham Literature Festival, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Much Wenlock Poetry Festival and Solfest. She has supported the likes of John Hegley, Holly McNish and Carol Ann Duffy.

Emma has undertaken poetry residencies for Wolverhampton Libraries, The New Vic Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent and The International Festival of Glass in Stourbridge.

She writes for both children and adults. In 2016, Emma’s first collection of children’s poetry was produced by Fair Acre Press. This dyslexia-friendly book is aimed at 6 to 11 year-olds This book won the poetry section of the Rubery Book Award in 2016.

In 2017 Emma won the ‘Making Waves’ international spoken word competition which was judged by Luke Wright.

Her most recent publication ‘Close’ (Offa’s Press, 2018) has not long been released. Here is a link to a review of this book.

poets prattlers and pandemonialists

Steve Pottinger, Emma Purshouse and Dave Pitt delivered a masterclass in spoken word at the Arena Theatre in Wolverhampton in their show Poets, Prattlers and Pandemonialists, a real gem of narrative story telling through verse that was original in concept, perfectly constructed and really well crafted in it’s delivery.

The idea behind the show sees 3 poets meeting in a pub to design a live poetry stage performance. They chat, they plan, they hash out the premise of the piece over pints, pork scratchings and whiskey chasers. It’s a clever and entertaining way to then weave connections through the poetry sets of 3 very individual poets. The collaboration works perfectly as each one takes inspiration from the other to lead the audience this way and that through their collective body of works. A simple idea, executed with precision, great comic timing and utterly compelling to watch

Monday 18th. February

Read Around

Bring poems to read and share good conversation in a friendly and supportive atmosphere.

Monday 25th. February

Poetry Workshop.

Bring six copies of work in progress, work to edit or a poem your not happy with and get intelligent and constructive criticism, no nit picking! This will be followed by a read around.

Monday 4th. March