Description
Join us for our annual explosion of political poetry and unflinching wordplay, exploring social issues and the state of the world through high-octane performances designed to inspire, challenge, and provoke.
A fantastic line-up of sharp-tongued poets and spoken word artists will each bring their own brand of poetic mastery to the stage.
Combining exciting up-and-comers with established names working at the top of their game, this larger-than-life event promises to be powerful, dynamic, and packed full of new perspectives.
About the Poet

Joelle Taylor
Joelle Taylor is the author of 4 collections of poetry and one novel. Her most recent collection C+NTO & Othered Poems won the 2021 T.S Eliot Prize, and the 2022 Polari Book Prize for LGBT authors. C+NTO is currently being adapted both for theatre, and into a television screenplay, and was featured on Radio Three documentary Butch. She is a co-curator and host of Out-Spoken Live at the Southbank Centre and tours her work nationally and internationally in a diverse range of venues, from Australia to Brazil. She is a Poetry Fellow of the University of East Anglia, and the curator of the Koestler Awards 2023 and has judged several poetry and literary prizes including Fellowship, the Forward Prize, and the Ondaatje Prize. Her novel The Night Alphabet was published in Spring of 2024 and was named both a Spectator and Guardian Book of the Year. Her most recent radio programme A Young Girl’s Guide to Horror was broadcasted end of last year on BBC Radio Four. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the 2022 Saboteur Spoken Word Artist of the Year. She was recently honoured with a DIVA Award for Excellence and named as number 15in the Independent’s2024 Pride Power list. Her next collection Maryville will be published by Bloomsbury in 2025
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