Readings

Dharmavadana (David Penn) and M Stasiak with their new collections hosted by Lisa Kelly. Poets from the floor welcome.

Dharmavadana (David Penn) was born in Dartford, Kent, UK and now lives in Norfolk. After careers as an English language teacher, writer/editor in educational publishing, charity shop assistant and librarian and thirty-five years living in London, he moved to the green city of Norwich and concentrates on writing. His poems have appeared in such magazines as Ambit, Poetry Salzburg Review, Prole, The Dawntreader, The Interpreter's House, The North, and Under the Radar, and many anthologies including Watcher of the Skies (Emma Press, 2016) and Voices For the Silent (Indigo Dreams Publications, 2022). From 2013 to 2023 he was poetry editor of the Buddhist arts magazine Urthona. Birdmen and Astronauts (Poetry Salzburg) is his first published pamphlet.

M Stasiak grew up in Newfoundland, and now lives and works in London. Her work has been published in magazines including Magma, The Rialto, Brittle Star, Interpreter’s House, Envoi, Urthona, Iota, Poetry Salzburg Review, The North and Shearsman. Her new book is Face It (Shearsman).

Guest poets Jasmine Cooray and Erica Hesketh

Poet and performance artist Patrizia Longhitano hosts Venn Diagrams. She pairs poets whose work has no apparent connection and the audience discovers points of overlap. 
Poets from the floor welcome.

Jasmine Cooray is a poet based in London of mixed Sri Lankan and British descent. Her debut pamphlet of poetry Everything We Don’t Say was published in 2009 with Tall Lighthouse Press, and she has done commissions for the Natural History Museum, Louis Vuitton, among others.

She was Writer-in-Residence at the National University of Singapore, where she worked on her first full collection of poetry, Inheritance, which was shortlisted for the 2024 Forward Prize for Best First Collection.

Erica Hesketh is a poet and editor, originally from Japan and Denmark, now based in London. Widely published in magazines, her poetry has been commissioned by the Royal Festival Hall, Spread the Word and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She was longlisted in the 2023 National Poetry Competition, and highly commended in the 2025 Forward Prizes.

Hosted by Lisa Kelly

Poets from the floor welcome

Jean Atkin is a Cumbrian/Scottish poet, writer and experienced educator, based in Shropshire. Since 2011 She's worked on a variety of residencies in both England and Scotland and provides workshops and readings to schools, festivals and community and national organisations.

‘Crossing Paths’, is anew collaboration with poet Richard Skinner, is about poetry and walking. It was published by Black Cat Press in early 2026, and they’ll be reading from it in ten different venues during the summer.

Richard Skinner is a novelist, poet and essayist who's published three novels with Faber & Faber, eight books of poetry and three essay collections. 
He is a long-standing member of a music collective called Pablo’s Eye, for whom I write texts & titles.

He is Director of the Fiction Programme at Faber Academy, where he teaches a variety of courses on fiction & life writing. He also runs a small press called Vanguard Editions, which publishes books of poetry, essays, stories, translations and art-writing plus, since 2020, the annual poetry magazine 14.

Guest readers Igor dos Santos Mota and SILKless Demon

Poet and performance artist Patrizia Longhitano hosts Venn Diagrams. She pairs poets whose work has no apparent connection and the audience discovers points of overlap. 
Venn Diagrams' first anniversary will be celebrated with installation and film. 

Poets from the floor welcome

Hosted by Lisa Kelly

Poets from the floor welcome

Caroline Smith has been published extensively, appearing in Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Stand Magazine, Agenda, Acumen and anthologies, including ' Staying Alive', Bloodaxe. She has given readings around the world, collaborated in musical theatre and had her poetry set to music. She has read at Barnard College, New York, Michigan University, The British School at Rome, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Harvard Square, Cardiff, Ledbury and Aldeburgh Poetry Festivals and Dove Cottage for the Wordsworth Trust.

Jennifer Wong was born and raised in Hong Kong. She studied English at Oxford University and earned an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. She has a creative writing PhD on Chinese diaspora poetry at Oxford Brookes University.

Wong is the author of the poetry collections 回家 Letters Home (Nine Arches Press 2020), which was the PBS Spring 2020 Wild Card Choice; Goldfish (Chameleon Press, 2013); and Summer Cicadas (Chameleon Press 2006).

Poet and performance artist Patrizia Longhitano hosts Venn Diagrams. She pairs poets whose work has no apparent connection and the audience discovers points of overlap. Experimental poetry films are also made and shown.

Poets from the floor welcome.

Poets from the floor welcome

£6/5 according to pocket.

Helga Henson is a poet from Barnaul, Russia. She has graduated with a BA in World Performance from East 15 Acting School and an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University. She is currently doing research and writing for a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter, centred on surrealism, automatism, and unconscious conceptualisation.

Shannon Louise Barry is a Canadian-South African interdisciplinary visual artist, writer, and cryptid. Her art and writing attempt to capture the strange and wonderful represented by the spaces within reality and in dreamscapes. A child whose main hobby included digging holes, her research interests include ecology and the unsettling and marvellous in nature.

Poets from the floor welcome

S.L. Grange is a poet and theatre-maker whose work combines performance, text, and collaboration, with a sustained focus on queer community, marginalised voices, and spectral or historical presences. Their practice moves between poetry, live performance, and site-responsive work, often foregrounding collective experience and overlooked histories.

Recent projects include Wou d’Uelzecht (with composer Catherine Kontz), A Note to Mary Frith (commissioned by Shakespeare’s Globe), and Bodies and Other Haunted Houses.