As the summer heat holds many of us hostage, live poetry in air-conditioned venues is a welcome and long overdue escape from the daily grind. But virtual poetry events continue to delight us, and here is the next in our series!

 

The fourth of our Spoken Sessions premiered on Thursday 12 August at 7pm UK time. Featuring live performances from Casey Bailey and Victoria McNulty, it’ll be available exclusively to patrons of our new Patreon channel.

We’ve launched three tiers on the Patreon channel:

1. £5 monthly– the standard subscription;
2. £7 monthly - solidarity subscription for those happy to add a donation;
3. A £3 subscription for any one of these:

• those unable to afford the £5 tier, or
• who donated to our fundraising campaign, or,
• are Kirklees residents.

Proof is not required.

 

As we continue to produce more content, we’ll introduce various levels of subscription on the Patreon channel. Greg Freeman reviewed the first batch of content on there: including the first Spoken Session with Kirsten Luckins and Will Harris, alongside our Caroline Bird masterclass and Saili Katebe workshop.

We’ve since added the Spoken Sessions with Ella Frears and Sean Wai Keung and Inua Ellams and Theresa Lola as well as our editing masterclass with Anthony Anaxagorou.

Your subscriptions will help us to generate a steady source of income. Write Out Loud as a core service will never disappear behind a paywall, but by charging for bonus content such as our Patreon channel, we’ll be able to grow and offer even more to the poetry eco-system.

 

Casey Bailey is the Birmingham poet laureate 2020-22. He is a writer, performer and educator born and raised in Nechells, Birmingham. Casey’s second full collection of poetry Please Do Not Touch (2021) was published by Burning Eye Books.

Casey has performed nationally and internationally, spent some time on a residency with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and taught, facilitated, and led up and down the country.

His debut poetry pamphlet Waiting at Bloomsbury Park was published by Big White Shed (2017). His first full collection of poetry Adjusted (2018) was published by Verve Poetry Press.

 

Victoria McNulty is a poet and spoken word performer based in Glasgow. Her latest collection Exiles takes a snapshot of Glasgow during the Iraq war and tells the story of a young couple fighting for their life at home and abroad.

Bold, honest and hard-hitting, McNulty draws on her own direct lived experience as a young mother and worker, shining a light on the corners of society so often neglected by mainstream literature and media.

 

The event was hosted by Matt Abbott. Matt is a poet, educator, and activist from Wakefield. His debut one-man show Two Little Ducks earned 5* reviews at Edinburgh Fringe 2017 and on a UK theatre tour in 2018. The show’s poems were published as his debut collection by Verve Poetry Press in 2018. Matt was a patron for the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award in 2020.