Poetry Lunch at Lightbox literary festival

Open Mic Event

Contact: gregfreem62@gmail.com

Write Out Loud Woking is presenting a Poetry Lunch from 12-3pm in the cafe at the Lightbox gallery in Woking during the Lightbox's first literary festival. Four guest poets plus open mic, compered by Greg Freeman. The guest poets are:

Geoff Allnutt, aka The Speech Painter, has performed all over the UK from poetry clubs to music and literature festivals and is the winner of numerous poetry slams. He was a founder member of poetry’s first pop group, Atomic Lip - "A welcome cure for the aural anaemia of our times" (The Independent) - and co-host at pure Poetry at Soho theatre. He is lyricist and vocalist for the band Radio KWG and his Dr Seuss-inspired poetry collection, The Twat in the Flat, was published by Burning Eye in 2015.

Alison Hill's latest collection, Sisters in Spitfires (Indigo Dreams, 2015), celebrates the women who flew with the Air Transport Auxiliary during the second world war and was supported by the Arts Council. Her readings at a range of festivals and events include the Amy Johnson festival in Hull and next to a Hurricane in the former Wellington hangar at Brooklands museum. Alison set up and ran the Rhythm & Muse poetry and music night in Teddington and Kingston for seven years.

Maggie Sawkins won the 2013 Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry for her live literature production, Zones of Avoidance, about a mother trying to deal with her daughter’s drug addiction, and the heartrending moment when a baby has to be given up for adoption. Her poetry collection of the same name was published by Cinnamon in 2015. She lives in Portsmouth where she runs creative writing projects in community and healthcare settings. She also co-founded the regular and long-running poetry and music night Tongues and Grooves.

Racker Donnelly is an Irish poet with an international reputation, who has posted more than 100 “Rackerhymes” on Facebook. As Peter Donnelly, he led the Labour group on Woking council 25 years ago, and was credited with saving the Rhoda McGaw theatre. He wrote and staged two plays set in Woking: A Woman's Wartime and Wokka-Doodle-Dandy, which includes The Wokkiad, a comic history of Woking. It was written for the launch of the Woking Community Play Association.

Entry: Free entry, suggested £2 donation

Time: 12-3pm