Curated and hosted by poet Kim Moore, our contemporary poetry reading series continues throughout 2024. We will be listening to what poets have to say about our turbulent times, and how poetry can cross borders to challenge, delight and inspire us. Each online event in the series is part reading, part open mic – and the theme of the open mic changes every time!

Our next event features the poet and playwright Amanda Dalton, who will be reading from her latest collection Fantastic Voyage. In her latest collection, Amanda takes a journey around that most unpredictable of landscapes, the human body. In her work, the body is often in distress, but it also has an endless capacity to give voice to truths. Wordsworth also explored the unruly body in Lyrical Ballads, writing ‘The eye – it cannot choose but see; / We cannot bid the ear be still; / Our bodies feel, where’er they be, / Against or with our will.’ Our open mic theme this month is to bring a poem which explores the body in some way – please feel free, as ever, to interpret that theme widely!