Real Live Poets
Update: Our first pay-as-you-feel, Poetry Live event was fab!
Well - we had such a lovely time in our Courtyard when 4 poets, and some extras on our Open Mike slots, performed their poems for us. Our event was beautifully hosted and compared by the lovely Suzannah Evans an our poets were Vicky Morris, Nassar Hussain, Suzannah herself and Helen Mort. A dedicated poetry book stall was kindly supplied (and delivered by cargo bike) by one of Sheffield’s fine independent bookshops, LaBiblioteka. John St Kitchen served up delicious Pintxos to accompany the poetry and the courtyard basked in a warm - almost Mediterranean - evening. Pandemic? What Pandemic? It almost felt normal for a while. Thanks to everyone involved for being part of such a lovely event.
And - as a footnote - thanks to the band Femur, rehearsing (very loudly) for their Tramlines sets next door who stopped for a ‘ciggie break’ to allow us to hear the poets speak!! We hope your sets go well 👍🏻
Our poets were:
Vicky Morris - who founded Hive Young Writers Project. She is a British/Welsh poet and educator with a committed fan base: "Vicky helps me polish my poems with tremendous tenderness and sensitivity, and I couldn’t wish for more from any editor. Oh sweet and lucky day that I met her."
Dr Nasser Hussain who teaches at Leeds Beckett. He is known and loved for his SKY WRI TEI NGS - a book with poems written only from three-letter airport codes. Yes, really. Hard to believe - but magical to read.
Suzannah Evans whose poems have been described as "doom-pop-poetry with an apocalyptic edge, a darkly humorous journey through sci-fi lullabies and northern mysteries". You can read her "playful, sharp" poems in Near Future
Helen Mort who is an award winning, Sheffield based poet and author and a regular Northern female voice of much sense on BBC Radio. She has two collections of poetry: ‘Division Street’ and ‘No Map Could Show Them’ and a novel ‘Black Car Burning’ in which Sheffielder’s will recognise familiar landmarks that tell their stories.
And we had some lovely contributions from Open Mike performers too. 🙏🏻 It was lovely and we hope to welcome more live poetry to the courtyard in the future (just maybe not on the night before tramlines tho! ;)
Event description
Sheffield's poets have been liberated into the open air and they'd love to share their new poems with you! Lockdown has been a strange time of Zoom readings and digital applause and so we're hoping you feel like experiencing the real thing again. The evening will include readings from Helen Mort, Nasser Hussain, Suzannah Evans and Vicky Morris. We also have a limited number of five minute open mic spots which will be available to sign up for on the night. We'll be doing everything we can to ensure this event is safe, so please do bring face masks and hand sanitiser and use them as you feel comfortable. Entry is by PAYF donation, which will go to the poets.
Suzannah Evans lives in Sheffield. Her pamphlet Confusion Species was a winner in the 2012 Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition and her debut collection Near Future was published by Nine Arches Press in 2018. She was the winner of a Gladstone’s Library residency in October 2019 for Near Future.
Nasser Hussain is a lecturer in literature and Creative Writing at Leeds Beckett University. His last book, SKY WRI TEI NGS, was published with Toronto’s Coach House Books in 2018. He is part of the Ledbury Poetry Critics collective, and is currently at work on a book of love poems.
Vicky Morris is a British/Welsh poet and creative educator based in Sheffield. She’s been widely published in places like The Rialto, Under the Radar and The North. In 2020, she won first place in the Aurora Prize for Poetry, and was shortlisted in the Magma Poetry Pamphlet Competition. Vicky has worked for many years developing young creatives and founded Hive Young Writers Project in 2016. Her Pamphlet If All This Never Happened was a winner in the 2020 Fool For Poetry competition. www.vickymorris.co.uk
Helen Mort is an award-winning author based in Sheffield. She has published two poetry collections (Division Street, 2013 and No Map Could Show Them, 2016), a debut novel (Black Car Burning, 2019), a short story collection (Exire, 2019) and also writes drama and creative non fiction. She has been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Costa Prize and won the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize in 2015. She appears regularly on BBC radio.
