Winter Wordsmiths

Following on from that dip into the Wordsmiths & Co archives, there are a couple of winter Wordsmiths & Co shows coming up. starting tomorrow night (November 14th) at Warwick Arts Centre at 7.45pm, when the guests will be poets Tony Walsh aka Longfella poet, Luke Kennard, Helen Calcutt and Al Hutchins.

Wordsmiths & Co is back at Warwick on December 2nd, when the guests are poets Salena Godden, Helen Mort, Claire Trévien and Ben Norris. Sadly, work's going to get in the way of me getting along to either of these, but I recommend them very highly. Quite apart from the excellent poets, the whole format is a really new spin on the traditional reading format, with interviews as well as poems.

Wordsmiths & Co is a collaboration between Nine Arches Press and Apples and Snakes.

Wordsmiths & Co reading

MATT MERRITT at Wordsmiths & Co. from Chris Bradley on Vimeo.

Here's a short video of part of my reading at Wordsmiths & Co in June this year, part of an evening that also featured David Morley, Luke Wright, Lorna Meehan, and of course host Jo Bell (who you can see in the background).

The poems included are The elephant in the room, The Mind's Skyline, and At Frampton Marsh. I'm grateful to Nine Arches Press and Apples & Snakes, both for the invitation to read, and for producing such a fine video. I was, though, as always, taken aback by just how Leicestuh I sound.

And just in case you didn't know, the collection from which the poems are taken, The Elephant Tests, is available here, along with all manner of bargains.

Wordsmiths & Co

I'm taking part in the latest instalment of Wordsmiths & Co, at Warwick Arts Centre, a week on Monday (June 17th) at 7.45pm.

I'll be joining host Jo Bell and poets Lorna Meehan, David Morley and Luke Wright for what's the UK’s first live poetry talk show.

It aims to feature poets you know from the pages of books and from the festival stages, with Jo encouraging us to spill secrets, tell tales and share the magic of words in an intimate performance space.

It's a collaboration between Nine Arches Press, Apples and Snakes and Warwick Arts Centre. You can read more about it and find out how to book tickets here, and there's also a chance to watch videos of the performances from Series 1 and 2 (this is the closing event of the latter).