The Live Poetry Book Club
Event WebsiteWelcome to The Live Poetry Book Club, a summer book club exploring and celebrating live readings from black + mixed heritage writers.
For those who love nothing more than reading a good book (ones that move us and inspire us and allow us to see the world differently) and for those who adore listening to a writer bring their work into being through performance, at each of these unique events we will listen to the poet read their work in person, then take their collections home to enjoy afterwards.
July 13th features a live set from Tom Sastry. His pamphlet Complicity (2016) was a Poetry School Book of the Year and a Poetry Book Society pamphlet choice. His first collection A Man’s House Catches Fire (2019) was highly commended in the Forward Prize and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize. And You have no normal country to return to (2022) is also quite good (citation needed). “Tom Sastry navigates the mysterious everyday…making friendships and love affairs new and strange” – Carol Ann Duffy
Joining us before Tom’s poetry performance will be the Moroccan musician Mohamed Errebbaa, dropping in to give us a special 30 minutes set before he travels up to Porthtowan to perform on stage as part of Tropical Pressure Festival.
Mohamed Errebbaa was born in Rabat. A Moroccan musician and Master in the GNAWA world. He spent a decade travelling throughout Morocco, studying the diverse regional musical traditions under some of the leading musicians in the country – in southern Morocco, Issawa, and Deqqa folkloric percussion, becoming especially passionate about the three-stringed Gnawa bass lute, the Guembri, before launching his international career.
August 10th is with the legendary Pascale Petit. Petit has published eight poetry collections, four of which were shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Her last book was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection.
So come, one and all, join us at the MMI St Agnes for two more very special mornings of language.