Live Poetry Book Club

Celebrating Black and Mixed Heritage writers, complemented by live world music.

Welcome 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) explores questions of national identity and ‘the end of history’. A blistering, bleakly funny and timely second poetry collection.

“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. Mohamed has performed at festivals worldwide including Shambala, Greenbelt, Musicport, WOMAD (Uk), Bergenfest (Norway), Busan (South Korea), Festival internationale de percussions sousse (Tunisia).

So come, one and all, join us at the MMI St Agnes for a very special mornings of language.

Tickets are just £5 and include a free poetry book of the writer’s work and free refreshments.

Concessions available, no questions asked, just reach out