Month: March 2025

Satellite of Love: Lyra Open Mic (+ Bertel Martin)

Wednesday 30th April at the Loco Klub
Doors open 7pm Open Mic 7.30pm
Event finishes 9.30pm

Join Satellite of Love for the biggest open mic event at Lyra Festival 2025, with an extended open mic and a headline set from local legend Bertel Martin. Sign up on the door to perform on the night, or come along to enjoy an evening of local talent.

Bertel Martin:

Founder of Bristol Black Writers Group, Bertel has been active in Bristol’s writing scene for over 25 years, as a writer, performer and producer. Promoting Caribbean and African writers in Yardstick and with the British Council.

A co-founder of Word of Mouth (now Blah, Blah, Blah). Former Director of Plymouth International Book Festival and Director of City Chameleon, a publishing company specialising in poetry and short stories. Bertel has been published in a number of anthologies. Performance highlights include performing with Lee Evans, Benjamin Zephaniah, Attila Stockbroker and Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze.


Entry requirements: no age restrictions

Home » Archives for March 2025

SOL Presents: Aidan Andrew Dun – Excommunications

Book Launch and Open Mic

Wednesday April 16th on The John Sebastian Lightship
Doors open 7pm event starts 7.30pm Close 10pm

The Lightship does not have step free access

Aidan Andrew Dun will be reading from his new collection of 108 modern sonnets titled Excommunications.

Aidan A D has read at the Royal Albert Hall (for the launch of his epic poem Vale Royal in 1995) the Festival Hall, the Ledbury, Cheltenham, and Swindon literary festivals and he has lectured at the British Library on the Kings Cross Mysteries.

Other published works include:

India Cantos -Universal 2002
The Uninhabitable City 2005
Salvia Divinorum 2007
McCool 2010
Unholyland 2016
Excommunications 2025

AAD’s triad installed at Granary Square, Kings Cross, reads: “Kings Cross, dense with angels and histories, there are cities beneath your pavements, cities behind your skies. Let me see!” This triad was originally spray-painted on the walls of Battle Bridge just before it was demolished. The developers noticed it there and asked AAD if they could install the poem in Granary Square.

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Satellite of Love April Headliners: Bradley Taylor & M. L. Walsh

Wednesday 23rd April 2025
On the John Sebastian Lightship
Doors open 7.00pm. Open mic starts 7.30pm – Close 10pm

The Lightship does not have step free access

This month Satellite of Love Open Mic returns to the Lightship for one last time.


Bradley Taylor
is an award-winning performance poet born and based in Birmingham. In 2024 he won the Roundhouse Poetry Slam, the night of which was the biggest poetry slam in history, and in 2025 he releases his debut collection ‘You Missed The Best Part’ with Verve Poetry Press. Bradley is also the co-host of The Big Gay Poetry Night alongside M. L. Walsh, which has featured poets such as Joelle Taylor, Kandace Siobhan Walker & Sanah Ahsan.

Bradley has appeared at the Hay Festival, Cheltenham Literature Festival, The Inspirational Youth Awards, on BBC News and on BBC Radio 6 Music as part of Craig Charle’s ‘Class of 2024’, in which Craig Charles described him as ‘A brand new voice and a fresh perspective on the art of poetry and performance’.

Bradley’s work has appeared in Gutter Magazine, Shooter, Strix and across Birmingham train stations as part of Birmingham Hippodrome’s collaboration with photographer Paul Stringer’s project The City That Spoke To Me.

He writes for, and about, people.

M. L. WALSH is a performance poet specializing in comic absurdism and the construction of narrative through voice and characterisation. Since finding her form in the poetic monologue, she has experimented with the translation of performance poetry from stage to page, and how theatrical technique (and its removal) can modify a text. Her debut collection My Dog Has Never Read This was released in March 2025 with Verve Poetry Press.

Entry requirements:   Anyone under the age of 14 must be accompanied by an adult 21+ years old.

Satellite of Love Hosts: Poetry Film Club

On Board The John Sebastian Lightship

Tuesday 18th March. Doors 7pm Screening 7.30pm

March’s Poetry Film Club, on the day after St Patrick’s Day, is a Celtic Special! We will be looking at poetry films made by filmmakers from Wales, Ireland and Scotland. 

There will be films in the Welsh language presented by Steffan Phillips, poetry film from Ireland by Grace Wells, Pat Boran, Colm Scully and James Kelly, and a selection of films from Scotland by Barry Hollow, Steven Smart and Rachel McCrum.

Our discussion will be how different areas of the UK respond to the creation of poetry film and whether or not there is a ‘Celtic’ style of poetry film.

Home » Archives for March 2025