Author: GBJM_57
Satellite of Love Headliners: Dee Dickens & Kathryn O’Driscoll
June 25th 2025 at the Loco Klub
Door open at 7pm open mic starts 7.30pm event ends 10pm
Dee Dickens
Dee Dickens lives on a mountain in Wales with their husband and two shedding familiars. Autistic with ADHD, they write from the margins to give the marginalised a voice. They are very, VERY fond of ribs.
Kathryn O’Driscoll
Kathryn O’Driscoll is a spoken word poet, writer and activist from Bath, England. She is the 2021 U.K. Poetry Slam Champion and a World Slam Finalist. She talks openly about disabilities, mental health, LGBTQIA+ issues and joys and gender politics in her wide range of poems. She is the co-Founder of the Bath spoken word event The Poetry Spa.
She was longlisted for the Disabled Poets Prize 2023. She was longlisted for the Outspoken Prize for Performance Poetry, and the Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Artist in 2022. In 2021 she was one of the featured poets on the (BAFTA winning) Sky Arts spoken word TV show Life and Rhymes.
Her debut collection ‘Cliff Notes’ was released by Verve Poetry Press in February.
Community Poem February 2025
Now you listen here, biscuit boy!
Compassion is the basis of morality.
I am a reusable cup, please return me
Floating through the dimensionless afternoon
I need to sit down. Where do the fish go at suppertime?
He was the bargain bin otter at the sperm bank,
Then his mouth dropped open and a vole popped out.
Who is Alan, what is he for?
Wonderings through witchcraft and struggles to remain men.
Sunsets and moonshine and hobbled, Robbled shoes.
I left my keys on the kitchen table…
Bazinga-zinga Bazinga-zeng
Every middle name is a character in Thomas the Tank Engine
Patchwork pattern, puzzle quilted
Life is too short to wait 10 minutes for a gin + tonic
0110001100 When you wave at the computer, your soul waves back.
There is an aging tortoise using face cream?
A line behind a line behind a line behind a line, how many words make up a line, how many letters behind one another lined up together line a line of loves.
The vivacious cat and a suitably startled rat.
Who is Alan, what is he for?
Satellite of Love Headliners May 28th 2025
At the Loco Klub 7pm for 7.30pm start
Bridget Hart + Elena Chamberlain
Bridget Hart (they/them) is a working class writer based in Bristol. Known for their cutting wit and quietly heart-breaking poems, Bridget has been performing for over a decade across the UK at festivals and events including Shambala, Boomtown, Hit the Ode, Say Owt and Edinburgh Fringe.
They have published two collections of poetry: Chewing Gum (Small Press, 2021) and Better Watch Your Mouth (Burning Eye, 2017). Bridget has poems and short stories published by Comma Press, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Late Britain, Bluebird Anthology and more.
Elena Chamberlain is a poet from the Midlands. She has shared writing on local and national stages and in pages. In 2023, El was longlisted for the Outspoken Prize for Poetry (2023), they are an alumni of Apples and Snakes’ Word’s A Stage 2.0 (2024), and a participant of Apples and Snakes’ Future Voices (2023), representing the South West.
Until she retreats into the woods, Elena can be found on Instagram @arspoeticel
Entry requirements: 14+, any under 18s accompanied by 21+ adult 1:1 ratio
SOL Community Poem, January 2025
Catalytic Converter For Sale
Blackthorne is the Wrongbow, Thatchers rules!
One drink away from being an overly-ambitious power bottom
Yet in the tunnels of love, I will choo choo should
you need the shove.
A low January sun and everything is edged in light
head buzzing like a broken fridge
Unhand me at once you buffoon!
Somewhere a lemon is growing
I saw the cat with something
she said paint me like one of you French girls
red-raw like the table cloths
Hand dryer eclipsing the words of the bards
mustn’t mute the muntering Munson
snog the mic so it picks you up.
Lurchers? They’re always plotting something
don’t be a hero, be a massive twat, Elon Musk salute
were I a brew crew crusty my dog upon a rope
I’d like to learn more languages
not eat your viral sandwiches.
If Welsh is the answer what is the question?
Does the Pope shit in the woods?
Mary Berry is crocheting a beanie in a sex dungeon.
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
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.
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.
Community Poem November 2024
Safeword
Harry and Kate went to masturbate,
loving the vibration of love,
a slow, slinky ooziness.
A sausage, a hole and Vinted.
Breathe in, said Kate, exhale the fire of living.
The bag was bulging.
We need to establish a safeword, said Harry
I’m thinking of a line, said Kate, but it’s not happening,
the only thing that comes to mind is a thousand fucking doves.
Harry suggested: I love Ian Beale…?
Chocolate coins? said Kate Time is a construct!
Dare you! Dare you! Double dare you?
The naughty little mouse nibbled my member, said Harry
Well, your compliment wasn’t good enough, said Kate,
asking to see my anus on Instagram is not a love poem.
An ode for a misplaced hip flask? said Harry.
I hate loving you, you love hating me, said Harry,
and the postage was paid in Northern Ireland.
Days are unequal in the struggles of the dead, said Kate
What is stopping ants from taking over the world? Democracy?
I hope this line is read out of context
like Leda, like Persephone, like women, women, women.
On this pirate ship poetry pandemonium,
we’re all just twatting around in the glitter.