Doors 7pm Open mic starts 7.30pm Event finishes 10.30pm
Stefan Mohamed is an award-winning author, poet and creative writing tutor. He is the author of five novels, including surreal sci-fi detective mystery The House on Utopia Way, and five books of poetry.
His latest collection, The Revelation Tapes, came out this year with Broken Sleep Books. He lives in Bristol with his family and cat. He is also a DJ.
Sophie Dumont
Sophie Dumont is an award-winning poet and editor based in Bristol. Her debut poetry collection,Sculling, has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2026 and featured in The Guardian, Financial Times and The Sunday Times. Sophie’s poetry has won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize and the John Brooks Award and she’s held writing residencies along Bristol Harbourside and at Exeter Custom House. This October, Sophie was appointed Good Grief Festival’s first poet in residence.
Sukina Noor: City Poet at the Loco Klub 23rd September 2026 Doors 7pm, Event Starts 7.30pm Event Finishes 10pm
Sukina Noor is a poet, spoken-word artist, playwright, workshop facilitator and educator, event curator and public speaker. She is the current Bristol City Poet (2024 – 2026).
She has toured extensively across the UK, Europe, America and Africa performing, delivering poetry workshops, partaking in panel discussions and delivering lectures.
Sukina has facilitated creative writing workshops across the world empowering communities to use the written word as a tool for dialogue and as a means for accessing their authentic voice. Her workshops seek to explore the intersection between creativity and spirituality and awakening the voice of the heart. She has developed a series of poetry writing courses such as The Art of Speaking from the Heart, The Art of Writing Sacred Poetry and The Poetry of Female Mystics that she has delivered to international audiences and this summer led her first retreat in Portugal called The Healing Art of Sacred Writing.
Sukina made her theatre debut in 2016 in a production called Malcolm X at the Royal Flemish Theatre in Brussels (KVS) which was critically acclaimed. In 2017 and 2018 she led a project in collaboration with the theatre called Rise Up where she used poetry as a tool for dialogue and community cohesion in the aftermath of the terror attacks in Brussels. She was commissioned by KVS to write her first play called Afropean / Human Being that premiered at the theatre in February 2020.In 2017 she delivered a TEDx Talk on the healing potential of poetry exploring the ways in which the process of poem-making can have a therapeutic outcome.
Sukina holds a BA (Hons) Degree in English Literature and Caribbean Studies and has an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes where she is focusing on the intersection between spirituality, creativity and the healing potential in the poetry of the Sufi mystics.
She is currently training to become a Spiritual Empowerment Life Coach.
Sukina has amassed a loyal fan base due to her international performances, workshop facilitation and social media presence and her debut poetry collection Love and
July 22nd at the Loco Klub Doors 7pm, event starts 7.30pm
Tom Denbigh is a Bristol-based poet and playwright. Exploring the queer experience alongside tales of friends and strangers, Tom’s writing toys with myth, devilish humour and absurdity to portray the bizarre and brilliant in normal life.
He is a producer at Milk Poetry, a BBC1Xtra Words First winner and has facilitated writing workshops for groups of students from the UK and abroad. Outside of poetry Tom has a PhD on plant roots and soil erosion. His first collection …and then she ate him is published with Burning Eye Books.
“… surrealism and spirituality go hand in hand with stark poems of the body and sexuality. Denbigh has a unique ability to weave narrative and humour through expansive poems which reframe and reconsider the everyday.”
Andrew Mcmillan
“A Tom Denbigh poem is a perfectly twisted fairytale. His precise, playful confidence, intrepid warps in language and acerbic imagination will make you realise your head and heart have been tugged into an adventure far from home.”
Jasmine Gardosi
‘Iman Sultan West is an artist, poet and cultural practitioner based in Bristol exploring how community can be bought together through expression and curiosity. Their poetry uses humour and rhythm to connect with heritage, neurodiversity, mental health and resistance.
Currently working as a freelance provenance researcher for natural history, Iman entangles reparative justice and an engrossed obsession with words to facilitate their annual Poetry Course with Shiiku Community.’
Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio)
Wednesday 27th May at the Loco Klub Doors 19:00 Event Starts 19:30 Evening ends 22:30
Taran Spalding-Jenkin is a native Kernewek speaking poet, performer and translator. Their work explores the spaces between identities, disability, queerness, and hireth – the longing for a lost home or one which has never existed.
Taran has been awarded the Awen medal for creativity and in 2024 became a bard of Gorsedh Kernow for their contributions to Cornish poetry. Their debut pamphlet Health Hireth is out now with Broken Sleep Books.
Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio)
Bristol-based event Satellite of Love and Bath-based Chimes team up for an extended open mic at Lyra Festival, with feature performances from Elena Chamberlain and Alex Petkov. Sign up on the door to perform on the night, with a selection of spaces reserved for Bath-based poets.
16+, any under 18s accompanied by 21+ adult 1:1 ratio
All Lyra Fest venues are wheelchair accessible. Access Information Pack available at www.lyrafest.com.
Satellite of Love:
Satellite of Love Poetry and Spoken Word run monthly events, work-shops and writing retreats. Our monthly events at the Loco Klub offer a platform for local and touring poets, open mic and our Community Poem.
Chimes Poetry Night:
Come along to Chimes – Bath’s leading open mic poetry night. Since July 2023 we have been bringing performance opportunities and some of the UK’s best poets to spoken word enthusiasts in Bath. In Summer 2025 we published an anthology of our gorgeous community’s work, packed with poetry and even the cover designed by our poets.
Wednesday 25th of February at the Loco Klub Headliner and Open Mic
Doors at 19:00 Event starts 19:30 Event ends 22:30
Poet, dramatist, academic, curator, historian and musician in his adopted city of Bristol, Edson Burton won the WGGB /Society of Authors 2025 Tinniswood Award for best audio-drama script of the year with Man Friday, while Witness marks only his second poetry collection, sixteen years after his first, Seasoned, was published.
The poems in Witness sizzle with political and cultural energy, as in ‘Mother Tongue,’ ‘Grenfell,’ ‘The Hollow Boys,’ which assert Edson’s incisive critique, informed by his specialist expertise; expressing vigorous, rousing protest; demanding social justice. ‘Library of Witness’ is a mighty, 8-part commission exploring our historical, ecological and inter-cultural relationship with trees. The reader finds immense compassion, too, in a voice that is generous, humane, tender, in ‘Lickle Bird Mabel,’ ‘Liberty Had a Baby’ and others. A set of love poems – intimate, sensual, erotic – engages us with a more personal, somatic language: the beloved is cherished and respected but the poet’s self-awareness places the male gaze and response under scrutiny, too.
On radio, Edson’s credits also include the supernatural trilogy Deacon starring Don Warrington, while his theatre writing spans a range of theatre-based, promenade and site-specific work, such as The Ithaca Axis (2013) Curried Goat & Fish Fingers (with Miles Chambers, 2016), the Frederick Douglass dramatization An Abolitionist Returns (2018) The Edge 2018, and the ribald Anansi & the Grand Prize (2019). He recently wrote for the Welsh National Opera’s Migrations and is currently working on a script with award-winning Black opera company Pegasus. His on-screen history-specialist appearances include the Hairy Bikers series Pubs that Made Britain (2015), Books that Made Britain: Bristol Sin City (2016), Lost Civilizations Series 1: The Remains of Slavery (2017), Antiques Road Show (2018), Britain’s Most Historic Towns: Georgian Bristol (2019) and African Queens (2023) in addition to regularly appearing on local news and radio. His academic specialisms include Afro-futurism, the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Race & Representation.
Locally, Edson is the driving force behind many cultural initiatives at the Trinity Centre, co-author of What’s Your Trinity Story, a member of Bristol’s History Commission, the film programming collective Come the Revolution, and the Queer People of Colour collective, Kiki Bristol. As if that’s not enough, Edson is vocalist in the band The Private Joys, father of two young adults, uncle to a cat and a lover of Easton, Bristol, where he resides.
Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio)
Wednesday 25th March at the Loco Klub. Doors 19:00 event starts at 19:30. Event finishes at 22:30.
Rosie Garland has a passion for language nurtured by public libraries, & Val McDermid has named her one of the most compelling LGBT+ writers in the UK today. An award-winning poet, novelist and short story writer, she is frontwoman for post-punk band The March Violets. Poetry collection What Girls do the Dark (Nine Arches Press) was shortlisted for the Polari Prize & latest collection This Is How I Fight was Observer Poetry Book of the Month. Her poetry and fiction – described by The Times as “a delight…with shades of Angela Carter” – looks beneath the skin to the multitudes inside: galaxies, creatures, wicked queens & fire – all itching & roaring to be seen.
Photo by Rachel Saunders
Rowena Knight’s poetry is influenced by her queerness, feminism, and upbringing in New Zealand. Her poems have appeared in Butcher’s Dog, Magma, The Rialto, and The Emma Press Anthology of Love, among others. She was shortlisted for the 2018 Bridport Prize and commended in the 2019 Winchester Poetry Prize, and has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and spoken word events across Bristol and London. Her pamphlet All the Footprints I Left Were Red is published by Valley Press. You can find her on Instagram @purple_fantail.
Photo of Rowena reading by Sam Cavender.
Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio)
Wednesday 28th of January 2026 at the Loco Klub Doors at 19:00 Event starts 19:30 Event ends 22:30
“No Man is an Ireland is a surreal, genre-bending, standup poetry show, performed by award-winning Northern Irish comedian and former Bard of Exeter, Edward Tripp. Ed ponders his cultural identity through the mediums of story-telling and prop-heavy stand-up poetry.
Featuring defrosted wives, visits from Uncle Connor (who isn’t in the IRA) and at least one unforgettable tribute to the late Lady Diana. If you enjoy spoken-word poetry, this is the show for you. If you dislike spoken-word poetry, this is probably the show for you too. Expect the unexpected…and hold on tight”
“Tripp doesn’t so much straddle or have one foot in the camps of comedy and storytelling, but instead finds perfect harmony between them – each element of humour extenuating the spoken word, each poetic structure lifting stories to new heights. Tripp’s poetic moments are a treat, cohesive and engaging, and for newcomers, is the finest introduction to the marvels of spoken word” – Corr Blimey
“Speaking as a zookeeper – that was the most accurate impression of a turtle eating lettuce I have ever seen” – Jenna Crawford, audience member (and Zookeeper).
Sophie Shepherd is a performer of all sorts of different things living and working in Weston-super-Mare. Little bit of poetry, little bit of acting, little bit of stand up and a little bit of drag. That’s the vibe. My poetry is often playfully silly, breaking the fourth wall-esque and hopefully witty.
Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio)
At the Loco Klub 26th November Doors at 7pm Event starts 7.30pm Event finishes at 10.30
Georgie Jones is a poet and performer known for her humour and heart. Praised for her ‘formidable stage presence and compelling way with words’ (reviewshub) Georgie’s poetry feels like a really good chat with a really old friend (lifelong as opposed to ancient).
She explores the exquisite messiness of modern existence through poetry, stories and just a smidge of oversharing, with abundant wit and warmth in tow. Georgie can’t promise any answers, but she’ll do her best to make you feel better about not having them.
Caitlin O’Ryan’s debut collection is a journey of mirror smashing and everything we have come to accept being called into question. With deep vulnerability and wit, she invites us to look inside of ourselves and to interrogate what we find there. Fuelled by the times that we are living in, her poems vibrate through the pages, grabbing you with a sense of urgency that says “you are not alone, I also feel this”.
Taken from her live performances and featuring her viral poem ‘AT WHAT POINT’ which has amassed millions of views online and culminated in her being invited onto BBC Woman’s Hour, this book will light a fire in you that will continue to burn long after you have put it down. Caitlin is also known for her recurring role in the hit TV series Outlander.
‘Caitlin’s words are as powerful on the page as they are on the stage.‘ Harry Baker
‘A devastatingly heartfelt, intelligent, witty and turbulent ode to female friendship, fears, hopes and dreams … the book I wish I’d had in my twenties but so glad to have now in my forties, where I still swim in the uncertainties of this beautiful and confounding life.‘ Catriona Balfe
Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio)
Join us for an evening of words, water, and wonder as we launch Sophie Dumont’s debut poetry collection Sculling. This is not just a book launch – it’s a celebration of the Bristol’s River Avon. Lyrical, tender and fierce, Sculling traces grief, desire, and transformation through the movement of rivers, asking how we live, love, and let go. Sophie will be supported by poetry from Bristol’s Caleb Parkin and Meg Avon. Let’s create an Avon-loving evening rippling with community, mourning and merrymaking!
Dress code: Your rivery finest. Think river silks, moonlight sequins, driftwood crowns – anything that makes you feel like part of the tide.
About Sculling:
In her unflinching and tenderly obsessive collection, Sculling, poet Sophie Dumont explores a deeply personal relationship to the River Avon, as she circles the curses that unravel from a canoe club.
At the age of sixteen, Sophie Dumont trained to be a canoe coach before her own coach and partner of three years died suddenly in an aquaplaning road accident, which led to five of his organs continuing at least seven people’s lives. His heart was donated to a young man studying in the same city as he did.
Using the kayak as a vessel to traverse life’s accumulation of losses, Sculling speaks of how this bereavement caused Dumont to reflect on her relationship to bodies of water, from her own body to the state of pollution in UK rivers. Here, she explores the campaign for rivers to be given personhood status for rights to protection and inspects the symbiosis of her body and the river’s.
Sculling is a powerful investigation into categories of haunting, from a body living on through donated organs, through dementia’s slow erasure, and through witnessing her niece learn object permanence – that things continue to exist when they are not visible.
In her fiercely vulnerable and meticulous debut, Dumont probes the urge to call out when under a bridge, to hear oneself ricocheted back, changed:
‘. . . a boy in a red cap opens his throat, throws sound into shadows, as we’ve all done, in the reckless hope of its return.’
Image credit: Jae Frederick
About Sophie:
Sophie Dumont is a poet and copywriter based in Bristol and Bath. Her poetry won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize and has appeared in The Rialto, Magma, The Moth, Ink Sweat and Tears and Mslexia among others. Dumont has an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and has held writing residencies along Bristol Harbourside with Boat Poets and Exeter Quay through Literature Works.
About Meg:
Meg Avon of The River Bride is a Bristol-based celebrant, poet, activist, performance artist and environmental romantic. From Meg: “In June 2023, I married my local river the Bristol Urban Avon. I married them not just because I love the river deeply, but because I wanted to raise awareness about river pollution with a story that is engaging. Two years on and the relationship is still going strong. I have left my job as a community worker to pursue a career as a writer and campaigner, touring my first collection of poetry My Avon earlier this year.”
About Caleb:
Caleb Parkin was Bristol City Poet 2020 – 22. He’s published three pamphlets and his debut collection, This Fruiting Body was longlisted for the Laurel Prize; his second, Mingle, was published Oct 2024. He’s a PhD researcher with RENEW Biodiversity at the University of Exeter, and an experienced tutor and workshop leader.
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