Category: This Month’s Headliner

Satellite of Love: Headliners February 2025

February 26th at the Loco Klub. Doors open 7pm open mic 7.30pm

Helen Ivory & Martin Figura

Martin Figura’s collection and show Whistle were shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award and won the 2013 Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Show. Shed (Gatehouse Press) and Dr Zeeman’s Catastrophe Machine (Cinnamon Press) were both published in 2016. In 2021 he was Salisbury NHS Writer in Residence; the resulting pamphlet My Name is Mercy (Fair Acre Press) won a national NHS award. A second pamphlet from Fair Acre Press Sixteen Sonnets for Care came out in October 2022. His collection The Remaining Men ( Cinnamon Press) was published in 2024. He Lives in Norwich with Helen Ivory and sciatica.

Helen Ivory is a poet and visual artist. She received a Society of Authors Cholmondeley Award in 2024. She edits Ink Sweat and Tears and teaches for the National Centre for Writing Academy. Her chapbook Maps of the Abandoned City was published by SurVision in 2019 and the poem The Square of the Clockmaker is riding the rails as one of the Poems on the Underground. She has work translated into Polish, Ukrainian, Croatian, Spanish. Wunderkammer: New and Selected Poems appeared from MadHat in the US last year. Constructing a Witch (October 2024) her sixth Bloodaxe collection is a PBS Winter Recommendation.

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Satellite of Love: Wendy Allen & Catherine Balaq. November 27th

This November Satellite presents a headline double bill

Doors open on the John Sebastian Lightship at 7pm, open mic starts 7.30pm

Wendy Allen

Wendy Allen’s debut pamphlet, Plastic Tubed Little Bird, was published in 2023 by Broken Sleep. She is a PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her pamphlet, Portrait in Mustard will be published in October 2024 by Seren. 

Catherine Balaq

Catherine Balaq is a writer and body psychotherapist. Her work has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and nominated for the Pushcart and Forward Prize.

In 2022 Catherine was a recipient of The Poetry School MA scholarship. Her poetry play ‘Fuck the Moon’ was commissioned by Paper Nations and short-listed for the Bristol Old Vic Open Sessions 2019.

She is co-editor of Black Cat Press. Her debut collection ‘animaginary’ was published in July 2023 and was nominated for the Seamus Heaney Prize for first collection and the Pen Heaney Prize. Her second collection ‘Deathless‘ is published with Verve. Catherine also writes novels.

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Satellite of Love: Headliners October 2024

Lily Redwood and Jay Macdonald

Wednesday October 23rd 2024 John Sebastian Lightship

Doors open 7.00pm. Open mic starts 7.30pm. Finish 10.00pm.

Lily Redwood lives off-grid in South Wales with her husband and two children. She writes about the everyday extraordinary from the political to the poetical. Lily combines spoken word with tender verse, which comes alive through her live performance. She has recently been Cheltenham Poetry Festival Slam Finalist and the Bristol Milk Poetry Slam winner.


Most of her poems are written on the notes app hiding in the toilet from her two children, or scribbled on the back of a shopping list, whilst burning the dinner.


Lily’s debut pamphlet, You Make Me Think of Swifts, is an unflinching and raw voice for motherhood, it is out now with The Collective Press.


Lily’s work has been described described as: “visceral, loving and brave”.

You can find lily online – @lilyredwoodpoet

Jay is a straight edge poet who writes on neurodivergence, gender, and the love of hardcore punk; doing so like he’s authoring an early 2000s emo LiveJournal post.

Since starting to perform in the spoken word scene a year ago, he has competed in UniSlam and Lyra Fest; and frequently haunts poetry events across Bath and Bristol

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Satellite of Love: Joelle Taylor, Bradley Taylor

September 25th 2024 at the Loco Klub

This month Satellite of Love’s open mic and headliner session is relocating to the Loco Klub at Temple Meads. The venue is fully accessible.

A Tale of Two Taylors

Bradley Taylor

Bradley is the winner of Satellite’s recent Summer Slam.

When we asked Bradley for a bio, all he wrote was:
‘Bradley Taylor (he/him) is a poet from Birmingham. Apologies.’

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