Tag: Spoken Word

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

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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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Community Poem June 2024

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If They Hadn’t Written This Would You Have?

(Shouted) Derek! They’ve stolen the geraniums again
that’s the biggest I’ve ever seen
You’ve snatched the world up of precious solitude which you have been craving for so long and realised it was in fact loneliness
A life of collaborative A Level anxiety


Isn’t it rude to leave at the interval after you’ve read every fucking time
leaving behind nothing but the faint whiff of an old fart?
Liberation for Palestine is liberation for us all. Ask yourself what you are doing at this moment
If I hadn’t written this would have you?
I spent the day horizontal in the park


Please improvise this line and don’t just read out this
To be cringe is to be free, apart from if you’re me right now in this exact situation
There is nothing so bloody wonderful as genuine warmth and encouragement, and there is so much love here
Rim Tim Tag I dim
But to see you again would destroy the memory
Marz

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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.

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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

Doors open 7pm open mic starts 7.30pm

VENUE CHANGE

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.

Loco Klub access details
Loco Klub venue location

A Tale of Two Taylors

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Joelle Taylor is the author of 4 collections of poetry. Her most recent collection C+NTO & Othered Poems won the 2021 T.S Eliot Prize, and the 2022 Polari Book Prize for LGBT authors. C+NTO is currently being adapted for theatre with a view to touring. She is a co- curator and host of Out-Spoken Live at the Southbank Centre, and tours her work nationally and internationally in a diverse range of venues, from Australia to Brazil. She is also a Poetry Fellow of University of East Anglia and the curator of the Koestler Awards 2023. She has judged several poetry and literary prizes including Jerwood Fellowship, the Forward Prize, and the Ondaatje Prize. Her novel of interconnecting stories The Night Alphabet will be published by Riverrun in Spring of 2024. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the 2022 Saboteur Spoken Word Artist of the Year. Her most recent acting role was in Blue by Derek Jarman, which was directed by Neil Bartlett and featured Russell Tovey, Jay Bernard, and Travis Alabanza. Blue sold out its run across the UK and more dates are expected for the future.

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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Satellite of Love: Summer Slam

Join us on the 21st of August 2024 for Satellite of Love’s second ever poetry slam. Twelve competitors will put their words to the test in a battle of who-can-impress-three-selected-poets unlike anything you may have seen before*.

The winner of our slam this year will receive a paid 10 minute feature slot at our event on the 25th of September, supporting UK poetry legend, Joelle Taylor.
Entry requirements: 14+

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*if you have been to a poetry slam before it will be exactly like something you may have seen before.

Doors & Bar open – 7pm
Night starts – 7:30pm
Night ends – 10pm

The John Sebastian Lightship, Cabot Cruising Club, Bathurst Basin, Redcliffe, Bristol BS1 6SG

Meet the Judges

Sophie Shepherd

Sophie is a performer and poet based in Weston. She runs the Rhyme Against the Tide poetry slam in Weston and recently hosted to South West Showdown (Weston v Bristol v Clevedon v Exeter) at the Wardrobe. She is a poetry slam enthusiast and can’t wait to see what the poets at Satellite of Love have in store.

Emma Taylor

Emma Taylor is a multi-slam-winning spoken word artist, event organiser, and performer based in Bath. She is a Bristol Slam Champion, Coaches SLAM 2024 winner, and placed 2nd in the Farrago UK Slam Championship 2023. Her debut pamphlet, ‘Bed and Breakfast’ launched on the 25th April 2024 and is available via her website & and in selected bookstores now!

Emma has failed her driving test seven times. She maintains that she is simply ‘too bisexual to drive’.

Kathryn O’Driscoll

Kathryn O’Driscoll is a queer, disabled poet, mentor and editor from Bath. She was the 2021 U.K. Poetry Slam Champion and a World Slam Finalist and has been a judge for the U.K. Slam Finals for the past three years.

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Previous Headliner

Malaika Kegode May 22nd 2024

Malakia Kegode

Malaika Kegode is an award-winning writer, performer, creative producer and Associate Director at Theatre Royal Plymouth. She is based in Bristol and Plymouth. Her work is focused on uplifting and celebrating the overlooked and misunderstood. Beginning her arts career as a performance poet in 2014, Malaika has since developed her practice to encompass theatre, radio and film writing. She is a vocal advocate for creativity as a tool for healing and connection. 

Winner of the Kevin Elyot Award (2022) and shortlisted for the Out-Spoken Poetry Award (2019), Malaika has also been included in the BME Power List, celebrating Bristol’s most influential Black & minority ethnic people, and was a 2021 recipient of the Apples & Snakes Jerwood Arts Poetry in Performance Award. She has performed around the UK at a number of celebrated venues, festivals and literary events, including The 100 Club, WOMAD and Hay Festival, and has worked with a wide-range of organisations as a writer, teacher and performer.

Malaika has been performing with folk-inspired prog-rock band Jakabol since 2018. Together they have performed at music and theatre venues alike – bringing a unique, exciting blend of poetry and music to diverse audiences. In 2021, Malaika and Jakabol collaborated on Outlier, which became the first piece of new writing produced for Bristol Old Vic’s main stage in 2021. Directed by Jenny Davies, Outlier fuses spoken word, original music and digital projection by Christopher Harrisson to tell Malaika’s autobiographical coming-of-age story of friendship, isolation and addiction in rural Devon. The show received critical success and fantastic audience reaction, and returned for a second run at Bristol Old Vic in 2022. The playtext for Outlier is published by Salamander Street.

Tackling themes as wide ranging as incel culture and identity in the internet age to millennial queerness and dinosaurs, Malaika’s writing has been performed around the country, including at Lyric Hammersmith, Watford Pumphouse, and Barbican Theatre Plymouth. She is an associate artist for Bristol Old Vic, part of the 2023 English Touring Theatre Nationwide Voices cohort and the current writer-in-residence at University of Bristol Theatre Collection.

As a workshop leader and mentor, Malaika has worked with organisations such as Arvon, Synergy Theatre Company and Narcotics Anonymous. As a trauma informed facilitator, she has specialised in running workshops with young and/or vulnerable people to help them realise the value of their stories. Many of the individuals Malaika has mentored have gone on to forge exciting and fulfilling careers in the arts.

Malaika has also worked film, and was the 2021 recipient of the the Eslpeth Kydd Memorial Prize for her screenwriting portfolio. She has been a curational associate for Watershed, a resident artist for Encounters Film Festival, and programme selector for a number of film festivals including Queer Vision and Tallinn Black Nights.

In 2015, Malaika founded, and continues to be artistic director and host of, Milk Poetry, an organisation that produces innovative spoken word gigs and workshops in a supportive environment across the South West, with monthly events at The Wardrobe Theatre in Bristol.

Other projects as writer and/or producer include:
Rot. (tiata fahodzi); Field Notes (BBC Radio 4); Hear Her Voice (Neoteric Dance Company); Own Skin (Random Acts); The Best Ones (Inn Crowd); SheSpoke (Strike a Light); Level Up (Blahblahblah); Gloucester Slam Heats (Roundhouse); Finding Queerness in Kenya (Modern Queers); We are Not All Each Other (Black Ballad); Return to Form (Loud Poets); and her poetry collections Requite, Thalassic and Body Buffet.

Current projects include: The Colour of Dinosaurs (OTIC, Bristol Old Vic & Polka Theatre); The Combe (English Touring Theatre); Ruby, Baby (with thanks to the Kevin Elyot archive at University of Bristol Theatre Collection).

On the John Sebastian Lightship

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Community poem October 2023

They are all in the Vortex

I live in a dustbin littered with gold
You can tell its art-my Grandfather said- because there are no people in it
I was watching Line of Duty

Drop, beat, drop, beat, drop

Time flies
The beautiful smallness you feel when gazing up at the sky and realising, somewhere
up there, is a boat that never moves
Its behind you

Drop, beat, drop, beat, drop

Love is a verb
Gravy
Clit
Ramen
Telling talk from mutter is like telling Stork from butter

Drop, beat, drop, beat, drop

On the bad days, please read this
Your legacy is not yours-
I think about profiting from your death more than I probably should

Lou Reed- As I entered a lock on my Satellite of Love !!! narrow boat xx
I am begging Mars to write a line, I tell them, the poem needs them, he needs you
satellite circling a satellite of love.

LOOK UP!

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Satellite Of Love May 2023 Community Poem

Extra Lines This Month

The Satellite Of Love Community poem this month has donated lines from the Writing the City workshop that took place during Satellite Week.

Each Day ( June 2023)

The day the jaffa cakes went missing
The dreich sunk its teeth into my bones.
The tinsel shimmers, the light on sea, what is anything, what are we? Moments in light reflexed.
The salt of sea and light of sky.

The buttercups are asking the sky, do you like butter?
Do platypuses speak in platitudes
Everyday you wake you may choose to be kind
And she gazed around her and she saw their brilliant faces, their open hearts and she was held.

No fires will take place here tonight
What is everything, who are we, where and for how long?
Climb every mountain clad in lycra
Get out of your comfort zone and your Nissan Micra.

I need to pee so I’m gonna rush writing this.
After a while, the whole thing evaporated.
I took a little look, before I had a proper gander
How! How! Why! why! I feel I could die!

Community Poem June 23 – Leftover Lines – I have put into some kind of order – Enjoy !

You I
Why don’t you try it my daughters said, why don’t you go instead this afternoon and do your usual
and going to bed.
Is there a raffle – yay, where are the toilets, please don’t call out my winning ticket while I’m
powdering my nose.
What happened to my gravy underpants?

4 Wines and 5 packets of crisps, sorry 4 packets, 2 cheese and onion, 1 salt and vinegar and 1 ready
salted and now my friends are sorted.
And the mama gave birth right here
Flaff women’s mags light. But they calmed me for the battle against you. They taught me love-
bonding, gaslighting and emotional abuse. And I knew you for what you were and I was not lower. I
emerged victorious, clad in the driest plate of flaff.
Dear Tina got her wings today, 24 th of May……love it as everything to do with it.

Life is wonderful, life is great but why does it have to be so hard! So much to do and so little time,
always living on the edge. Love yourself, love each other – be kind, stay safe, love one another.
I lick you paw to feel your love.
Bats commute, bats commute along linear features did you know?
Safe, safe away from empty space!
Space, space keep me safe.
Ditto, Ditto to every one’s words amazahins arghhhh
.
What is God? A 10p freddo
Beans, beans, beans, I love baked beans on toast (with curry powder)
Lush Ice Cream
Put your cigarette out properly!
Steep steps back…

My special sunshine dress!
This scent of the candle was sweet vanilla.
Where are the editors when you need them?

That walk around Bristol’s floating harbour…………

love finds itself walking through the city’s dark history
a city in levels like a Victoria sponge cake
discovery anatomy, it smells of curry
ferryboat Margaret swings low with river rats, boaters and rainbow oil
her sister Mary, a small sleek sailboat, sits as a queen amongst plastic pretenders
the dark water reflected an abundance of rain rich clouds
wavelets gave glimpses
cascades of silver glitter, shimmering ghosts
love me, so don’t scare me of all these pomp and circumstances

Satellite Of Love Previous Headliner May 2023

love-in-focus.co.uk

Pete The Temp

Wednesday 25th May 7.30pm

Satellite Of Love Previous Headliner Pete Bearder is an award-winning spoken word poet, author and comic. His work has been featured on BBC Radio 4, The World Service, and Newsnight. He is a former National Poetry Slam Champion and has performed around the world with organisations like The British Council. Pete recently released his third book ‘Garden of Madness’, described by Tom Hirons as a ‘word-heaven of praise poetry’.

www.petethetemp.co.uk   | Facebook, Instagram, Twitter: @PeteTheTemp |
Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/pbearder 

Community Poem February 2023

The 2016 Clown Scare

I’ve not had breakfast and the dentist talks of my mortality 
At least we have suckable items
And Brian blessed is my patronus 
I sat on a train that became a long, metallic fart
The hopeless case of progress 
An aubergine between the legs 
Bristol’s clear air zone – are you ready? I’m not 
In my best, loudest football voice I said:
Two squatter’s wrongs don’t make a squatter’s rights
At least we have pizza
Love was bird in my hand and I squeeze – splat! 
Which was incredibly wonderful
But then we all knew turkeys aren’t a just for Christmas, they’re a way of life 
September rang like a scar,
Left upon that creature’s pity 
A tourist in a resort 
On the fourth Wednesday of the month 
Ring ring goes the poet’s phone as he starts to rhyme…

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