CB1 Poetry

2010-01-01T03:55:00.000-08:00

Our 2009-2010 season has now concluded following a brilliant performative reading from Luke Wright and Hollie McNish. The website will be updated with information on the 2010-2011 season later in the year; in the mean while, thanks to everyone who has come to our events this season for your support.

June 8th - Luke Wright and Hollie McNish

Since 2006, Luke Wright has launched his own curve-ball bid to become Poet Laureate, programmed and hosted Latitude’s poetry arena and has become the newest poet-in-residence on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live. In 2009 he took contemporary poetry onto primetime TV, writing all the poetry for Channel 4’s The Seven Ages of Love.

He has four solo poetry stage shows: Poet Laureate, Poet & Man, A Poet’s Work Is Never Done, and his current one - The Petty Concerns of Luke Wright. His first book, Who Writes This Crap?, co-written with Joel Stickley, was published by Penguin in 2007. A live show based on the book enjoyed a sell-out run at Edinburgh 2008. His debut pamphlet ‘High Performance’ was published by Nasty Little Press in November 2009.

"The best young performance poet around." – The Observer

"Visceral, poignant and riotously funny." – The Scotsman

Hollie McNish is a Cambridge based writer and performer whose spoken word ranges from political, sexy, feel good & furious to pure comedy. She has recently performed debut work with street and break dancer Sarah Baker. In 2009, she won the UK Slam Farrago championships and came third representing the UK at a poetry slam event in Paris. She has appeared in 'Popshot' magazine, on BBC2, been commissioned by Radio 4 and has participated in poetry projects in Argentina, Belgium and beyond.

As well as straight spoken word, she has also taken part in a number of music nights with renowned drum-n-bass acts Beardyman and Jungle Drummer and Inja.

Her forthcoming album 'PUSH KICK' charts a journey through pregnancy. Catch her at Michaelhouse before she heads to Glastonbury and Latitude festivals this summer.

www.myspace.com/papanicol

[Tuesday 8th June 2010, Michaelhouse, Doors 7.30pm Readings 8pm £5/£3]

Loughborough

I once spent the day with a girl who was pro fox hunting;
who asked what was wrong with The Tories;
who said she wanted her parent’s life.

We lay down outside a church,
the grass poured around us like mint sauce,
and I thought maybe I’d just marry her
and be done with it.

Later, we climbed high to where the Victorian prison stood,
its windows like diamonds in the low sun,
the skyline beneath us like smashed meringue,
and I thought about the house we would own in Loughborough,
our lanky children,
our utility room,
our dogs, wax jackets, fridge calendar and committees.

We sat on our coats, finger-tips touching
an ice cream van started like a chesty cough
the breeze almost gone, the mud almost dry
it was all just like summer, if you squinted.

Luke Wright

Read sample work by Hollie McNish here

2009-08-01T05:42:00.000-07:00

Venues

We are delighted to be continuing at the Michaelhouse venue for our main guest poet readings, which remain on the second Tuesday of the month.

Meanwhile, our popular Open Mic evenings continue this year, and as last year these will be on the fourth Tuesday of each month, but now held at The Punter.

The Punter is a splendid pub at 3 Pound Hill (map), just round the corner from Kettle's Yard, with a fine selection of ales and wines and, if you're hungry, an impeccable line in rustic-chic gastronomy -- see here for details/review in Local Secrets' inimitable style. Events are held in the converted barn at the rear of the pub's courtyard.

CB1 Poetry

CB1 Poetry has held regular readings in Cambridge for over ten years, and in 2007 began a major new series of readings at the Michaelhouse in the city centre. The aim is to feature well known and award winning guest poets, along with support readings from talented up and coming writers from Cambridge and further afield. Acclaimed poet and novelist Tobias Hill is our patron: you can hear his interview with the BBC here.

CB1 Poetry has always been about providing opportunities for poets to develop their talent before a discerning audience, so as well as holding our regular Open Mic evenings, we also feature short poem floor spots at most of the Michaelhouse events. These afford less experienced poets the opportunity to give a 2-minute reading in front of a large audience.

Events also offer books for sale, as well as food and drink, before and after the readings, and during a 15 minute interval. The venue is open from 7:30pm, with readings commencing at 8pm sharp and finishing at 10pm. The Michaelhouse bar remains open after the readings.

Our standard entry prices are £5 (£3 concessions) for the main guest reader events, and £3 (£2 concessions) for open mike evenings at CB1 Cafe.

We hope to see you soon, both at The Michaelhouse and The Punter, to hear some amazing poetry.

2009-02-26T05:25:00.000-08:00

April 27th - Egg Box Special Event

Our next CB1 Poetry event is an open mic evening at The Punter on Tuesday April 27th, which in addition to the single-estate-varietals of our open mic slots promises a spellbinding Egg Box Poets' Easter Extravaganza with readings from Ben Borek, Agnes Lehoczky and Nathan Hamilton

Run by poet Nathan Hamilton, Egg Box is an independent poetry publisher based in Norwich. A talented and influential young poet in his own right, Nathan will be reading some new work and introducing CB1 to two of Egg Box's finest, Ben Borek and Agnes Lehoczky, both reading from a selection of poems including sneak previews of exciting works in progress.

Here are photographs of the three readers in a variety of different settings:

Ben Borek was born in in Camberwell in 1980. He has appeared on BBC Radio 3 and has read at the Latitude poetry festival and his book, Donjong Heights, was a cult hit of 2007, featuring on BBC Radio 4 and in London's TimeOut, among many others. He lives in London, where he teaches and is currently working on his second verse novel.

Agnes Lehoczky was born in 1976 in Budapest. Station X and Medalion, her first two short collections, were published in Budapest, by Universitas, in 2000 & 2002. Her first full collection in English, Budapest to Babel, was published by Egg Box in 2009 to critical acclaim and she is currently working on her second title, which will be out in 2010/2011.

Nathan Hamilton runs Egg Box Publishing and is chairman of the board for Inpress, representing 40+ independent publishers in the UK. He programmes the Richmond Upon Thames Book Now literature festival and works for poetry magazine The Rialto. His poetry and criticism have been published in a number of places, in print and online, including Poetry London, the Manhattan Review, nth position, the Guardian and the Spectator.

2009-02-04T11:43:00.000-08:00

May 11th - Sheenagh Pugh and Daniel Hardisty

Sheenagh Pugh was born in 1950 and lives in Shetland. She is the author of several poetry collections, including Id's Hospit (1997); Stonelight (1999), winner of the 2000 Arts Council of Wales Book of the Year Award; The Beautiful Lie (2002), shortlisted for the 2003 Whitbread Poetry Award; and The Movement of Bodies (2005), shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Her Selected Poems was published in 1990; Later Selected Poems was published in 2009.

Sheenagh Pugh also translates poems, mainly from German but also from French and Ancient Greek, and is the author of two novels: Kirstie's Witnesses (1998) and Folk Music (1999). Her book, The Democratic Genre, published in 2005, is a critical study of fan fiction as a literary genre.

"Pugh is a cool, elegant poet. Her often quirky elisions and voyages have a quiet poignancy" – Poetry Wales

"Pugh's poetry evinces that fine quality of light which makes you feel while it lasts a special sense of freedom" – W S Milne, Agenda

Daniel Hardisty was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire in 1978. He studied English and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia from 1996 to 2000. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The Rialto, New Welsh Review, Orbis, Envoi, UEA’s Reactions series and elsewhere. He is currently working on his first collection.

www.danielhardisty.com

[Tuesday 11th May 2010, Michaelhouse, Doors 7.30pm Readings 8pm £5/£3]

from "Murat Reis"

That city: brick, grey stone.
When the wind was right,

it breathed the sweetness
of brewery malt.

Each winter, canals froze
under heavy linen skies;

boys’ skates scribbled
grisaille on the ice.

A street brazier’s red
warmed his hands, stung his eyes.

Sheenagh Pugh; taken from Long-Haul Travellers (Seren 2008)

Trace

I am so temporary
even the mayfly laughs at me.

I leave myself on towels,
my fingerprints raise like steam.

My houses are hotel rooms.
My marriages hotel room rentals.

My biography an answerphone message,
or a label on a jar.

My children floating dandelion pods
that play in the summer gusts,

and come to rest
on the earth’s brute cheek.

Every word I speak is the detune
before the radio’s clear pitch.

I drop like a stone through
the mirror’s ripple.

Daniel Hardisty

2009-02-03T15:41:00.000-08:00

Mario Petrucci and John Lyons

Mario Petrucci is a Selwyn physicist, an ecologist, Arvon tutor and the only poet to have held residencies at the Imperial War Museum and BBC Radio 3. A genuine and memorable performer, he brings innovation and excitement to language whose subjects are by turns uplifting and harrowing, but always powerfully rendered. Shrapnel and Sheets (Headland) won a PBS Recommendation, while Heavy Water: a poem for Chernobyl (Enitharmon) captured the Daily Telegraph/ Arvon Prize and is the subject of an internationally award-winning film by Seventh Art.

"Inflicts on the reader the finest sort of shock, not just to the senses, but to the conscience, to the soul... necessary, cathartic and profound" – Poetry London

Flowers of Sulphur (Enitharmon) won both the Arts Council Writers and New London Writers Awards. i tulips (due 2010) has received praise from both sides of the Atlantic, with the rarity of an endorsement from Roy Fisher.

"Projects a fierce and utterly modern lyricism to confirm his place among the most vital and thrilling of contemporary poets" – Perdika Press

www.mariopetrucci.com

An entertaining and powerful performance poet, John Lyons is also known nationally and internationally as a painter and Caribbean cook and has recently launched Cook-up in a Trini Kitchen, which sensationally combines the poetry of food and language. He enjoys the rarity of endorsement that falls to poets like Mario Petrucci:

Poems "made from the tough materials and the tough language of folklore and custom. Say them aloud and improve your English as well as your Trinidadian" – Roy Fisher

"In hauntingly beautiful language, John Lyons recounts snippets of Caribbean life through poems which dance in the memory long after the book is closed" – Valerie Bloom

[Tuesday 9th March 2010, Michaelhouse, Doors 7.30pm Readings 8pm £5/£3]

from Heavy Water: a poem for Chernobyl

That reactor, says Ivan, is deliverance.
Will spawn new words. Chernobylite. I tell him

they will hang us like overalls on his new words –
so they can always find us and put us away.

Ivan is shaking his big head. But think, he says,
of our genius children. They will be called

out of bed by their friends. Just to see them stand
there in nightclothes, a pale blue ember. A splinter

of dawn.

Mario Petrucci

Trini Wisdom

In the evening shadows
of Toco’s wild bush,
where the quenk and gouti run,
a wake stirs the trees
and the macaque adds
its descant screeches to the dirge.

Someone is left
to gather a shattered life
in this vigour of flora,
this dance of fauna;
and Trinis continue
wining their bodies
to soca and parang,
to maco-talk
and mauvais langue.

John Lyons

2009-02-01T09:49:00.000-08:00

Richard Berengarten and Isobel Dixon

Born in London into a family of musicians, Richard Berengarten (formerly Burns) has lived in Cambridge for 40 years, as well as in Italy, Greece, Serbia, Croatia and the USA. In 1975 he founded the international Cambridge Poetry Festival, an event that lasted a decade. In 2008, the first five volumes in his Selected Writings series appeared from Salt: For the Living, The Manager, The Blue Butterfly, In a Time of Drought and Under Balkan Light.

"...visionary and restless, Berengarten is one of those fearless poets whose utter trust in honesty and clarity is, at times, breathtaking, at times heartbreaking." – John Burnside

In November 2009, the International Literary Quarterly published translations of his poem Volta into 75 languages. Richard is now working on a collection of short poems about hands entitled Manual and a bigger collection based on I Ching. The Salt Critical Companion to Richard Berengarten is due in 2010. Winner of Gregory, Wingate-Jewish Quarterly awards, Duncan Lawrie and Keats Memorial prizes, two Arts Council Fellowships, and the Great Lesson and Morava Charter prizes, Richard is a Bye-Fellow at Downing College and former Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newnham. (website) (profile)

"one of the major poets writing in English in the early years of the new millennium. There is no other voice like his." – Anthony Rudolf

"The Blue Butterfly is a magnificent book. The volumne is suffused with hope and bravery; and examines ethnic cleansing and mass hatred in a way that is particularly relevant." – Poetry Review

Isobel Dixon grew up in South Africa, where her prize-winning debut Weather Eye was published. She now lives in Cambridge and works in publishing. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Manhattan Review, Southwest Review, Dreamcatcher and Wasafiri, among others. She was commissioned to write poems for the British Film Institute, and her work is included in several anthologies, including Penguin’s Poems for Love (October 2009), The Forward Book of Poetry 2009, and the pamphlets Unfold and Ask for It by Name.

Her latest collection A Fold in the Map is published by Salt. Her website is www.isobeldixon.com.

"Poems that bring a sensual physicality together with lively, startling imagery." – Mail and Guardian, South Africa

"characterised by cultivation of sensuous natural imagery... 'the precious milk and honey of nostalgia'... Dixon's gift is in the presentation of a palpable, earthy presence and its accordant pathos of memory or displacement...

the transposition of Cambridgeshire and Africa produces... felicitous moments of dislocation" – PN Review

[Tuesday 9th February 2010, Michaelhouse, Doors 7.30pm Readings 8pm £5/£3]

Paleolithic Venus / Grainy Photo

Here is the paleolithic Venus of Lower Věstonice
in her padded box placed on the concrete windowsill
of the 4th floor office of the Director of the Museum
of Moravia    Brno    Czechoslovakia    March 1977
discovered July 1925     under a layer of ash

her left leg broken off     estimated
the oldest clay-fired ceramic in the world
moulded between 27,000 and 31,000 years ago
before Mnajdra    before Lepenski Vir    before Atlantis
and the living left hand next to her is mine

Richard Berengarten

Back in the Benighted Kingdom

I’m sorry to see
my mosquito bumps fade:
the love bites of a continent,
marks of its hot embrace.

If anything is dark,
it’s this damp island
with its sluggish days,
its quieter, subtler ways
of drawing blood.

Isobel Dixon

2009-01-15T18:16:00.000-08:00

Roddy Lumsden and Tom Warner

Roddy Lumsden’s first book Yeah Yeah Yeah (1997) was shortlisted for Forward and Saltire prizes, and The Book of Love (2000), a PBS Choice, was short-listed for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Third Wish Wasted (Bloodaxe Books, 2009) is his latest collection. As “poet-in-residence” to the music industry he co-wrote The Message, a book on poetry and pop music (Poetry Society, 1999). His anthology Identity Parade: new British and Irish poets is due from Bloodaxe Books in 2010. Born in St Andrews, he lived in Edinburgh before moving to London.

"...the rhymes, the larks, the brutal punch-lines tug Lumsden’s poems off the page and into the living context they describe" – Verse

"Even in his earliest work, it isn’t easy to make out the seam between talent and technique, and in the newer poems the idiom is crisp, quiet, and thoroughly annealed… There is a level of talent that will ransom any project in any school." – D.H. Tracy, Poetry

Tom Warner has previously won an Eric Gregory Award and was recently selected to become one of the Faber New Poets in 2010. His work has been published in a number of places including The Rialto, Smith's Knoll and Stand. He is currently poet-in-residence to Newark, Nottinghamshire as part of the Poetry-on-Trent project funded by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

"There is a genuine sensibility at work here... Poetry used as a vehicle of serious investigation" - Christopher Reid

"This is exquisite work ... Thomas Warner has an exceptional gift as a serious poet" – Denise Riley

"Thomas Warner is one of the most interesting poets I've taught...I've no doubt we'll be hearing more of him in the future" - Andrew Motion

Extract from Tandem by Roddy Lumsden

[...] and once at Berlin Zoo,
a beatifical hyena, swollen with it -
twice her own size,

days away from dropping
her sprawl of cubs - at whom
I stared rapt until I saw

she was not looking out of her cage
but into mine; and that
I'd held these bars all my life.

Astacology by Tom Warner

Astacology is the study of crayfish
and won’t get past Microsoft’s spell-check.

Crayfish, also known as
crodgers, crawdaddies, mudbugs and yabbies.

The one I found among the crabby rocks
of a disused mill was a crawdaddy, laden with eggs.

I pinched her, finger and thumb, across the cephalothorax;
a spiny tongue, severed, snapping and flicking.

I thought of the awkward American girl with large teeth
who corrected my pronunciation of Los Angeles.

2009-01-01T15:56:00.000-08:00

Ross Sutherland and Tim Wells

In the second half of October, we had an event at a new venue for CB1 Poetry, The Punter, featuring two remarkable performers. We had one of the

'top ten literary stars of 2008' (The Sunday Times), the 'sublimely twisted' (The Scotsman) Ross Sutherland

– Ross tours both individually and as a member of Aisle16, co-writing their 2005 Poetry Boyband (Time Out Critic’s Choice of the Year). Incredibly, we also brought you the utterly wonderful

'poet of wit and brilliance' (The Guardian) Tim Wells

Kaiser Chief beloved poet and editor of Rising magazine.

2008-11-18T04:12:00.000-08:00

Gretl Claggett - Tuesday 25th May

On Tuesday 25th May we have an open mic evening at The Punter, headlined by featured guest poet Gretl Claggett. Doors open 7.30; arrive before readings start at 8pm if you want to sign up for a 2-minute open mic slot.

Gretl Claggett is originally from Hannibal, Missouri. She holds an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, an MFA in nonfiction from Goucher College, and an MFA in theater from Western Illinois University. After an acting career On- and Off-Broadway, then a stint as a corporate video/show producer, she worked for a decade as an account executive at an incentive-marketing agency. Her poetry and prose have appeared in The Atlanta Review, BigCityLit, The Greensboro Review, Heliotrope, Lumina, New Millennium Writings, Mangrove, Rattapallax and The Same, and have been anthologized in Chance of a Ghost, Helicon Nine Editions, 2005, and Submerged: Tales from the Basin, StepSister Press, 2008. She is a 2008 Pushcart Prize nominee.

"Searing stuff. The poet's people are identified at what seem defining times of their lives. The poems have huge compulsive moments, and are real page-turners. The reader has to know what happens next in these vivid dramas." – Robert Minhinnick

Plight

Often you’ll see a solitary shoe
in an alley. Sometimes, a solitary
man—there’s seldom proof
he’s connected to that shoe.
A rye seed in his tooth,
he says: “There’s nothing
out there.” You notice a stain
on his shirt. He keeps his head
down. Like you, he’s no stranger
to the loneliest road, the road
Christ chose: its pavement cracked,
a whorehouse on every corner.
“Does it lead to the desert?” “It’s
all desert,” he replies. You ask
his name. “Dwight.” He asks
yours. For a moment, you don’t
remember: “There’s nothing
in here.” You are the solitary
shoe, the alley, the shirt stain,
the cracked pavement, the whore-
house, the desert, yes, you are the head
down, the Christ, the rye seed
stuck in His tooth.

Gretl Claggett

2008-11-15T05:36:00.000-08:00

Programme - 2009-2010 Series

Tuesday 13th October 09 -- Special Event - Faber New Poets and Matthew Hollis -- Michaelhouse, 8pm, £5/£3
Tuesday 27th October 09 -- Ross Sutherland and Tim Wells -- The Punter, 8pm, £3/£2
Tuesday 10th November 09 -- Roddy Lumsden and Tom Warner -- Michaelhouse, 8pm, £5/£3
Tuesday 24th November 09 -- Open Mic with featured guest poet Lizzy Dening -- The Punter, 8pm, £3/£2
Tuesday 26th January 10 -- Open Mic with featured guest poet Kerri French -- The Punter, 8pm, £3/£2
Tuesday 9th February 10 -- Richard Berengarten (formerly Burns) and Isobel Dixon -- Michaelhouse, 8pm, £5/£3
Tuesday 23rd February 10 -- Open Mic with featured guest poet Molly Naylor -- The Punter, 8pm, £3/£2
Tuesday 9th March 10 -- Mario Petrucci and John Lyons -- Michaelhouse, 8pm, £5/£3
Tuesday 23rd March 10 -- Open Mic with featured guest poet Tom Yates -- The Punter, 8pm, £3/£2
Tuesday 27th April 10 -- Open Mic - Egg Box Special Event -- The Punter, 8pm, £3/£2
Tuesday 11th May 10 -- Sheenagh Pugh and Daniel Hardisty -- Michaelhouse, 8pm, £5/£3
Tuesday 25th May 10 -- Open Mic with featured guest poet Gretl Claggett -- The Punter, 8pm, £3/£2
Tuesday 8th June 10 -- Luke Wright and Hollie McNish -- Michaelhouse, 8pm, £5/£3

[N.B. There is no open mic event on Tuesday 22nd June owing to the World Cup.]

Doors are open from 7.30 for all events and readings begin at 8pm sharp (usually!)

Click for venue locations: Michaelhouse The Punter [events at The Punter held in the converted barn to the rear of the pub's courtyard]

For programmes from previous years, click here.

2008-11-15T03:49:00.000-08:00

Lizzy Dening at The Punter

Open mic with a guest reading from featured local poet Lizzy Dening. Lizzy has been published in The Times, The Rialto, Orbis and Rising, amongst others. She also edited 'In The Red' magazine in Liverpool and is training to become a freelance wildlife journalist.

2008-11-13T01:59:00.000-08:00

2010. The Year We Make More Poems.

Kerri French's poetry has been featured on Sirius Satellite Radio and was selected for inclusion in Best New Poets 2008, edited by Mark Strand. A recipient of the Larry Franklin and Mei Kwong Fellowship from the Writers' Room of Boston, her poetry has appeared in The Southeast Review, Barrelhouse, Brooklyn Review, Fugue, DIAGRAM, Natural Bridge, and Lumina, among others. A North Carolina native, she currently lives here in Cambridge. Click here for her website.

2008-11-11T15:21:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday 23rd February 2010 we have an Open Mic event at The Punter with featured guest poet Molly Naylor.

Molly Naylor is a poet, scriptwriter and performer. She has written and directed two plays, Press Escape To Continue and Goodbye Friday and is currently writing a radio drama for the BBC. Molly has read her poems on BBC Radio and has performed at a number of festivals and events including Latitude, Glastonbury, The Big Chill, Seven Arts, Poet in the City, Edinburgh Fringe, Hull Truck, the Poetry Link, Norfolk and Norwich festival, Purple Ronnie’s Stand Up Poetry Club, Shunt, Colchester Arts Centre, Soho Theatre and many more.

Doors open at 7.30pm at the Punter, arrive in good time for the 8pm start if you want to sign up for a 2-minute open mic slot and impress all with your poetry stamp.

2008-11-10T03:20:00.000-08:00

Open Mic with Tom Yates

As well as a host of short open mic slots, there'll be a guest reading from Tom Yates.

Tom studied English and Creative Writing at Warwick University and now lives and works in London. In 2008 he was one of three poets chosen for the Jerwood/Arvon Mentoring Scheme for Gifted and Talented Writers. He won the Poetry Society's Young Poet of the Year Award in 1998 and 1999 and has been published in magazines and anthologies including The Gift: New Writing for the NHS, Phoenix New Writing and The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Tenth Anniversary Anthology.

Readings start at 8pm, doors open 7.30pm. £3 / £2.

There's no Michaelhouse event in April, so it's your last chance to get a CB1 Poetry fix until April 27th...

2008-08-11T04:17:00.000-07:00

Links

Here are various links to external sites the content of which and more correctly over which CB1 Poetry has no control. The links, in no particular order, in no way imply endorsement of sites, any more than programme billing might imply endorsement of poets... ;)

Faber New Poets - five of which are already on this year's CB1 Poetry programme.

Poetry Kit - many minds of information

Tellus - "a magazine for poetry which sparks ancient worlds into life"

Headstand - Patrick Widdess on 209radio

Guided by Knowledge, Inspired by Love by Henry Disney (webpage) and Press Release

All streams are final. Correspondence may be entered into. Photos/cheques to the usual address. The value of links may go up as well as down. Links may go up as well as down. 404 Degrees Of Wisdom and Methods of Ethics cannot be held prehensile.

2008-07-29T19:26:00.000-07:00

2007-2008 Michaelhouse Event Photographs

This is a restrospective slideshow of some of the events from the autumn 2007 - spring 2008 season. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported us during the year and made the events so successful and memorable.

Further images from our launch event are here.

2008-07-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

Historical Programmes - Main readings only

Here are the main guest readings we've had since 2007. In addition we've held a similar number of Open Mic evenings with featured guest poets both years.

2008-2009

Hugo Williams and Rhian Edwards, Patience Agbabi and Martin Figura, Duncan Forbes and Dave Swann, Don Paterson (in association with TCLS), Clare Pollard and Tiffany Atkinson, George Szirtes and Kathryn Daszkiewicz, Christopher Reid and Phil Hancock , Peter Sansom and Peter Howard, Tim Liardet and Claire Crowther

2007-2008

2008-06-06T13:57:00.000-07:00

Come and read your work
at the original Cambridge Open Mic event

CB1 Poetry regularly holds Cambridge's best Open Mic poetry evening, usually on the fourth Tuesday of each month (see the main programme page for all dates and venues).

Come along just to listen to some great poetry, or arrive by 7.45pm to sign up for a 2-minute slot to perform your work before a friendly, attentive audience. Events usually have one or more featured poets, who begin each half before the open mic slots.

Entry is £3 / £2 concessions, readings begin at 8pm and the event finishes shortly before 10pm.

Click here for examples of some poems from previous sessions.

2008-06-03T02:03:00.000-07:00

About Us

CB1 Poetry aims to encourage excellence in poetry: in writing, performance and appreciation. We seek to attract and develop new audiences for poetry.

CB1 Poetry events are open to the whole community. We seek to provide an accessible^* venue and a welcoming environment for all participants.

Through open mike evenings and guest poet readings, we provide a platform for local writers and the development of new talent before an appreciative and discerning audience. We also offer the opportunity to listen to and appreciate well established writers.

We are non profit making and are grateful to receive support for our Michaelhouse guest readings from Cambridgeshire County Council and Cambridge City Council.

CB1 Steering Group (Anne Berkeley, Andrea Porter, Emily Dening, Ian Cartland, Helen Mort, Trish Harewood)

^*See here for accessibility at the Michaelhouse venue. Accessibility details for other venues remain to be confirmed...

2008-05-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

The Michaelhouse is based around the historic St Michael's Church, which was built in 1328 both as a Parish and a Collegiate church. The building has been restored and stunningly remodelled to provide a unique performance space, art gallery, cafe and meetings venue.

For CB1 Poetry, it offers a beautiful city centre location for our readings, with the capacity and accessibility needed for our major new 2007-2008 programme. The licensed bar will be open for drinks before and after the performances (till 11pm), and during the 15 minute interval.

The Michaelhouse is located on Trinity Street, just before Rose Crescent and Green Street (or for those more at home with bookshops than street names, between the Cambridge University Press Bookshop and Heffers); a map is given below. There is a disabled drop-off point at the venue, and parking is available in the usual city centre locations and also free of charge by The Backs, which is only a short walk away. (These areas are shaded blue on the map).

For more information on The Michaelhouse and the other arts events hosted there, please visit www.michaelhouse.org.uk

The Michaelhouse Centre Cambridge, Trinity Street, Cambridge CB2 1SU

View Larger Map

2008-01-30T07:13:00.000-08:00

CB1 Poetry at Michaelhouse 2007 Launch Event

We were overwhelmed by the response to our launch event, with a packed venue and a fabulous atmosphere for our first ever readings at The Michaelhouse. We're very grateful to everyone who came to listen, to our floor spot readers, and of course to our guest poets Tobias Hill and Helen Mort, for making it such an exceptional evening.

A selection of photographs from the event is given above. Please use the pause button and last/next buttons (hover your mouse cursor over the pictures to access these) in order to browse through the collection. If you do not have Flash Player installed, you may alternatively view the photographs here.

Press coverage: BBC website, Cambridge Evening News

About Tobias Hill and Helen Mort

Selected as one of the country's Next Generation poets, shortlisted for the 2004 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year and named by the TLS as one of the best young writers in the country, Tobias Hill is one of the leading British writers of his generation. His award-winning collections of poetry are Year of the Dog, Midnight in the City of Clocks, and Zoo. His fiction has been published to acclaim in many countries; his third third novel, The Cryptographer, led A S Byatt to observe that "Hill is one of the most original and interesting novelists working in Britain."

His new collection, Nocturne in Chrome & Sunset Yellow, extends Hill’s romance with London’s psychic and surreal fabric. "Hill celebrates cosmopolitan London," an "object of love with the shadow of 7/7 hanging over it, the poetry touching it gently, curiously and carefully with full awareness of its fragility." (George Szirtes)

For more information on his work and his latest collection, visit www.saltpublishing.com.

Helen Mort is a recent Cambridge graduate and five-times winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award. Her pamphlet 'the shape of every box' is published by tall-lighthouse press (see www.tall-lighthouse.co.uk for more information). She has appeared at the Oxford Literary Festival and more recently at the Ledbury Poetry Festival. She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2007 and is currently working towards a full length collection.

2008-01-25T11:07:00.000-08:00

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2008-01-12T10:27:00.000-08:00

Christopher Reid

George Szirtes

Clare Pollard

Don Paterson

Patience Agbabi

Hugo Williams

         Don Paterson

                      Hugo Williams

       Clare Pollard

       George Szirtes         Christopher Reid

                     Patience Agbabi

2007-09-29T22:23:00.002-07:00

2007-09-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

“poems of moody and menacing interiors... these well-crafted poems relish their atmosphere of stylised confinement, even as they know that true liberation may require opening the door and letting the prisoners out.” – Times Literary Supplement

Esther Morgan won an Eric Gregory Award in 1998 and her first collection Beyond calling Distance (Bloodaxe 2001) won the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Best First Collection prize and was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. She is currently an Editorial Assistant and Manager of the Historic Recordings for The Poetry Archive. In 2006 she joined the team of writers teaching on Oxford University's M.St in Creative Writing. Her second collection The Silence Living in Houses (Bloodaxe 2005) has received highly favourable reviews. Her website is at www.esthermorgan.net.

“Joanne Limburg creates special worlds... crucial aspects of our lives are held up to the light and returned to us inventively, with humour and apparent ease.” – Moniza Alvi Poetry London

Joanne Limburg was born in London in 1970 and studied Philosophy at Cambridge. She has since gained an MA in Psychoanalytic Studies and now works as an Associate lecturer for the Open University. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 1998 and her first book Femenismo (Bloodaxe 2000) was short listed for the Forward prize for best first collection. Paraphernalia (Bloodaxe 2007) is her second collection and is a Poetry Society Recommended book.

“Helen Ivory's poems are quite exquisite, not so much a matter of known poetic craft as of vision, instinct and frayed edgy experience playing it dead straight.” – George Szirtes

Helen Ivory was born in Luton in 1969, and lives in Norwich. She has worked in shops, behind bars, on building sites and with several thousand free-range hens. She has studied painting and photography and has a Degree in Cultural Studies from Norwich School of Art. In 1999 she won an Eric Gregory Award. Her first collection The Double Life of Clocks was published by Bloodaxe in 2002 and her second, The Dog in the Sky in 2006. She was awarded an Arts Council writer’s bursary in 2005 and is now Academic Director and teacher of Creative Writing for Continuing Education at the University of East Anglia.

All of our December poets are published by Bloodaxe Books, and will be performing an integrated joint reading. The event also features short poem floor spots, books for sale and a licensed bar. Doors open at 7:30pm.

Photographs © Jacqueline Wyatt, Chris Hadley, Martin Figura