The London branch of the UK's biggest network of slam poetry returns with another brilliant night of live poetry and spoken word. Two top quality feature artists, an open mic slam, a top London DJ and a DIY community ethos. Guests this month are Belinda Zhawi and Luke Samuel Yates. Slam is open to the first 8 poets who sign up on the door from 7:30pm. 3.5 minutes on the mic, any styles welcome, judged by randomly selected members of the audience. Winner gets a 10 min set at the next event and a place in the end of season final.

Belinda Zhawi is a Zimbabwean born writer, sound artist & educator currently based in London. Her work explores Afro-diasporic research & narratives; how art & education can be used as intersectional tools. She was the 2016/17 Institute of Contemporary Arts Associate Poet, is the 2019 Serpentine Galleries’ Schools Artist in Residence & co-founder of, literary arts platform, BORN::FREE. Belinda is the author of Small Inheritances (ignitionpress, 2018) and micro-pamphlet, South of South East (Bad Betty Press, 2019).

Luke Samuel Yates: Enigmatic and explosive poet from near Wigan, currently on strike. He is the author of The Pair of Scissors that Could Cut Anything (The Rialto), and The Flemish Primitives, a winner of the 2015 Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet competition. Poems have appeared in many magazines, anthologies and situations: the London Underground, Radio 4, and inside a box at the late Philadelphia Institute for Advanced Studies, from which he launched his first chapbook written during a three week residency. Luke Kennard said of Scissors, “I’m always listening out for a new poet who can take the deceptively effortless, witty yet ultimately serious chops of the New York School, make it work for this generation and bring the whole thing in to land just outside a British city, losing nothing in transit. And God it’s been worth the wait. This is a poetry of exquisite timing, with some of the most satisfying last lines I’ve ever read.”