Queer Poetry Soiree | Inkandescent

-The Brewery Yard Club is an official venue for the Rye Arts Festival 2022-

Doors open from 6.45pm and the bar will remain open until 11pm!

Inkandescent serve up sensational spoken word with a side of music. Host Nathan Evans is joined by writer, performer and UK Poetry Slam champion Keith Jarrett, and TS Eliot Prize-winning poet Joelle Taylor.

Joelle Taylor is an award-winning poet, playwright and author who has toured Europe, Australia, Brazil and South East Asia. She is widely anthologised, has written four poetry collections and three plays, and is currently completing her debut book of short stories, The Night Alphabet, with support from the Arts Council. A Radio 4 documentary about her art and life as a masculine woman, Butch, was broadcast in 2020. She has also featured on radio and TV programmes including The Verb (Radio 3). She founded SLAMbassadors, the UK’s national youth slam championships for the Poetry Society in 2001 and was its Artistic Director until 2018; she received a Change Maker Award from the Southbank Centre in recognition of the effect SLAMbassadors had on British culture. Her work is taught as part of the OCR GCSE syllabus. She is a Fellow of the RSA and was longlisted for the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship 2017 and 2019. She is the host and co-curator of Out-Spoken, the UK’s premier poetry and music club, currently resident at the Southbank Centre Purcell Room. Her most recent collection C+nto & Othered Stories won the 2022 TS Eliot Prize. www.joelletaylor.co.uk 

Keith Jarrett is a writer, educator and international poetry slam champion. His poem From the Log Book was projected onto St.Paul’s Cathedral as an installation. His play Safest Spot in Town was performed at the Old Vic and aired on BBC Four. His collection Selah was published in 2017. Keith was selected for the International Literary Showcase as one of 10 outstanding LGBT writers in the UK. He has judged the Polari Prize, the Foyle Young Poets Award and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2021. Keith is now teaching at Birkbeck University and completing his debut novel. 

Nathan Evans is a writer, director and performer based in London whose work has been funded by Arts Council England, toured with the British Council, archived in the British Film Institute, broadcast on Channel 4 and presented at venues including Royal Festival Hall and Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Publishers of his poetry include Royal Society of Literature, Manchester Metropolitan University and Dead Ink. He was longlisted for Live Canon International Poetry Competition and his collection Threads was longlisted for Polari First Book Prize. His second collection CNUT is published by Inkandescent.  www.nathanevans.co.uk