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Derby Poetry Festival 2017 – A Blast

Derby Poetry Festival 2017 – A Blast

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The first Derby Poetry Festival took place in November organised by Derbys Wordwise promoter, Jamie Thrasivoulou and DIY member, Trevor Wright. With support from Derby News and Derby City Council, it featured a variety of poetry workshops, open mics , junior and adult poetry competitions and headline poets.

Writing East Midlands and Derby Live kindly supported an afternoon of refugee poetry at the Guildhall where the excellent anthology Riding on Solomons Carpet was launched, from the Write Here Sanctuary project, featuring poetry from participants in Derby, Leicester and Nottingham. Thanks to Leanne Moden for organising a special afternoon.

Tony Walsh Headlined the first night at the Quad with people who hadn’t booked tickets unfortunately being turned away as we had reached capacity. Cathy Grindrod headlined the Friday night with a couple of DIY’ers in the open mic and Shrivanee headlined the She Speaks Sunday night. Young Joe won the junior poetry competition with Dwane Reads winning the adults- both receiving book voucher kindly donated by Derby Waterstones.


Saturday’s headline at the Venue was Linton Kwesi Johnson, supported by Anthony Anaxagourou with Ioney Smallthorne and Miggy Angel. It was a sell out with people travelling from as far away as Brighton and Lancaster. Linton did an authoritative hour set and received a standing ovation from the 240 capacity crowd. He also admitted over a late night curry to being both a Strictly and West Ham fan!

Thanks to everyone who made the effort to attend. So it made a small loss. So what. It was a blast and will be back bigger and better in November 2018.


DIY POETS’ DIARY DATES – November 2015

DIY POETS’ DIARY DATES – November 2015

While some people grow facial hair during the month of November, DIY POETS find themselves with a growing diary. Dates are sprouting like sideburns chemically enhanced by steroids, some of them DIY POETS events, plus others attended regularly by the collective. I’m assembling this lot from the back of crumpled fag packets and faded biro scribble from the back of my hand, so it may be incomplete, but nonetheless it’s a neatly trimmed, well groomed web post:

– DIY POETS Quarterly Gig at the Maze, Nottingham – 12th Nov – doors open 7:45
– DIY POETS @ The Lofthouse as part of Nottingham Poetry Festival – 24th Nov – 8:00 till 10:30 – FREE! (Doors open @ 7:45)
– Speech Therapy @ The Guitar Bar as Part of Nottingham Poetry Festival, 26th Nov – 8:00
– Frank McMahon launches ‘I Wish I Could Sing Like Noddy Holder’ @ Nottingham Writers’ Studio – 4th Dec – 7:30

 

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DIY Poets at the Splendour Fringe 2015

DIY Poets at the Splendour Fringe 2015

Thanks to Lytisha’s application and subsequent bargaining, we have a crew lined up to perform at the Splendour Festival Fringe, Saturday 18th July, 4pm, somewhere near the main stage. Okay, we’ve only got half an hour to squeeze in as many poets as we can, but we’ll make the most of that and to be sharing the bill with The Specials, James and er Bananarama adds a certain spring to the whole thing.

We’ve got one or two surprises in store as part of our performance, some of them so secret that even the people performing them don’t know exactly how they’ll turn out. Yes, we’re gambling on use of heavy irony, props and possibly even some eccentric percussion performances. Could this be the moment when DIY Poets float towards a family fun form of technicolour psychedelia?

Be there.