Poetry and Spoken Word Group Open Mic Night

Join us for an evening of live poetry as we celebrate our first ever Poetry and Spoken Word Open Mic event.

There are 16 slots available, of 3-4 minutes each. If you’d like to perform, please book a ‘performance’ ticket in advance to guarantee your slot. Otherwise, come along and enjoy a fun and relaxed night of poetry and performance.

Not a member? Sign up here.

Programme

• 6.30pm – Guest arrivals, refreshments on arrival
• 6.40pm – Welcome and performance from Keith Jarrett
• 6.50pm – 8 performances (30 mins)
• 7.20pm – Refreshment break
• 7.40pm – 8 performances (30 mins)
• 8.10pm – Closing comments from Keith Jarrett
• 8.15pm – Networking & refreshments
• 8.30pm – Ends

The Line up

Keith Jarrett – Host 

Keith Jarrett’s poetry, fiction and essays have been widely anthologised. A multiple slam champion, he was selected for the International Literary Showcase as an outstanding LGBT writer. Keith teaches at NYU London and holds a PhD from Birkbeck. His poetry collection Hide Me Under the Blood and I Shall Be Satisfied is a PBS Spring Recommendation.  

A.K Davidson – Performer

A.K. Davidson’s poetry has been published in Good Housekeeping, Pennine Platform and other magazines. Her debut collection Poetry for Life and Other Chronic Conditions is available from all good bookshops. Find her work in progress on Instagram, @mondayispoetry.

Website: therightword.co.uk

Jeff Probst – Performer

Jeff Probst, a Californian, saw many of his poems, including ‘Fear of Folkdancing’, published in America in the Eighties. He moved to the UK in 1990; his Nineties memoir is ‘Teaching Shakespeare to Hairdressers: An American Teacher in London’. His novels include ‘When the Moon was White‘ and ‘Bachelor Butterflies’.

Dr Miranda Anderson – Performer

Dr Miranda Anderson is a philosopher of mind, philosopher of the arts and humanities, literary scholar, historian, art curator, and now a poet. Her first published poetry will appear in a special issue in The Philosopher (Spring 2027) on The Weaponized Earth.  Her book, The Renaissance Extended Mind,  explores current and Renaissance ideas of the mind as not just brain-bound but as extended across brain, body and world and through imaginative flights. She edited four volumes on ideas about the mind between antiquity and the twentieth century and curated The Extended Mind a contemporary art exhibition with Talbot Rice Gallery (2019-20).

She has performed a one-woman show for the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas at ‘The Stand’ during Edinburgh Festival (2018, 2022). She is working on her first poetry collection which is inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s claim that to write a single poem it is necessary to have many, many experiences till they are forgotten and then to patiently await their return when they have become translated ‘into our very blood, into glance and gesture’. She is available to review films, art and culture.

Email: miranda.anderson@ed.ac.uk

Tamara Wilson – Performer

Tamara Wilson is an award-winning poet, literary activist and academic whose essays, poems and translations have featured in national and international publications. As the granddaughter of Armenian and Pontic Greek survivors, she worked with diverse migrant and refugee groups both as an ESOL lecturer and charity worker. A devout defender of women and minority rights, she collaborated with several NGOs, charities, community centres, and research institutions against the employment of hate speech and discriminatory discourses as a performance of patriotism.

Her interdisciplinary doctoral research presents fresh perspectives on a number of fields including but not limited to: The role of patriarchal ideology on the construction of national identity and official history discourses; Politics & ethics of representation: A comparative analysis of of the survived and the survivor figure in cultural and official history texts (Armenian and Turkish); The limitations of Postmemory and Trauma theories in the investigation of modern-day Turkey’s indigenous populations.

Currently, as part of her research fellowship at the University of Roehampton, Tamara is working on hierarchies of belonging in post-Ottoman states via a Fanonian analysis of minoritised identities, social death, and the afterlives of imperial governance. Her interdisciplinary debut collection will be out next year.

Liz Kendall – Performer

Liz Kendall’s poetry is rooted in nature, wildness, and connection. She co-authored the award-winning book Meet Us and Eat Us: Food plants from around the world and runs Creative Relaxation poetry workshops in Surrey. Publications include The Black Cat Poetry Press, Candlestick Press, and Mslexia. Her website is theedgeofthewoods.uk.

Rósalín Callaghan – Performer

Rósalín Callaghan lives in Derry with rescue cats Beannacht and Réaltaín, and hereditary amyloidosis, a rare genetic condition. Founder of Amyloidosis Ireland, her poetry has appeared widely, with award-shortlisted and slam successes. A former barrister, she spends her time writing, neglecting housework, killing houseplants, and pursuing reluctant feline affection.

Hilary Davies – Performer

Hilary Davies’ fifth collection, Compass Light, appeared from Renard Press in autumn 2025. She is a former Chairman of the Poetry Society, and has been an RLF Fellow at King’s College, London and the British Library. She is a  Hawthornden Fellow and Fellow of the Temenos Academy.

Jenny Mitchell – Performer

Jenny Mitchell has three collections: Her Lost Language was joint winner of the Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize; Map of A Plantation won the Poetry Book Awards and is a university set text. Resurrection of a Black Man contains three prize-winning poems. She is a poetry co-editor for the Morning Star.

Jasmina Bolfek-Radovani – Performer

Jasmina Bolfek-Radovani is a London-based poet and interdisciplinary artist of mixed cultural heritage (Croatian/Algerian/French). Her poetry in English, French and Croatian has been published in the UK, Canada and Croatia. Jasmina’s collaborative poetry project “Unbound” received funding from the AHRC-funded Language Acts and Worldmaking Small grants programme in 2018 & 2019. She has (co-)directed several multilingual poetry recitals and live performances in the UK, France, and Croatia, and she has given talks, written essays, and facilitated panels on multilingual poetry practice. She is currently studying Arabic calligraphy and the Arabic script as part of her latest familial history project. Website:

Website: https://jasminabradovani.com

Richard Adams – Performer

Richard F Adams writes poems built from scenes rather than arguments — chip shops, train platforms, hospital corridors, Barnsley backyards and Weybridge suburbs. His debut, Not Yet, runs from a Yorkshire childhood to the day he watched himself die. It includes a critical edition of Kubla Khan set in Tesco Express.

He is a working artist, building an AI anti therapist, a former senior academic/principal/senior fellow/visiting prof/founder/charity chair as well as interactive TV pioneer, game programmer, business partner and more. He is writing a book on emergent post-human aesthetics and radical creativity through next gen AI. By day he’s Head of technical architecture in rail.

Lucy Coats – Performer

Lucy Coats’s poetry encompasses nature, war, grief, mythology, queerness, and the effects of patriarchy on women. In 2024 she was shortlisted for The Bridport Poetry Prize, and in 2022 won the Latin Programme Poetry Prize. Her debut poetry collection is out on submission, and she is currently writing about matriarchal goddesses.

Janice Wyne – Performer

Janice Whyne – Jamaican heritage, London-based poet and community development practitioner. Explores identity and social justice; two-time runner-up at Ubud Writers & Readers Festival Poetry Slam. Publications include The Caribbean Writer, Volume 39, Part 1 (2025), Her Locks Unveiled… (2023), and two collections: In Conversation (2022) and Say It with a Haiku (2024).

Instagram: @jjsmuse | Facebook: JJ’s Muse

Accessibility

Our Events space is located on the ground floor of our office. We have a wheelchair ramp at the side entrance of the building. We also have an accessible toilet by the side entrance.

If you have any access requirements, please email events@societyofauthors.org

Feeling unwell?

We recommend the following:

• Staying home if you’re feeling unwell or have flu-like symptoms
• Washing your hands when coming in from the outdoors and / or before touching your face
• Applying alcohol hand sanitiser (we will have these on site)
• We advise attendees to wear a face mask if they feel comfortable doing so

Tickets 

£9.50 for SoA Members

£19.50 for Non-Members

Booking

Book your place using the booking from below. Places are limited.

Please read our event booking Terms and Conditions: https://societyofauthors.org/legal-privacy/event-terms/