17th December 2020

Things We Should Have Said

26th November 2020

Clare Best
Robert Hamberger

29th October 2020

Martyn Crucefix
Phil Kirby

24th September 2020

Julia Deakin
Jackie Wills

27th August 2020

Veronica Aaronson
Jean Atkin

30th July 2020

Alyson Hallett
Penelope Shuttle

25th June 2020

Raine Geoghegan
Jennie Osborne

28th May 2020

Graham Burchell
Rosie Jackson

30th April 2020

Maria Jastrzebska
Louise Warren

26th March 2020

Dominic Fisher
Deborah Harvey

27th February 2020

Stephen Boyce
Dawn Gorman

30th January 2020

John Greening
Susan Jane Sims

19th December 2019

Moira Andrew
Neil Richards
Tom Sastry

28th November 2019

Claire Crowther
Carrie Etter

31st October 2019

Martin Figura
Helen Ivory

26th September 2019

Sue Boyle
Maggie Harris

29th August 2019

Michelle Diaz
Jonathan Edwards

25th July 2019

Alison Brackenbury
Shirley Wright

27th June 2019

Martina Evans
Aoife Mannix
Richard Douglas Pennant
Stuart Silver
Helen Moore

30th May 2019

James Davey
Jinny Fisher

25th April 2019

Rachael Clyne
Janet Sutherland

28th March 2019

Philip Gross
Lesley Saunders

28th February 2019

David Cooke
Ian Royce-Chamberlain

31st January 2019

Ben Banyard
Carrie Etter

20th December 2018

Kevan Manwaring
Jan Noble

13th December 2018

Stephen Seabridge

29th November 2018

Pey Pey Oh
Alasdair Paterson

9th November 2018

Martin Malone

25th October 2018

C L Dallat
Anne-Marie Fyfe

27th September 2018

Ross Cogan
Anna Saunders

30th August 2018

Josephine Corcoran
Lesley Saunders

26th July 2018

R V Bailey
June Hall

28th June 2018

Elizabeth Parker
Julia Webb

31st May 2018

Susan Richardson
Claire Williamson

27th April 2018

Cora Greenhill

26th April 2018

Tony Curtis
Cora Greenhill

29th March 2018

Paul Deaton
Ramona Herdman

22nd February 2018

Alyson Hallett
Julie-Ann Rowell

25th January 2018

Angela France
Robert Walton

28th December 2017

Stephen Daniels
Hazel Hammond
Dru Marland

30th November 2017

Tania Hershman
Pam Zinnemann-Hope

26th October 2017

Jonathan Edwards
Sarah Watkinson

28th September 2017

Zelda Chappel
Peter Robinson

17th September 2017

Carrie Etter

31st August 2017

Rachel Curzon
Helen Evans

27th July 2017

John Greening
Penelope Shuttle

29th June 2017

Lisa Brockwell
Beatrice Garland
Kate Noakes

24th June 2017

Moira Andrew
Maggie Harris
Ruth Marden
Crysse Morrison
Patrick B Osada
Peter Wyton

25th May 2017

Elephant's Footprint
Jodie Hollander
Liz Watts

27th April 2017

Rishi Dastidar
Susan Utting

17th April 2017

Rebecca Gethin

30th March 2017

Charles G Lauder Jr
Jennifer A McGowan

23rd February 2017

Wendy Klein
Daniel Sluman

26th January 2017

Ira Lightman
Ruth Sharman

3rd January 2017

Angela France
Roy Marshall

15th December 2016

John Hawkhead
Elizabeth Parker

24th November 2016

Claire Dyer
Hannah Teasdale

27th October 2016

Brokenborough Poets
Liz Carew
Atherton Gray
David Lukens
Matthew Oates
John Richardson
MM Season

29th September 2016

Deborah Harvey
Kieron Winn

16th September 2016

Harry Man

25th August 2016

Various contributors to the new book Salt on the Wind

11th August 2016

Georgi Gill
JL Williams

28th July 2016

David Clarke
Rachael Clyne

30th June 2016

Alison Brackenbury
Rosie Jackson

28th June 2016

Sam Loveless
Alan Summers

26th May 2016

Martyn Crucefix
Linda Saunders

5th May 2016

Cristina Navazo-Eguia Newton

28th April 2016

Graham Burchell
Maggie Sawkins

31st March 2016

Caroline Heaton
Martin Malone

25th February 2016

Sue Boyle
Connie Voisine

28th January 2016

Carrie Etter
Matthew Stewart

4th January 2016

Alison Lock
Stephen Payne

26th November 2015

Rose Flint

29th October 2015

Robin Houghton

28th September 2015

Emily Wills

27th August 2015

Alasdair Paterson

30th July 2015

Matt Merritt

25th June 2015

Deborah Harvey

28th May 2015

Susan Jane Sims
Jeremy Young

30th April 2015

Carole Baldock

26th March 2015

Lesley Saunders

26th February 2015

Susan Utting

29th January 2015

Sue Chadd

5th January 2015

Josephine Corcoran

4th December 2014

Special Event

30th October 2014

Stephen Elves

25th September 2014

Daisy Behagg

3rd September 2014

Special Event

31st July 2014

Peter Wyton

26th June 2014

Rosie Jackson

29th May 2014

Misha Carder

24th April 2014

Richard Skinner

27th March 2014

Allison McVety

27th February 2014

Martin Malone

30th January 2014

Hilda Sheehan

16th December 2013

Deborah Harvey

28th November 2013

Chrissie Gittins

24th October 2013

Dawn Gorman

26th September 2013

Fiona Moore

2nd September 2013

Special Event

25th July 2013

Alan Summers

27th June 2013

Kevan Manwaring

25th April 2013

Lynne Sedgmore

28th March 2013

Peter Wyton

28th February 2013

Jay Ramsay

24th January 2013

Linda Saunders

19th December 2012

Helen Moore

29th November 2012

Frances-Anne King

29th October 2012

Rose Flint

1st October 2012

Lesley Saunders

3rd September 2012

Special Event

30th July 2012

Jay Ramsay

23rd May 2012

Special Event

30th April 2012

Stephen Boyce

26th March 2012

Kevan Manwaring

23rd January 2012

David C Johnson

19th December 2011

Crysse Morrison

22nd November 2011

Philip Lyons

31st October 2011

Sue Boyle

29th September 2011

Special Event

27th August 2011

Liv Torc

25th July 2011

Stephen Payne

27th June 2011

Kevan Manwaring

23rd May 2011

Linda Snell

18th April 2011

Special Event

28th March 2011

Julie Mullen

28th February 2011

Gabriel Bradford Millar

25th January 2011

Special Event

13th December 2010

Muriel Lavender

17th November 2010

Karen Hoy
Alan Summers

23rd September 2010

Carrie Etter

31st August 2010

Jay Ramsay

Martin Figura

Guest Poet: Martin Figura

Martin Figura's collection and show Whistle was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award and won the 2013 Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Show. Other prizes include the Poetry Society's 2010 Hamish Canham Prize and runner up in the 2017 RSPB/Rialto Poetry Competition. Shed (Gatehouse Press) and Dr Zeeman's Catastrophe Machine (Cinnamon Press) were both published in 2016 and a new edition of Whistle (Cinnamon Press) in 2018. The spoken word show Dr Zeeman's Catastrophe Machine was shortlisted in the 2018 Saboteur Awards and is currently touring. He lives in Norwich with Helen Ivory and sciatica, where he runs the literature event Cafe Writers.
Photo: DaveVallis

Helen Ivory

Guest Poet: Helen Ivory

Helen Ivory is a poet and visual artist. She has won a Gregory Award and her fourth Bloodaxe Books collection, the semi-autobiographical Waiting for Bluebeard was short-listed for the East Anglian Book Awards (2014). She edits the webzine Ink Sweat and Tears and is tutor and Course Director for the UEA/NCW online creative writing programme. Fool's World a collaborative Tarot with the artist Tom de Freston (Gatehouse Press) won the 2016 Saboteur Award for Best Collaborative Work. Hear What the Moon Told Me is book of collage/ mixed media/ acrylic painted poems was published in 2016 by Knives Forks and Spoons Press. She was recently awarded an Arts Council grant to work on The Anatomical Venus Bloodaxe Books (June 2019), and Maps of the Abandoned City a chapbook from SurVision Press (Ireland), was published in January 2019.
Photo: Dave Gutteridge

31st October 2019, The Swan Hotel, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire BA15 1LN

WHAT an outstanding Words and Ears we enjoyed last night, the room so packed we nearly ran out of chairs, lots of new faces, umpteen former guest poets among the open mic contributors, and the Halloween evening's actual guest poets, Helen Ivory and Martin Figura casting their poetry spell over us for sure. Martin conjured up the '70s with Bourbons, Colditz and Arthur Scargill's hair (these from his hilarious poem imagining Edward Heath meeting his nemesis, 'Joyce'); spreadsheets and sciatica, and a drama of rooks in Norfolk ('the sky is blind with them'), while Helen interrogated our culture's packaging of women, shining her torch on everything from crime drama to vibrators, then, her superbly imagined Maps of the Abandoned City in hand, finding the pain of mirrors when there's no one to reflect. Enormous thanks to them, our many attentive 'ears', and to open mic-ers Stephen Payne, Ruth Sharman, Verona Bass, Rosie Jackson (and thank you, Rosie, for the night's photos), John Powell, Sue Boyle & Sylvia Novak (with their exquisite Venetian collaboration), Eileen Cameron, Nikki Kenna, David Blake, Linda Saunders, Chaucer Cameron, B Anne Adriaens, Lesley Saunders, Frances-Anne King, Sarah Watkinson, Mark Sayers, Peter O'Grady, Martin Davis, Lindsey Shaw Miller, Charlotte May, Ray Fussell, Sam Betts and Claire Coleman.