Joelle Taylor is a poet, playwright & author. She became the UK Slam champion in 2000 and founded  SLAMbassadors, the UK national youth Slam championship, where she served as artistic director & coach 2001 to 2018. Published works include Songs…

Keith Jarret is a former UK Poetry Slam Champion and FLUPP International Poetry Slam Winner from London. He rose to prominence on the city’s performance poetry scene and was one of the first writers to study on the groundbreaking Spoken Word Educators programme at Goldsmiths University.

Jay Bernard is a writer, film programmer and archivist from London. As well as working on BFI Flare, London’s LGBTQ film festival, they work at Statewatch, a state research library, archive and collection based at Mayday Rooms. Jay’s first collection…

Sharon Olds was born in San Francisco in 1942. She studied at Stanford University and received her PhD from Columbia University, where she wrote a thesis on Ralph Waldo Emerson. She has published twelve books of poems, including Satan Says (1980), The Father (1992), Stag’s Leap (2012), Odes (2016)…

Born in south-east London where they still live, Kae Tempest made their live debut as a spoken-word artist at sixteen. Having initially conceived of themselves as a rapper, Tempest found their work was also extremely popular at poetry slams; they…

Jane McKie’s is a poetry of wonder. But rather than describing work that is uniquely in awe of its subjects, ‘wonder’ might instead be taken here as indicative of McKie’s poetic approach, which is open and engaged, but always interrogative…

Toni Stuart was born in Cape Town in 1983 and grew up in the city. Her poetry has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Looking Back, Going Forward: Young Voices on Freedom (British Council, STE Publishers, 2004), and…

Makhosazana (Khosi) Xaba’s poetry, fiction and academic work reflects a lifetime actively involved with politics. Born in Greytown, Kwazulu-Natal, Xaba is trained as both a midwife and a psychiatric nurse, has worked with national and international NGOs and media organisations in…