Ouse Muse: 2015
Ouse Muse is Bedford’s premier regular poetry open mic evening. We alternate between Thursday and Wednesday nights with guest readers but always plenty of open mic time. Monthly, but we take August and December off. £3 audience £2 if performing. All events 8pm start, sign up for open mic slots on the door from 7.45pm.
Here are the dates and guest readers for the first half of 2015.
2015
22nd Jan – Guests, Caroline Davies and Vanessa Gebbie. Caroline’s first collection, ‘Convoy’, published by Cinnamon Press (2013) is a narrative sequence inspired by her grandfather’s experience of the Malta convoys in WWII, it has been described as ‘a fantastically ambitious book and a great concept for a poetry collection’. Vanessa is a Welsh writer living in England. Her poetry collection ‘The Half-life of Fathers’ (Pighog Press 2013) opens with the poem that won the Troubadour Prize in 2013. She is a novelist and short story writer, has been a Hawthornden Fellow, a writer in residence at Gladstone’s Library and Stockholm University, and she teaches widely.
This event will be in the Chapter House, St Peter de Merton Church, MK40 2TX. The Chapter House is just to the left of the main church (the church itself will not be open!).
25th Feb – Guest, Claire Crowther. Claire’s books include ‘Stretch of Closures’, which was short listed for the Aldeburgh first collection prize and her second collection ‘The Clockwork Gift’ (both from Shearsman). She is poet in residence at the Royal Mint Museum 2014-15.
26th Mar – Guest, Jon Stone one of the exciting young talents in British poetry, Jon’s first collection ‘School of Forgery’ (Salt 2012) was a PBS recommendation and he is the 2014 winner of the Poetry London competition.
22nd Apr – Guest, Nancy Campbell. Nancy is a poet, visual artist and editor of ‘Printmaking Today’
21st May – Guests Torriano Poets following a successful visit by Ouse Muse to the Torriano Meeting House in 2014, we host poets from the Torriano, including Lisa Kelly and David Floyd, full details forthcoming!
17th Jun -Guest, Hannah Lowe. Rescheduled from November, Hannah Lowe’s first collection, Chick (Bloodaxe 2013) has received rave reviews. She has recently been named as one of the twenty ‘Next Generation Poets’ by the Poetry Book Society.
Open mic slots are always available.
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I am a poet writing in a range of styles from performance-led to page-based and limerick to avant-garde.