The next Poets’ Café at South Street will be on Friday 11th February 2022 at South Street Arts Centre RG1 4QU (map HERE).
We do hope you will feel able to join us. All government guidelines for public performance will be adhered to at the time of the show. In the event that we have to cancel the show a full refund will be issued including ticket fees.
Please see below for news about Poets’ Café Online too.
Poets’ Café is organised and hosted by The Poetry Society’s Reading Stanza.
Our guest will be:
Alan Buckley is a poet, editor and poetry tutor. He was brought up on Merseyside, and now lives in Oxford. He has had two pamphlets published, Shiver (2009), and The Long Haul (2016), and Touched – his first full collection – was published by HappenStance in 2020. His work has been highly commended in the Forward and Bridport prizes. He was previously on the editorial board of Ignition Press (based at the Oxford Brookes University Poetry Centre), and for many years was a school writer-in-residence for First Story. He also works as a psychotherapist for a refugee charity
Vic Pickup is a previous winner of the Café Writers and Cupid’s Arrow competitions and was recently shortlisted for the National Poetry Day #speakyourtruth competition. In 2018, Vic co-founded the Inkpot Writer’s Group; she's also a member of Reading Stanza and regularly attends Thin Raft. A keen reviewer of the work of others, she contributes to Sphinx Reviews, Everybody's Reviewing and BBC Berkshire’s book club. Vic’s debut pamphlet ‘Lost & Found’ was published by Hedgehog Press in 2020, and her Micro-pamphlet 'What Colour is My Brain?' is forthcoming in 2022. www.vicpickup.com
Doors open at 8.00 pm. Entry costs £5 and £4 for concessions.
You can click here for tickets.
POET'S CAFE ONLINE
The next Poets’ Café Online will be on Friday 21st January 2022 from 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm: these events will comprise a first-come, first-served one page one poem open mic hosted by Claire Dyer and Vic Pickup. Tickets are limited to 20 and priced at £4 and are available HERE. You will be sent a Zoom link at 10 am on the day. A ticket will be sent to you for admin purposes only as this is an online event.

You can find us/follow us on:
(please continue to tell people to Like our Facebook Page – you will get a poetry pat on the back if you do!)
Photographs of events may be taken for use on social media.
If you are interested in joining our Stanza, please let me know. More details can be found here.
We look forward to seeing you!
The Poets’ Café Team
To join our mailing list, you can do so here. You will received approximately 2 emails per month and can unsubscribe at any time.
Poets' Cafe is thrilled to be based in the same town as Two Rivers Press:
E-books - to download a pdf e-book of your favourite poet/s work, please see HERE .
Poet of the Week - please see here for this feature.
Become a friend of Two Rivers Press - Two Rivers Press has been publishing beautifully-designed books, and celebrating the poetry, art and culture of Reading for 25 years. They would love you to support their continuing endeavours by becoming a Friend of the Press. For a one-off payment of £30 you will get a generous 20% discount on the books and an irregular newsletter to keep you up to date with what's new and exciting, together with the warm glow that comes with knowing that you are supporting local creative industry of course! More information at https://tworiverspress.com/friends-of-two-rivers-press/
RiversSide - a new online gallery from Two Rivers Press - Two Rivers Press invites contributions to their new online gallery – RiversSide – which features poems, artworks, photography and short prose. RiversSide publishes works about Reading or by creators who live in Reading. To submit a work for consideration please email anne@tworiverspress.com. More information at https://tworiverspress.com/riversside/