Crosswords is a fab little Nottingham-based spoken word open mic night with plenty of open mic slots and a featured poet every month! In April, we have Aoife O’Connor, Emericana Desouza and Jo Lewis from She Speaks as our special guests!
She Speaks UK is a monthly performance space in the East Midlands hosted by Aoife, Emericana and Jo. It’s an inclusive and supportive safe space promoting and platforming female, trans, non-binary & femme-identifying artists. Events are female-led but not female exclusive with an open mic for all genders and an open audience. The co-founders are proud to hold a space where first-time performers are warmly encouraged, yet perform alongside well-established headliners.
She Speaks was founded in 2017 with the tagline “Art Is Our Liberation” and has since collaborated with organisations including International Women’s Day Festival Derby, LGB-QWERTY, Artcore, Furthest From The Sea, Nottingham Contemporary and Derby Women’s Centre. She Speaks has hosted as part of the Derby Poetry Festival in 2017, featuring the Trinidadian poet Shivanee Ramlochan and again in 2018, featuring Bristol based poet Vanessa Kisuule.
In 2018 the collective began reaching out to more groups in their community through facilitating workshops including creative writing & performance skills for young people as well as craftivism for women & girls.
Arrive at the Cock and Hoop from 7:30pm on the night to put your name in the hat for a short open mic slot. We like poetry, prose, storytelling, a cappella singing, and monologues! Or you can just come along to listen – everyone’s welcome! Entry is £2 per person and refreshments are available.
The She Speaks Founders, Jo, Em and Aoife.
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NB. There are twelve steps to access this venue.
Crosswords is a fab little Nottingham-based spoken word open mic night with plenty of open mic slots and a featured poet every month! In February, we’re really excited to welcome Christopher Lanyon as our guest poet!
Christopher is a mathematician, poet and trash-human. (His words, not ours!) Originally from Cornwall, he is slowly making his way northwards and hopes to be freezing to death in the North Sea by 2025. He has supported Holly McNish, Mark Grist and Luke Wright and run and hosted events as part of the Nottingham Poetry Festival. He runs Psst., a poetry summer series in Nottingham and also hosts Clickbait, the University of Nottingham Poetry and Spoken Word Society’s poetry night. His favourite things are coffee and feelings and sad guitar music and noses and heartwarming father-son redemption narratives and polysyndeton.
Arrive at the Cock and Hoop from 7:30pm on the night to put your name in the hat for a short open mic slot. We like poetry, prose, storytelling, a cappella singing, and monologues! Or you can just come along to listen – everyone’s welcome! Entry is £2 per person and refreshments are available.
Christopher Lanyon
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NB. There are eleven steps to access this venue.
Crosswords is a fab little Nottingham-based spoken word open mic night with plenty of open mic slots and a featured poet every month!
In November, we really excited to welcome Ioney Smallhorne as our guest poet!
Ioney is a writer and poet based in Nottingham. When performing she’s occasionally funny, at times vulnerable, tends to blend the political with the personal – but she’s always Ioney. When not writing poems, she’s failing her motorbike test, growing vegetables, travelling and trying to learn Italian. Currently studying a MA in Creative Writing & Education at Goldsmiths University London, Ioney is a First Story workshop facilitator, a film maker and enjoys translating her poems to the screen.
Arrive at the Cock and Hoop from 7:30pm on the night to put your name in the hat for a short open mic slot. We like poetry, prose, storytelling, a cappella singing, and monologues! Or you can just come along to listen – everyone’s welcome! Entry is £2 per person and refreshments are available. There are eleven steps to access this venue.
For more information, check out our facebook event page:
Crosswords is a fab little Nottingham-based spoken word open mic night with plenty of open mic slots and a featured poet every month!
In October, we’re teaming up with We Shall Overcome, a fantastic grassroots movement that raises money and awareness for anti-austerity causes. We’ll be raising money for Inspire Nottingham – a fantastic charity that supports adults with learning difficulties in the greater Nottingham area.
We’ll have a headline slot from brilliant Yorkshire-based poet and activist Henry Raby. Raised on a steady diet of punk music, his poetry is a combination of angry and unruly verse on feminism, anarchism and protest movements mixed with tender insights into community, friendship and the tricky art of growing up. His performance style is an anarchic and energetic tumble from cartoons and comics to politics and dinosaurs. His first poetry collection, Nerd Punk, was released through Burning Eye Books in April 2018.
Henry has gigged across the UK at spoken word nights, festival stages, cafes, libraries and living rooms. In 2015 he was commissioned by Apples & Snakes as part of their Public Address Tour. Henry is Artistic Director of Say Owt, a spoken word-promoting organisation, and is co-director of Vandal Factory Theatre Company.
Arrive at the Cock and Hoop from 7:30pm on the night to book your short open mic slot. We like poetry, prose, storytelling, a cappella singing, and monologues! Or you can just come along to listen – everyone’s welcome! Entry is £2 per person and refreshments are available.
