Stoke Newington Literary Festival

Hands up who loves poetry? We know lots of you do you’re not alone as poetry in the UK is enjoying a wonderful explosion of diverse voices and popularity across performance and publishing. Over the 10 years of the Festival we have loved hosting a range of amazing poets but we are just spotty little oiks compared to renowned literary and art magazine, Ambit who join us to celebrate their 60th birthday. The Ambit has always had an incredible eye for talent; their archives reveal work by legends including Carol Ann Duffy, BS Johnson, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Edwin Brock, Stevie Smith, Peter Porter, Fleur Adcock, William Burroughs, JG Ballard, Liz Berry, Adrian Henri and Deborah Levy to name but a small fraction.

This year, Ambit editor Briony Bax, will be divulging some publishing wisdom and inspiration for those struggling or dreaming to become great writers too, followed by performances from some brilliant new voices tipped for greatness. Come join Gboyega Odubanjo—poet, preacher, sinner, lover, Isabel Galleymore, the maestro of metaphor and ecopoetics, Dan O’Brien who with his sharp words stabs the meaning of what it means to be human in its very heart and Kiare Ladner who explores getting lost in the city through her experimental writing.

As every celebration calls for a special treat, we have a birthday offer where you can get two tickets for the price of one, so bring a loved one, or a writing comrade to brainstorm with, and share all this literary love and history together. Just enter AMB code when you’re booking your ticket. Click here for tickets

We are madly overexcited to welcome Brian Bilston emerging from the shadows to talk to you about his new poetry book You Took The Last Bus Home. ‘The poet laureate of Twitter’, is one of the most elusive poets of our generation, who has decided to leave his online mask at home and finally assume a body on our stage.

Friday’s Gala Voices night ends with a magical performance of spoken word poetry by Four Brown Girls Who Write. Sheena, Sunnah, Sharan, and Roshni are here to remind us of the importance of an artistic collective, how creativity can nourish itself through bonding with others, and how words can make you feel powerful, even when the entire world wants to make you powerless. https://stokenewingtonliteraryfestival.com/snlf_events/gala-night-voices/

Festival regular Jan Noble returns with another treat; taking us on a Dantesque journey into the investigation of the Kings Cross fire accompanied by the most compelling voices from the New River Press – including Jeremy Reed, the Lou Reed’s personal favourite autobiographer, Greta Bellamacina with fierce meditations on female identity, poet-philosopher Zia Ahmed and Niall McDevitt, closely following the footsteps of Shakespeare, Blake, Rimbaud, and Yeats around London. https://stokenewingtonliteraryfestival.com/snlf_events/jan-noble-journey-works/

The poetry programme concludes with a personal curation of Adrian Henri by Thurston Moore featuring local poets. Join them to immerse yourself in the anarchist and countercultural freedom poets inspired by Henri’s poetic themes and philosophy. It is a mixture of an homage, and a spoken word performance because, we ‘want everything to happen!’. https://stokenewingtonliteraryfestival.com/snlf_events/ecstatic-peace-library-adrian-henri/

• Home
• Our venues
• Blog
• About
• Sign up
• Speakers
• The Programme

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Share