TUESDAY NOVEMBER 11 at West Greenwich Library – 7 for 7.30
‘Poems of Peace (and War)‘ – with Mick Delap, Malene Engelund, Graham High, Lorraine Mariner, Jocelyn Page, Kelley Swain and Sarah Westcott. With Lucia Foti on harp.
It cannot be at 11am, but 7.30 will do… An evening of poetry to celebrate peace (but it’s almost impossible to do so without poems on war). The poets, all belonging to the Nevada Street Poets group based in Greenwich (and thriving despite various departures for other places – Tasmania being the farthest), have designed a programme that includes their own work and that of poets from the canon.
And I’m delighted to welcome back Lucia Foti, who will play a small selection of music on harp. You may remember her wonderful playing in February this year, to accompany readings by Jacqueline Saphra and Sue Rose.
As always, the event is free and everyone is welcome. Books and pamphlets will be on sale, and there will be plenty of refreshments.
Mick Delap Mick Delap is a long time Greenwich resident. He took up writing poetry along the way, publishing his first collection, River Turning Tidal in 2003, and his second, Opening Time in 2016. Mick has never stopped supporting the reading and the writing of poetry in South East London. He gathered the group of poets still at the heart of the Nevada Street Writers in 2009. They still meet regularly.
Malene Engelund is a poet and translator based in Copenhagen. Her pamphlet The Wild Gods was published in 2016 and her translation of the Danish author Christel Wiinblad’s poetry collection My Little Brother was the PBS Spring 2020 translation choice. Her collection Gather is forthcoming with Corsair.Her work will be read by “members of the cast!”
Lucia Foti is a London-based Italian harpist. Supported by Trinity College London and a Trinity Laban Scholarship, she has recently completed her master’s degree with distinction at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. She is the recipient of prizes in France (2012), Italy (2015) and Britain (2023 and 2024). Lucia freelances with various orchestras and ensembles, performing widely abroad as well as at leading London venues including Kings Place, Cadogan Hall, St John’s Smith Square, St James’s Piccadilly and the Painted Hall in Greenwich.
Graham High has been writing poetry since school days, although his primary career has been as a sculptor and Animatronic Model Designer in the film industry. He has published five poetry collections to date, as well as several chapbooks of poetry and other work. Graham’s other literary involvements have been in editorial and translation work, and as a writer of short stories and movie screenplays (two of which have won awards but, sadly, have not been produced). Through his keen interest in Japanese literature, he became editor of the British Haiku Society Journal, Blithe Spirit, (2005-2008), and to serve as the Society’s president (2011-2014).
Lorraine Mariner lives in Greenwich and works as a librarian at the National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre. She has published two collections with Picador, Furniture (2009) and There Will Be No More Nonsense (2014) and has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize twice, for Best Single Poem and Best First Collection, and for the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize. Her third collection Little Anchors is due from Picador in Autumn 2026. She has edited several titles for Candlestick Press, including Ten Poems About Friendship (2016) and Ten Poems about Libraries (2024).
Jocelyn Page is a poet from Connecticut, USA, living in London. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College and the University of London, and is Resident Creative Consultant on the ‘Just Poetry’ project at Greenpeace, CJL. Jocelyn’s publications include You’ve Got to Wait Till the Man You Trust Says Go (argent press, 2016) – winner of the Goldsmiths’ Writer Centre’s inaugural Poetry Pamphlet award, and smithereens (tall-lighthouse press, 2010). She is co-chair of the National Association of Writers in Education.
Kelley Swain is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing (poetry) at the University of Tasmania, with an MSc in Medical Humanities from King’s College London. She is the author of poetry collections Darwin’s Microscope, Atlantic, and Opera di Cera, and a contributor to Guests of Time, an anthology written for the first poetry residency at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Poems from the 10th anniversary edition of Darwin’s Microscope were adapted to the song cycle, Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Kelley is also a novelist and contributor to art & health essays and criticism in The Lancet, where she has over 100 publications. Her work will be read by “members of the cast!”
Sarah Westcott is a poet, originally from Devon. She has published three pamphlets and two full collections – Slant Light and Bloom (Pavilion Poetry, Liverpool University Press). Her latest pamphlet is Almanac – hand-stitched and published by Coast to Coast to Coast. Sarah is currently researching and writing inter-species poetry as part of a PhD at the University of Birmingham. She has been working with tadpoles, bats and nightingales to co-create poems that explore the interesting spaces where human and more than human intersect.
‘Chaos, Dragon and the Light’ – January 27 at West Greenwich Library, 7 for 7.30
A poignant documentary film by local Director Sal Anderson. It tells the story of Marika, a Hungarian girl who was forced into hiding from the Nazis during WW2, and forced to flee from the Soviets in 1956 during the Hungarian uprising. Settled in London, she was transformed by her creativity.
A free event to remember and honour all the victims of the Holocaust and of persecution, hatred and discrimination everywhere.
