We are thrilled to announce our poetry list for 2023!
We are looking forward to another year of eclectic poetry collections and pamphlets from returning BE poets and new voices. This list might be smaller than previous years but is still mighty with diverse underdogs and heavyweights of the UK poetry scene. We kick off our new season in May next year, so keep your eyes open for more announcements coming soon!
Scroll down to find out more about our 2023 cohort.
Ciarán Hodgers
Ciarán Hodgers (he/him/his) is an Irish spoken word poet based in the UK. His debut poetry collection Cosmocartography was published by Burning Eye Books in 2018. Winner of the Sean Dunne National Young Writer Award in 2010, an International Pangaea Poetry Slam Champion 2015 and the Word War 3 Slam Champion, he has been shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize, OutSpoken Prize for Poetry and longlisted for the Not The Foreword and Gingko Eco-poetry competition.
Rick Dove
Once voted “most likely to start the revolution” Rick (he/him) is a queer and neurodivergent poet and activist from London. Arriving on the spoken word scene in 2015, Rick has performed across the UK and internationally, with performance credits including: The Wandsworth Arts Fringe (2018 & 2019), the Egham Festival of Music, the Edinburgh Fringe (2018 & 2022), Crystal Palace International Festival, Enrich Festival, the ClitArt Festival, Shambala Festival, and a yearlong residency at The Chocolate Poetry Club. Rick’s debut full collection Tales From the Other Box was published in August 2020 by Burning Eye and Rick was crowned the Hammer & Tongue UK Poetry Slam Champion at the Royal Albert Hall on 4th July 2021.
Jess Green
BBC Slam Champion, Jess Green (she/her) is a performance poet and script writer for theatre and TV. She’s performed at Glastonbury, Latitude and BBC 6 Music Festival as well as having taken her 5* shows, Burning Books and A Self Help Guide To Being In Love With Jeremy Corbyn to the Edinburgh Fringe and on national tours. She also writes for EastEnders.
Introducing… Stanley Iyanu
Stanley Iyanu (he/him) is a performance poet and writer from London. His spoken word style is described as having the gentle power of a slow ocean building. Before you know it, you’ll be rocking hither and thither to his sirenic-voiced languid lullaby and loving every tidal second of it. A multi-slam winner, his poems have been published in the Poetry Society magazine as well as internationally. He has performed across the UK, most notably for Apples & Snakes, BBC Radio London and for the Cheltenham Literature Festival.
Tyrone Lewis
Tyrone Lewis (he/him), UK Poetry Slam Champion, Roundhouse Poetry Slam Champion, Axis Poetry Slam Champion and author of his debut collection Blackish (2019). Tyrone is the Founder of Process Production as well as its monthly Spoken Word Night; Process. He was also one of the inaugural Albany Associate Artists as well as hosting, producing, and featuring at many Spoken Word nights across the UK. Tyrone has also been involved with a number of major national poetry events over the years including 2010’s Word Cup, 2012’s Shake The Dust and 2015’s Shot From The Lip, as well as helping out with UniSlam in from 2016 – present.
Mary Dickins
Mary Dickins (she/her) has been on television and radio as part of the Nationwide Building Society poetry ad campaign and has dished up poems all over the country as part of the Poetry Takeaway team. In 2017 she set up the “Poems not Pills” project to promote the therapeutic value of poetry for health professionals and their patients. Her debut pamphlet Happiness FM was published in 2020 and it was selected as one of 10 uplifting books chosen by the NHS. Her poems have been published in a number of anthologies, websites and zines. In April 2022 Mary was featured in The Guardian regarding her experience of coming to performance poetry later in life.
Introducing…. Taher Adel
Taher Adel (he/him) is a British-Bahraini poet and spoken word artist. He has an MA in Creative Writing and Poetry from the University of East Anglia in 2021. He was poet in residence for Wells-next-the-sea in 2019. His poems have been published in Ambit, SMOKE Magazine, The New European, Gulf Daily, Glassworks Magazine, Tedx, Poetry London Magazine and Poetry Salzburg Review.
Introducing… Lateisha Davine Lovelace-Hanson
Lateisha Davine Lovelace-Hanson (they/she) is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and social justice practitioner of Jamaican heritage, based and raised in London and Huddersfield. Lateisha has shared work extensively through residencies, commissions and grassroots organisations across the UK, including; Camden Art Centre: The Botanical Mind, Wretched Of The Earth (BIPOC climate justice collective), Glasgow Zine Library: Call & Response, [Performance s p a c e ]: PSX 10, Live Art Development Agency, Artsadmin: Apocalypse Reading Room, Chelsea Physic Garden: Queer Botany, Apples & Snakes, Inua Ellam’s R.A.P Party, She Grrrowls, Dada Fest / Yewande 103 and is a Roundhouse and Hammer & Tongue Poetry Slam Finalist.
Burning Eye Books 
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