Date Monday 23 September 2024
Location Darkroom Bar, LCC
Overview
We invite you to join Arts Students' Union's first ever spoken word night!
Come along to the Darkroom Bar for an evening of beautiful poetry featuring the talented Ayah Speaks, Iftikhar Latif, Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay and Maddy Accalia. This will be an opportunity for you to share your work in an intimate setting. Whether that be poems, short stories, published or unpublished - even snippets from your journal - we welcome it all! You do not need to be an experienced poet to perform, we encourage students of all experience levels to join in!
This evening will follow a poetry workshop on the theme of RESISTANCE led by Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay. There are only 15 spaces available so sign up here.
About the Poets
Ayah Speaks is a bilingual poet, actor, hike leader, workshop facilitator and performance artist. Her poetry cares for mental health, mindfulness, identity and soul empowerment. Ayah's work has grace many spaces including the Pink Ribbon Foundation, Brick Lane Gallery, King's College Science Gallery, All Points East Festival, the Black Cultural Archives, the Royal Court Theatre, Soho Theatre and Theatre Peckham. She describes her poetry as offerings to the universe in a medley of mindfulness and uncomfortable truths served in a comical way with a hint of sarcasm. She prays that the message in her poetry today is Witnessed, may you explore what your soul seeks, as Ayah Speaks...
Iftikhar Latif is a writer and poet of British-Bangladeshi descent from East London. His work often refers to the British Asian experience, immigrant family relationships, deconstructions of masculinity , media culture and growing up in the city. He is cofounder and producer of 'Off The Chest'. He has worked with the V&A for their 2022 'Drip Maketh the Man' project, the Apples and Snakes 2022 Writing Room and was a resident poet at The Sidings in Waterloo Station in 2024.
Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay is an Indian-born epic poem collage stranger and break-up with America tour—on self-imposed exile from New Nashville, and the author of the books this is our war (Penmanship Press, Brooklyn, 2016) and everything is always leaving (M.C. Sarkar & Sons, Kolkata, 2019), and poetry album i don’t know anyone here (2020). She was the first Nashville Youth Poet Laureate, finalist for the first National Youth Poet Laureate, and Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. With a Masters’ in Migration and Diaspora at SOAS and a Masters’ in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, find her work in Poetry Society of America, La Piccioletta Barca, and Cream City Review, among others. Her latest book Towards a Poetic Memory of Bengal Partition came out with Natyachinta in December 2023. She is the poet-in-residence with the band JAWARI.
Maddy Accalia (she/they) is an award-winning writer and producer from Brighton. Her plays have been performed at the Roundhouse, Vault Festival, Gilded Balloon, North Wall and Norwich Theatre Stage 2. She has a First Class degree in Scriptwriting and Performance from the University of East Anglia and was shortlisted for the inaugural Women’s Prize for Playwriting. As a poet, they have featured at Off the Chest, Speakeasy and Sofar Sounds London, and been published in Bath Magg and Ink Sweat and Tears. She was a Roundhouse Resident Artist from 2021-2023 and has previously been a member of the North Wall Catalyst Playwriting Programme, Apples and Snakes Writing Room and BBC Words First. Recently, Maddy was commissioned by University College Hospital London to write a poem for Our NHS Stories; a national campaign celebrating 75 years of the NHS. In 2024, Maddy will develop their fiction writing, through Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice Grant under the mentorship of Saba Sams.