About this Event

Word Makers and Silence Breakers is coming back in July.



Headline guest: Joelle Taylor



Joelle Taylor is an award winning poet, playwright, performer, critic and author. A former UK slam champion, she founded the national youth slam championships SLAMbassadors in 2001 and remains the Artistic Director and National Coach. She has performed her poetry nationally and internationally in venues ranging from the Brazilian FLUPP Festival to Buckingham Palace, and is the host Out-Spoken poetry and music club. Her last collection The Woman Who Was Not There (Burning Eye) was named as one of the UK’s recommended collections in the Morning Star, and was described by Benjamin Zephaniah as ‘Fearless. Poetry with purpose’. She has been anthologised widely in English, Portuguese, Polish, Finnish, Arabic and Ndebele, and was a featured poet in the film Page Fright, alongside Benjamin Zephaniah, Hollie McNish and Dizraeli. She also featured in the BBC documentary about spoken word in post Brexit Britain We Belong Here, alongside Lemn Sissay and Sabrina Mahfouz, and recently appeared on Educating the East End and The One Show. She is a Subject for Study on the OCR English syllabus, and has featured on Tedx Talks and Outsider Lectures. She was recently awarded a Southbank Centre Change Maker prize, awarded annually in recognition of life changing work, as well as a Fellowship of the Royal Society of the Arts. She will be one of 17 poets commissioned by the BBC to write a broadcast piece for the Hull City of Culture celebrations.



‘Joelle Taylor’s a shape-shifter, myth maker, linguistic risk taker; poetical activist, surrealist with a raised fist. She knows how to handle a pen. Razor sharp, tattooed or AWOL, her women are the best dressed men. Her material – fractured glass and human skin; the effect – a maze, a mosaic, a hall of mirrors. She redefines the dispossessed, the caged in and gives them a way out.’ Patience Agbabi



Supported by Simon Richiardi and our silent votes winners



8 showcase slots of 8 minutes are up for grabs



Hosted by Damian O'Vitch, Matthew Miles Chambers and Myriam San Marco



£5/£3