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Jane Commane

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Happy New Year! New Venue! Home-grown talent!
We are starting our 2019 programme with our popular annual event with three of our own members reading, and the splendid line-up on January 15th. at 8.00 pm comprises Susan Wicks, Mara Bergman and David Hensley, our very own Chair!
Susan Wicks Mara Bergman David Hensley, (R) with Clive Eastwood
We are also celebrating our first meeting in our new venue, the Vale Vaults, below The Bedford, and opposite Tunbridge Wells Station, on the corner of the High Street.
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New Year! New Programme! New Venue!
Check out our exciting new programme (monthly meetings tab) And please note – we are moving to a new venue: The Bedford pub in Tunbridge Wells. Opposite the station and on the corner with the High Street.
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Paul McGrane
Paul McGrane
NB CHANGE OF VENUE THIS MONTH
This month we have pleasure in welcoming Paul McGrane. For this month only, the event will take place in the upstairs room of The Rendezvous on Camden Road. The evening begins with a very brief AGM at 8.00, followed by Paul’s reading.
Paul McGrane is the co-founder of the Forest Poets poetry collective in Walthamstow and has also been The Poetry Society’s Membership Manager since 2006. He runs the Poetry@3 open mic at the Poetry Café, London, on the first Thursday of the month. In 2016 he was Highly Commended in the YorkMix Poetry Competition and Longlisted in the South Bank Poetry Competition.
His first poetry collection, Elastic Man, was published in JULY 2018
“Paul McGrane’s voice is sexy, witty, humane. His poems are carefully crafted, often very moving, frequently laugh-aloud funny. Here is a confident, intelligent writer with a strong sense of social justice. A varied and accessible collection which deserves to do really well. I loved it.” Carole Bromley
We hope you will join us for a drink and a chat before the evening activities formally begin.
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George Szirtes
GEORGE SZIRTES
“ Poetry’s only obligation is to the truth. Whether this truth is widely popular or not is irrelevant. It should be the best truth possible and that is the only quality that gives it any hope of survival.” – George Szirtes
George Szirtes was born in Hungary and emigrated to England with his parents—survivors of concentration and labour camps—after the 1956 Budapest uprising. His first book, The Slant Door (1979), won the Faber Memorial Prize. Bridge Passages (1991) was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize. Reel (2004) won the T.S. Eliot Prize, and his New and Collected Poems was published by Bloodaxe in 2008. He has also translated, edited, and anthologised numerous collections of Hungarian poetry. For his translation work Szirtes has won several awards, including the Dery Prize for Imre Madach’s The Tragedy of Man (1989) and the European Poetry Translation Prize for Zsuzsa Rakovsky’s New Life (1994).
There will be an Open Mic session first – one poem each for everyone who wants to read. It’s always a pleasure to hear new voices!
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Raine Geoghegan
We start off our autumn season of poetry with a visit from Herefordshire writer Raine Geoghegan, who draws on her Romany heritage in her poetry, monologues, prose and songs. Raine has mixed Welsh and Gypsy Roma heritage and shares her love of the Bishops Frome area and the many memories that the place and hop-picking evoke.
Join us for another feast of words at the Vittle and Swig on September 18th. There will be a prompt start at 8.00pm, so arrive at 7.45 for a chat and catch-up first. There will be an Open Mic slot, followed by Raine’s reading, which will give us a fascinating insight into a different world and way of life.
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Poetry Competition Now Open. £1000 first prize
Our annual competition is now open for entries. The adjudicator this year is the renowned poet, Ruth O’Callaghan. Click on the tab above for details.
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