FLUID – Celebrating Queer Identities in Spoken Word

Featuring established poets, writers and those who are newer to the scene:

Andrew McMillan’s first collection, physical, was the first poetry collection to win the Guardian First Book Award; his second collection, playtime, won the inaugural Polari Prize.

Rosie Garland writes fiction and poetry and sings with post-punk band The March Violets. In 2019, Val McDermid named her “one of the UK’s most compelling LGBT writers”.

Ian Humphreys’ debut collection is Zebra (Nine Arches Press). In 2020, Zebra was nominated for the Portico Prize, and Ian was commissioned to write and perform a suite of poems for West Yorkshire Queer Stories.

Clare Shaw has three poetry collections with Bloodaxe. her forthcoming fourth collection was awarded a Northern Writer’s Award and will be published by Bloodaxe in 2022.

mandla rae is a Black, Zimbabwean, Agender & Queer writer and creative type. floating through the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, (lack of) mental health, class & foreign-ness, mandla is a leaf of love. obsessed with archives and storytelling, they like to play with words and often make work that draws from their personal experiences/heritage, to prove that they exist and create conversations and connections with their audiences. mandla is currently developing their solo show british as a watermelon for queer contact 2021.

Jane Burn is an award-winning, working class, bi, neurodivergent poet and enthusiastic ukulele player. Her next collection, Be Feared, will be published in November by Nine Arches Press.

Finn Hansen has been a Dove Cottage Young poet since 2017. They performed at the Kendal Poetry Festival from 2017-202, and in 2020, they also read at the BBC “Contains Strong Language” Festival.