Liverpool Poetry Cafe

The launch of Liverpool Poetry Café – at the Costa café on Bold Street – celebrated City Poems with 15 poets and lovers of poetry, from all ages, reading on the night of 11th February 2008 to a capacity audience of more than seventy. Poems as varied as Felicia Hemans Casabianca rubbed shoulders (as it were) with Patti Smith, Adrian Henri, John Tessimond, Mary Oliver and many more.

The Liverpool Poetry Café venture is the brain child of Alex Scott-Samuel, a passionate poetry enthusiast and public health researcher at Liverpool University and has been made possible through the backing of Costa and a positive association of poets and poetry organisations (including Dead Good Poets Society, Writing on the Wall, Liverpool Reads, Heartbeats, North End Writers and Liverpool Library Service) working together to support a programme of events to encourage a new audience for poetry.

Events and readings will take place at the café on the evenings of the second Monday and fourth Thursday of each month, starting at 7.30 pm for the remainder of 2008 to celebrate Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture status. Readings will include poets Jean Sprackland, Deryn Rees-Jones, John Redmond, Gladys Mary Coles, Aileen La Tourette, Alice Lenkiewicz, Brian Wake and Helen Tookey.

Anyone attending an event is advised to get there early to be sure of a seat.

For further information and a calendar of readings, download the brochure: http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/~alexss/poetrycafe.pdf

By Pauline Rowe