The Enfield Poets exist to give a platform to local poets with a chance to try out their work in front of a friendly and sympathetic audience and to enjoy listening to and learning something from a guest poet.
7th of May 2023 at 4pm
MICHAEL KING: ROYAL POETS OF ENFIELD
These early poets all have a connection with Forty Hall Estate: both Henry VIII and Elizabeth I lived at some time in Elsyng Palace, a residence as big as Hampton Court, which was towards the end of the Lime Tree Avenue opposite Forty Hall. It is thought Raleigh famously laid down his cloak for Elizabeth I, his Queen, at Maiden’s Bridge.
In this talk, lecturer in literature Michael King talks of the poetry, times and connections with Forty Hall of these, the first poets in Enfield.
Forty Hall, EN2 9HA
Tickets £6
For Tickets : www.fortyhallestate.co.uk
Friday 13th January 2023
As It Was: A Festival of Poetry
Programme
Foyer
11.30am-1.30pm Mini Poemathon presented by Mary Duggan
A two-hour poetry marathon and open mic. Come and enjoy the words from local wordsmiths live from the ENFood Café. Free event.
Film screenings
2-3pm Jane Austen: The Unseen Portrait? (1 hour)
Jane Austen is one of the most celebrated writers of all time but apart from a rough sketch by her sister Cassandra, we have very little idea what she looked like. Biographer Dr Paula Byrne thinks that is about to change. She believes she has come across a possible portrait of the author, lost to the world for nearly two centuries. Can the picture stand up to forensic analysis and scrutiny by art historians and world leading Austen experts? How might it change our image of the author? And what might the portrait reveal about Jane Austen and her world? Martha Kearney seeks answers as she follows Dr Byrne on her quest. (BBC)
3-3.45pm The Lamb’s Tale (45 mins)
Celebrating the lives of local literary figures Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb, and how Mary Lamb manages to write the famous Lamb’s Tales of Shakespeare despite her personal struggles. This project was conceived by local artist, the late Debbie Dean, who made the puppets who tell the tale. It was produced by Art Start and funding from the Arts Council England, Enfield Residents Priority Fund and The Enfield Society. The video is of a performance in All Saints Church in Edmonton where Charles Lamb is buried.
Performance
4-4.20pm As It Was
Anthony Fischer came to Enfield in 1947 and lived on Willow Road near the junction with Southbury Road. After a short introduction to his life before this, As it Was records a some of Fischer’s experiences living in Enfield, from Willow Road to Old Park View where he moved to with his wife Valerie Darville in 1953. This short play is based on his poem ‘10 Things I Learned Before I was 14’. Produced by Holly Darville.
4.25-4.45pm The Story of the Minotaur
A short play based on the poetry of Valerie Darville.
Poetry readings
4.50–5.15 Maggie Brookes-Butt
Maggie Butt is a local writer with six published poetry collections and two historical fiction novels. She was a newspaper reporter and BBC TV documentary producer before teaching Creative Writing at Middlesex University. Her poetry collections include Lipstick (2007) Ally Pally Prison Camp (2011) and everlove (2021). Her novels The Prisoner’s Wife and Acts of Love and War have been published internationally by Penguin Random House under the name Maggie Brookes.
5.15-6pm Hannah Lowe
Hannah Lowe is a poet, memoirist and academic. Her latest book, The Kids, a won the Costa Poetry Award and the Costa Book of the Year, 2021. Her first poetry collection Chick (Bloodaxe, 2013) won the Michael Murphy Memorial Award for Best First Collection. In September 2014, she was named as one of 20 Next Generation poets. Her family memoir Long Time, No See (Periscope, 2015) featured as Radio 4’s Book of the Week. She is a Reader in Creative Writing at Brunel University.
For Tickets www.dugdaleartscentre.co.uk
Sunday 3rd – Saturday 16th April 2022
Ekphrasis: A Poetry and Photography Exhibition
Enfield Poets have teamed up with Edmonton Camera Club to put together this community-based exhibition. Local photographers have some of their best work on display. The Enfield Poets have responded to these photographs in the way they know best: through words.
Free Exhibition at The Culture Palace, Palace Gardens Shopping Centre, Enfield EN2 6SN
You can now see the exhibition on line here
Thursday 20th January 2022 at 8pm
Enfield Contemporary Poetry Workshop with Julian Bishop
Email Julian for a Zoom link if interested at julianbishop5@gmail.com
Wednesday 1st – Tuesday 14th December 2021
Ekphrasis: A Poetry and Photography Exhibition
Enfield Poets have teamed up with Edmonton Camera Club to put together this community-based exhibition. Local photographers have some of their best work on display. The Enfield Poets have responded to these photographs in the way they know best: through words.
Free Exhibition at Enfield Town Library, 66 Church Street, Enfield EN2 6AX
You can now see the exhibition on line here
Saturday, 7th March 2020
DEREK ADAMS and PENNY DOPSON
Derek Adams is a professional photographer, born in London, now living in Suffolk. He has an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths and his poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies in the UK and abroad including Rialto, Magma, Smith’s Knoll and London Grip. His most recent collection is EXPOSURE – Snapshots from the life of Lee Miller,(Dempsey &Windle, 2019). Other publications include Everyday Objects, Chance Remarks and pamphlets Postcards to Olympus and Unconcerned but not indifferent: the life of Man Ray. He was BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year in 2006.
Penny Dopson lives in Hertford Heath, just outside Hertford, with her husband who is a classic car enthusiast. She is a published poet and has attended Frances Wilson’s writing classes regularly for many years. She also attends Barnet Writers’ workshops led by Katherine Gallagher. She belongs to Ware Poets and reads regularly from the floor. She meets up with a friend for writing lunches usually once a month to encourage and critique their poetry. Penny has a first collection published by Rockingham Press 2018, which reflects her wide variety of interests and where she hopes to catch something of the transience of life.
We start at 7.30 p.m. with Poets from the Floor, and end by 10 p.m. Admission £3.50, Concessions £2.50.
Saturday, 1st February 2020
LONDON GRIP
LONDON GRIP is a wholly independent on-line venue, a cultural omnibus providing intelligent reviews of current shows and events, well argued articles on the widest range of topics, an exhibition space for cross-media arts and an in-house poetry magazine with its own editor. This evening we welcome four poets introduced by MIKE BARTHOLOMEW BIGGS, author and poet, who, together with Nancy Mattson, organizes Poetry in the Crypt in Islington.
Carol DeVaughn is an American-born prize-winning poet who has lived and worked in London since 1970, teaching English language and literature, practising T’ai Chi, working as a life class model, and reciting poems for charity. Her poetry is published in magazines, journals, anthologies and on-line. Her first collection, Life Class, was published by Oversteps Books in November 2018.
Josh Ekroy lives in London and has been writing in one genre or another all his life. His collection, Ways to Build a Roadblock , is published by Nine Arches Press. Poems have appeared in anthologies such as The Forward Anthology and Best of British Poetry (Salt). He has won the Guernsey Poetry Competition, among others.
Stuart Handysides is fast forgetting former lives in general practice and medical editing. His poems have appeared in anthologies as well as London Grip New Poetry, The North, Pennine Platform, Presence and South magazines, and has been shortlisted in several competitions. He is a member of Enfield Poets and Ware Poets, organising their poetry competition for several years.
Rosemary Norman was born in London and has worked mainly as a librarian. Shoestring Press published her third collection, For Example, in 2016. With video artist Stuart Pound, she makes films with poems as image, soundtrack and sometimes both. See them on Vimeo.
We start at 7.30 p.m. with Poets from the Floor, and end by 10 p.m. Admission £3.50, Concessions £2.50.
Saturday, 7th December 2019
Giovanna Iorio
Enfield Poets’ “anything goes” Christmas Evening where poets are able to read a (hopefully vaguely seasonal) poem by any author – not just their own – and have extra time for socialising and refreshments.
Our guest this evening is GIOVANNA IORIO, an eclectic artist who combines photography, sound, poetry and prose in her work. She has lived in Dublin, Turin, Glasgow and England. Giovanna has collaborated with internationally rewarded artists and musicians looking for synergies and experimenting with different languages. She is founder of the Poetry Sound Library, an interactive map to listen to poets from present and past on a world map. Giovanna will be showing beautiful and colourful artistic works representing the spoken word accompanied by live or recorded poems of Enfield Poets. Her most recent exhibition is Voice Portraits at the Lexi Cinema, London, which runs from 26th November, 2019, to 9th January, 2020. Her latest publication is Ora Rischiara (EscaMontage, 2019). Her poems have been translated into English, French, Polish, Russian, Spanish and German and have been featured in many anthologies including 100 Thousand Poets for a Change (Albeggi), Cuore di preda (CFR) and Signor No (SEAM).
Giovanna’s poems received the 2016 and 2017 Civetta Minerva Award, the 2016 Fara Editore Award and the Saddardi International Literary Prize 2018.
We start at 7.30 p.m. with Poets from the Floor, and end by 10 p.m. Admission £3.50, Concessions £2.50.
Saturday, 2nd November 2019
Anna Meryt and Jack Cooper
Anna Meryt has two published poetry collections: Dolly Mix and Heartbroke (review Gold Dust Literary magazine). In 2011, she won First Prize in the Lupus International Poetry Competition for her poem “Bulawayo” about her birth place in Zimbabwe. In 2017 she co-edited the 28th Highgate Poets’ Anthology Naming the Clouds and also organised a Poetry and Music Evening to celebrate Highgate Poets 40th Birthday.(www.ameryt.com)
Anna has published A Hippopotamus at the Table, a memoir, in 2015, and Writing Memoir. How to Write a Story From Your Life in 2018, based on her writing and teaching. She is a regular performance poet on the London circuit, most recently Downstairs at the King’s Head, Crouch End.
She is also the facilitator for Highgate Poets (www.highgatepoets.com) and organises many poetry and music evenings, for example, the Finchley Literary Festival.
Her poem “Catching the Breeze” was poem of the month in July 2019, featured in the window of the Dugdale Centre.
A member of Highgate Poets, Jack Cooper has been longlisted in the National Poetry Competition and shortlisted in the New Poets prize. His poetry has appeared in publications such as ASH, The Isis and Young Poets’ Network. Recently he has been invited to read at The Poetry Café and Torriano Meeting House.
He is undertaking a PhD in embryonic cell migration at the University of Warwick and can be found on Twitter (@JackCooper666) and Instagram (@jackcooper0696).
We start at 7.30 p.m. with Poets from the Floor, and end by 10 p.m. Admission £3.50, Concessions £2.50.
Saturday, 5th October 2019
Ruth Hanchett and Jocelyn Simms
A first for Enfield Poets in that we have two launches on the same evening! Ruth Hanchett will be reading her new pamphlet Some Effects of Brilliance and Jocelyn Simms her new collection Tickling the Dragon.
We start at 7.30 p.m. with Poets from the Floor, and end by 10 p.m. Admission £3.50, Concessions £2.50.
Saturday, 7th September 2019
The Enfield Stanza Group
As the start to a new, exciting season of poetry, Enfield Poets are pleased to welcome the Enfield Stanza Group, who are part of the National Poetry Society. They will be introduced by local lead member and well known poet, Mary Duggan. Enfield Stanza is an exciting platform offering challenges and critical analysis. A free forum for local poets and their original poetry. Many are published poets. Meeting monthly most of the year they welcome membership requests. Their voices can be heard within an active “bardic” itinerary at local festivals, exhibitions and theatre etc.
We start at 7.30 p.m. with Poets from the Floor, and end by 10 p.m. Admission £3.50, Concessions £2.50.
8th June – 8th July 2019
Where Word Meets Art: A Community Collage Exhibition at the Dugdale Centre
Opened by Enfield Mayor, Cllr. Kate Anolue and Enfield Poet Mary Duggan
See the ‘Pop Art’ and vibrant random thoughts from the community, selected and made at events throughout the borough. They carry surprising messages from all ages using the pre-cut words and images, from Mary Duggan’s borough wide free workshops. A constellation of creativity from cut out material.
The exhibition opens at 2pm on Saturday 8th June and will run until 8th July, 10am-6pm.
To see this FREE vibrant community exhibition visit the recreated ‘Museum area’ on the 1st floor at the Dugdale Centre (lift access from the foyer area).
Saturday, 1st June 2019
Sonia Jarema and Derrick Porter
Sonia Jarema is a poet, writer, learning support assistant self-employed gardener and mother of two. She was born in Luton to Ukrainian parents and some of her poems reflect her Ukrainian heritage. Her poems have been published in Stand,The North, South Bank Poetry, South, Envoi and The Interpreter’s House as well as on-line in London Grip and Litworld2. Her novel was longlisted for the Penguin WriteNow program in 2016-17. This evening will celebrate her pamphlet Inside the Blue House which was published earlier this year by Palewell Press.
Derrick Porter grew up in Hoxton and why he began to write poetry at the age of 13 is one of Life’s mysteries as he has no memory of hearing the word during the three years he attended school. Since then he has followed a path of progression which has led to his being published in Magma, Acumen,The Interpreter’s House,The New Writer, Brittle Star, Poetry Review,The Long Poem Magazine and in two anthologies. He has just finished his second collection The Art of Timing from which he will be reading some extracts.
We start at 7.30 p.m. with Poets from the Floor, and end by 10 p.m. Admission £3.50, Concessions £2.50.
July and August – Summer Break
Evenings will resume on September 7th
Saturday, 6th April 2019
Guest Poet will be Liz Berry.
Saturday, 2nd March 2019
The talented and versatile Highgate Poets led by Anna Meryt.
Saturday, 2nd February 2019
Nancy Mattson and Mike Bartholomew-Biggs
Nancy and Mike have hosted Poetry in the Crypt readings in Islington for twenty years but took a break in the autumn to finish their latest collections (both from Shoestring Press). They will be presenting extracts from Vision on Platform 2 (Nancy) and Poems in the Case (Mike) at an event organized by someone else!
![nancy mattson 2018[1987]](https://i0.wp.com/enfieldpoets.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/nancy-mattson-20181987.jpg?w=501&h=376&ssl=1 "nancy mattson 2018[1987]")
![vision-on-platform-2-final front cover[1989]](https://i0.wp.com/enfieldpoets.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/vision-on-platform-2-final-front-cover1989.jpg?w=241&h=376&ssl=1 "vision-on-platform-2-final front cover[1989]")
Nancy Mattson was born and raised in Canada but has lived in this country since 1990. Her first poetry collection Maria Breaks her Silence was published in Canada and short-listed for the 1989 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her poems frequently draw on memory, history and myth and she has published three further collection since coming to England.
![mike bartholomew-biggs 2018 (2)[1986]](https://i0.wp.com/enfieldpoets.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/mike-bartholomew-biggs-2018-21986.jpg?w=498&h=373&ssl=1 "mike bartholomew-biggs 2018 (2)[1986]")
![poems in the case front cover[1988]](https://i0.wp.com/enfieldpoets.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/poems-in-the-case-front-cover1988.jpg?w=244&h=373&ssl=1 "poems in the case front cover[1988]")
Michael Bartholomew-Biggs is a retired mathematician who began writing poetry quite late in life but has managed to publish four full collections and several chapbooks mostly featuring narrative-based poems. Since 2011 he has been poetry editor of the on-line magazine London Grip.
We start at 7.30pm with Poets from the Floor, and end by 10pm. Admission £3.50, Concessions £2.50.
Publicity sponsored by Fisher Research Ltd.
Poets in Residence at the Dugdale Centre. Thomas Hardy House, 39 London Road, Enfield, EN2 6DS
Saturday, 1st February 2020
LONDON GRIP
LONDON GRIP is a wholly independent on-line venue, a cultural omnibus providing intelligent reviews of current shows and events, well argued articles on the widest range of topics, an exhibition space for cross-media arts and an in-house poetry magazine with its own editor. This evening we welcome four poets introduced by MIKE BARTHOLOMEW BIGGS, author and poet, who, together with Nancy Mattson, organizes Poetry in the Crypt in Islington.
Carol DeVaughn is an American-born prize-winning poet who has lived and worked in London since 1970, teaching English language and literature, practising T’ai Chi, working as a life class model, and reciting poems for charity. Her poetry is published in magazines, journals, anthologies and on-line. Her first collection, Life Class, was published by Oversteps Books in November 2018.
Josh Ekroy lives in London and has been writing in one genre or another all his life. His collection, Ways to Build a Roadblock , is published by Nine Arches Press. Poems have appeared in anthologies such as The Forward Anthology and Best of British Poetry (Salt). He has won the Guernsey Poetry Competition, among others.
Stuart Handysides is fast forgetting former lives in general practice and medical editing. His poems have appeared in anthologies as well as London Grip New Poetry, The North, Pennine Platform, Presence and South magazines, and has been shortlisted in several competitions. He is a member of Enfield Poets and Ware Poets, organising their poetry competition for several years.
Rosemary Norman was born in London and has worked mainly as a librarian. Shoestring Press published her third collection, For Example, in 2016. With video artist Stuart Pound, she makes films with poems as image, soundtrack and sometimes both. See them on Vimeo.
We start at 7.30 p.m. with Poets from the Floor, and end by 10 p.m. Admission £3.50, Concessions £2.50.