Join poets from across the world for an international poetry reading hosted from Norwich and streamed online for free by The Assembly House Trust

Eastern Daily Press: International Poetry Reading from The Assembly House Trust (C) The Assembly House TrustInternational Poetry Reading from The Assembly House Trust (C) The Assembly House Trust (Image: The Assembly House Trust)

A Norwich-based arts charity is bringing a live-streamed International Poetry Reading as part of its creative programme designed to bring art into everyone’s homes during the pandemic.

The reading, on June 25 at 7.30pm, will feature poets from London, Ireland and Michigan and will be hosted by Norwich-based poet Cai Draper.

ASSEMBLY ONLINE is a live stream series of arts events hosted and funded by arts charity The Assembly House Trust which includes talks, screenings, discussions, performances, critical readings and poetry.

The free-to-view programme, which runs fortnightly, sees live events broadcast from artists’ homes to viewers’ homes. The live stream video event is open to everyone and can be joined via a link which will be posted on www.assemblyhousetrust.org.uk/assembly-online ahead of the performance on June 25 at 7.30pm.

The host will be Cai Draper, a poet from South London living in Norwich. His work appears or is forthcoming in publications from Lighthouse journal, Bad Betty Press, leslie magazine, Lammergeier and others. He organises free poetry workshops at Norwich independent book shop The Book Hive.

Contributing poets will be Isabelle Baafi (London), Ellen Dillon (Limerick, Ireland), Mira Mattar (London) and Jonah Mixon-Webster (Flint, Michigan).

Isabelle Baafi is a writer and poet from London. She was the winner of the 2019 Vincent Cooper Literary Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition. She is also a member of the London Library’s Emerging Writers Programme (2019-20). Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Poetry Review, Magma, Finished Creatures and elsewhere. Her debut pamphlet will be published in Autumn 2020 by ignitionpress.

Ellen Dillon is a writer and teacher from Ireland. Her pamphlet Excavate (Poems after Pasolini) has been published by Oystercatcher Press, Achatina, achatina! is forthcoming from SoundEye Press and Sonnets to Malkmus is available from Sad Press.

Some of her poems have appeared in Adjacent Pineapple, Amberflora, Banshee, CUMULUS, Datableed, Erotoplasty, MOTE, Para•text, Smithereens Literary Magazine, Stinging Fly and Zarf. She works as a secondary school French and English teacher in Limerick.

Mira Mattar is a writer, editor and tutor. She has recently had work published in Zarf and Datableed, and new work is forthcoming in Tenebrae and On Care (Ma Bibliothèque). Her first chapbook, Affiliation, will be published with Sad Press in 2021. She lives in south east London.

Jonah Mixon-Webster is a poet, educator, and interdisciplinary artist from Flint, Michigan. His debut poetry collection, Stereo(TYPE), received the 2017 Sawtooth Poetry Prize from Ahsahta Press, the 2019 PEN America/Joyce Osterweil Award, and was a finalist for the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry.

He is the co-leader of the PEN America Detroit Chapter and the Poetry and Digital Arts Editor for Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora. He is the recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry and fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, Center for African American Poetry and Poetics, Images and Voices of Hope, The Conversation Literary Festival, and the PEN Writing for Justice Program.

His poetry and hybrid works are featured in various publications including Callaloo, Harper’s, Yale Review, Best New Poets, Best American Experimental Writing, and elsewhere.

Assembly Online is an online live streaming programme bringing free events to people at home during isolation. The programme has been made possible through the support of The Assembly House Trust.