Drafting Table: performance session

All are welcome to this new poetry writing group, where we will share our emerging poems with each other and provide feedback in a safe and inclusive environment.

Maybe you have been attending the Getting Started sessions and feel ready to edit your work and develop your ideas. Maybe you’re an experienced but unpublished poet who wants to take those next steps in your poetry career. There are no minimum requirements for joining, poets of all abilities and backgrounds can attend, just bring a willingness to receive and provide feedback!

Once a month, we will invite a published poet to join us at Gulp Fiction bookstore. There will be a short public reading of their poems followed by a workshop where attendees can learn more about the creative process, get an insight into what it means to be a poet, and share our work with each other. July’s poet is Vanessa Lampert. Vanessa had her first poem published in 2019 at the age of 55. So excited by this was she that she kept at it and has since won the Café Writers prize, the Edward Thomas prize, the Sentinel prize and the Ver Poetry prize twice and come second in the Fish, Yeovil, Oxford Brookes, Ware, and Kent & Sussex prizes. She was commended in the National Poetry Competition 2020 and listed in 2021. She co-edits The Alchemy Spoon magazine and has taught children in schools and for Learn with Leaders in India. She has run workshops for Hive, South Yorkshire, Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, Poetry School London and Stanza groups nationwide.  Her first full collection ‘Say It With Me’ was published by Seren in April 2023 and is nominated for The Forward First Collection prize.

Please note that workshops are limited to 20 attendees in the upstairs space, so get there early to avoid disappointment. Feel free to email any queries to opldraftingtable@gmail.com