This Is Just to Say spoken word open mic

Oxford Poetry Library presents a brand new spoken word open mic night! Join us in the library on the first Tuesday of every month to enjoy all manner of word-weaving, story-sharing, and spell-casting.

We welcome poets, storytellers, and writers of all kinds to share their work (or the work of others) in a safe, supportive, and inclusive space. Slots are 5 minutes long, and performers sign up on the door – first come, first served!

This month, we will be theming our evening’s proceedings on ROOTS AND WINGS. We are kicking off 2023 thinking about where we came from and where we might take flight to in the year to come… but interpret the theme however you like!

Every month we feature a performer with a slightly extended set and this month’s featured performer to grace our stage is Laura Theis. Laura Theis writes prose, poems and songs in her second language. Her work appears in Poetry, Mslexia, Magma, Rattle, Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, AE SciFi, Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Caterpillar, Jellyfish Review, Aesthetica, and anthologies by Candlestick Press, Broken Sleep Books, Pan Macmillan, etc. Her Elgin-Award-nominated debut ‘how to extricate yourself’, an Oxford Poetry Library Book of the Month, won the Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize. She received the AM Heath Prize, Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, Mogford Prize, Hammond House International Literary Award, and a Forward Prize nomination. Shortlisted for the Women Poets’ Prize and the Bridport Prize, she was a finalist for the National Poetry Competition, the BBC Short Story Award, and the Alpine Fellowship. Her collection ‘A Spotter’s Guide for Invisible Things’ won the 2022 Live Canon Collection Prize, received the Arthur Welton Award from the Society of Authors, and will be published by Live Canon in 2023. She lives and procrastinates in Oxford with her dog, a lunatic.

Our next session will happen on January 10th, 7.30pm (performers are advised to arrive from 7pm), at The Community Works (21 Park End St, OX1 1HU).