Poetry from Mark Blayney and Roberto Pastore with our usual open mic spots of course!!
Thursday November 21st 2019 @ The Little Man Coffee Company hosted by Alix Edwards

Open from 6.30pm-9pm in Cardiff’s finest coffee house.
Read your work in a supportive and friendly environment or just come and watch!! Bring your family and friends – everyone welcome!

This is an open mic where you’re welcome to try out your latest poetry, prose and song in a very chill, fun and supportive environment or come and watch!

If you’re reading.performing sign-ups are from 6pm (for 6.30pm start)

Little Man Coffee (http://www.littlemancoffee.co.uk/) company is a small local business so please support them by buying a drink (they do beer and wine as well as coffee!!!) – we hope to have some special offers for the night – so watch this space

PLEASE BRING:

Yourself!Your work – if you’re performing!Your friends!! and maybe a pen and paper in case you want to write something impromptu on the night or want to note down anything interesting extra kudos for bringing your phone/camera – we luv pics!!! and all pics will be posted to the Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/CompanyofWords/ with credit to you of course and links to website

We ask for a £4 contribution to cover guest poets/performers and the venue.

MARK BLAYNEY won the Somerset Maugham Award for Two kinds of silence. His third story collection Doppelgangers and poetry Loud music makes you drive faster are published by Parthian.
Mark is a Hay Festival Writer at Work and has been longlisted for the National Poetry Competition. www.markblayney.weebly.com

ROBERTO PASTORE studied in Carlisle, Cumbria, where he participated in the renowned Speakeasy spoken word scene. A chapbook of his poetry, The Dumb Supper, was released by Freerange Poetry, in 2008. Roberto lives in Cardiff, where he works as a school crossing guard. His first full collection Hey Bert launches through Parthian Books in October 2019.

‘“I never/did anything with much oomph” declares the speaker of Roberto Pastore’s poem “The Incoming.” It’s an interesting statement, because the poet’s debut collection, Hey Bert, does everything with oomph. The language of the poems cracks and fizzles with energy and, from the opening “Salutation”, the poet proves himself adept at dragging the reader by the collar into his world. Humour and a spoken immediacy smash up against a great lyricism in poems which are vibrant and alive. This book won’t lie quietly on a shelf: open it and a human being leaps out, drinking oat milk, speculating on the nature of time, offering memories, saying Hey. It’s a pleasure to meet him, and a joy to read these poems.’ – Jonathan Edwards
‘Bert’s writing, quite simply, makes me happy. Jealous but happy.’ – Crystal Jeans
‘Wow. One of the best things I’ve read in a long time […] Bert is clearly a deliciously fresh and exciting talent, you’ve unearthed a diamond there … I thought it was ace.’ – Rhian Elizabeth

Hey Bert is a clarion call to open our eyes a little bit wider, of poetry’s capacity to find new ways of looking at our own lives. Poems that speak intensely of the everyday, of nostalgia, friendship and love, the body, the sacred, all seen through Pastore’s unique, eccentric filter of spirit animals, pop-culture, dreams and astrology.

Evoking John Giorno, Anne Waldman, and Julia Heyward, Pastore’s work draws from performance art, confessional poetry, mantra, and folklore to create a voice both fiercely contemporary and somehow out of time.