Wednesday 7 April 2010

A Word on Word!

‘Word!’ is the longest running poetry and spoken word night in the East Midlands. Hosted at The Y Theatre in Leicester, a gorgeous venue with large round tables, red velvet chairs and bursting with a palpable creative atmosphere, Word! offers a much needed platform for poets and spoken word artists. For most of the evening it is ran as a highly organised open mic night, with slots available to any artist who gets to the venue and puts their name down by 7 that evening. Such a format gives the audience the chance to delve into different approaches and styles of writing that reading privately could never offer. Word! is then concluded with a booked headline act, and in the past has hosted such poets as Rob Gee, Joolz Denby, Malika Booker, Steve Rooney and Lucy English to name but a few.

Last night, in partnership with Staple Magazine, Word! delighted the audience with the majestic Mimi Khalvati, the founder of The Poetry School and a truly inspiring poet. She has published 6 collections of poetry with Carcanet Press. Her most recent book, The Meanest Flower, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, a Financial Times Book of the Year, and also Short-listed for the TS Eliot Prize. Mimi was mesmerising, and won the hearts of the audience not only with her wonderful poetry but also her kind and gentile personality, instantly putting everyone at ease and taking us on inspiring journey through her life via the medium of poetry. I came away from Word! feeling invigorated and bursting with new ideas thanks to the magic of good poetry.

For more information on Word! see here http://www.myspace.com/wordleicester

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