Thursday 27th March
6.30-9pm
Join us to celebrate the launch of Prickle, the debut pamphlet by Rachel Cleverly. Rachel will be joined by poets Helen Bowell, Rachel Lewis and Sarah McCreadie for a night of readings.
Rachel Cleverly’s Prickle is a deadpan dissection of modern living set against a backdrop of bed bugs, boyfriends, remote job interviews and incisive introspection. This debut is finely and effortlessly balanced, capable of extracting a laugh or smile through a deft turn in spite of the ever present sense of disquiet and unease; somehow managing to feel both completely anchored in the present moment and timeless in the same turn. She is a master in the art of sly transgression and has a knack of rendering notions you feel perhaps can't or shouldn't be said.
Rachel Cleverly is a poet, playwright and producer. Her debut pamphlet, Prickle, is forthcoming with flipped eye publishing. She is a Barbican Young Poet and an Old Vic Theatre Maker. Her writing has been shortlisted for the UEA New Forms Award, commended three times in the Winchester Poetry Prize, and published by The North, SPAM, and ACHE Magazine, among others. As a producer, Rachel has worked with organisations such as the Southbank Centre, The Poetry Society, the National Literacy Trust and Audible.
Website www.rachelcleverly.com
Instagram @rachel_cleverly
Helen Bowell's debut pamphlet The Barman (Bad Betty Press, 2022) was a Poetry Book Society Choice. Her poems, reviews and co-translations have been published in The Poetry Review, Poetry London, Modern Poetry in Translation and elsewhere. She co-directs Dead [Women] Poets Society, edited the first anthology of bi+ poets, Bi+ Lines (published by fourteen poems, 2023), and produced the Poetry Translation Centre's 20th birthday programme of events in 2024.
Rachel Lewis is a poet and creative facilitator interested in hidden pain, everyday joy and love beyond romance. Her first pamphlet on eating disorder recovery, ‘Three degrees of separation’, was published by Wordsmith HQ. She is a recipient of a 2022 Jewish Book Week Emerging Writers Award and an alumna of the Barbican Young Poets Collective. She can be found at @rachel_lewis_poet on instagram.
Sarah McCreadie is a poet, performer and lesbian heart-throb from Cardiff, based in London. She’s performed her poetry from Newport to New York, with her work published in both English and bilingually in Welsh. Sarah was named as one of Craig Charles’s Poets of the year on BBC Radio 6Music. She is an alumna of the Barbican Young Poets, a BBC 1Xtra ‘Words First’ poet and former resident artist at the Roundhouse. She has written poetry for institutions ranging from Vanity Fair to Match of the Day.