6th May 2012

• • 
    5uNd4Y, M4y 6, 2012
  • 7:30pm

• The Malt Bar, Bury

• Join us for Bury's brand new and only regular poetry open mic! Stemming from Bury College's theatre show, Once More with Meaning is now a night of poetry, local ale, and probably a whole lot of eccentricity, judging by the kind of people us poets associate with (namely other poets). It will be a night of two halves: open mikers all get to read one poem (two if you keep it short - let that be a lesson to you), then we wrap it up with a guest for fifteen minutes. We'll have a bit of a break, get a drink from the bar, then re-commence and do it all again! (Please note that The Met is closed at this time on a Sunday, so entrance in through The Automatic restaurant) This month's guest poets: KEISHA THOMPSON Keisha has been writing poetry since her childhood. As a teenager she performed all over the country, at International poetry festivals BNV '08 & '09 and the Nuyorican Poetry cafe in New York. She is a member of Young Identity, a poetry collective which exposed her to opportunities such as featuring in Saul Williams show at Band on the Wall, Manchester. Recently she has moved on to writing short plays and short stories, one of which was turned into a short film and screened at Cornerhouse Manchester. REECE WILLIAMS Reece is a poet and performer and a member of the Young Identity and Inna Voice Collectives. He has performed internationally in Washington DC and New York, and shared the stage with some giants of poetry including Saul Williams, Jean Binta Breeze, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Kei Miller. Reece has written for the stage and for the screen and recently won the Best Film Award in the Cornerhouse UnderExposed Film Festival and ELMI ALI Elmi is a writer /performer based in the North West. He is part of the prestigious Young Identity poetry collective Manchester. He writes poetry, short stories, plays and film. This dynamic artist and enthusiastic performer has performed across the country with poets like Jean Binta Breeze, Saul Williams, Chuck Perkins, The Speakeasy Collective and The Spoken Word All Stars. Elmi has had his words displayed in the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, the Platt Hall Gallery of Costume and the Whitworth Art Gallery. ***NEW*** Once More With Meaning is now introducing a prize for open mic-ers! Currently, our focus has been on guest poets and we admit we have been neglecting our wonderful open mic-ers...no longer! From May 6th, we are introducing a prize for our open mic-ers. A slip of paper will be left on the tables of our audience and, during the show, they are able to vote for the poem they enjoyed the most for whatever reason - it can be personal, they might admire the technical skill or the delivery. At the end of the show, votes will be collected and a winner will be named. The winning poem will be published here on the Once More With Meaning blog along with a bio of the poet, so if you're in need of online publications for your writer's CV...well, this is a perfect opportunity. We hope this will not only encourage more open mic-ers, but a higher standard and some friendly competition! So go for it - we want to hear your best.