A Lovely Word at St James Gardens and online

A Lovely Word at the Henge, online, 6 August 2020, free entry - Find Out More

Having branched out from its usual home at the Everyman Street Café into the ether, Liverpool’s spoken word stalwart A Lovely Word is now gearing up to relocate outdoors for a one-off special on Thursday 6 August, taking place at St James Gardens just below the imposing Anglican Cathedral (please note change of venue). Featured poets include poet and songwriter Patrick Clarke, grassroots poet Gerry Clarkson and multi-disciplinary artist Dorcas Sebuyange.

The open-air event is free to attend and seating is ‘bring your own blankets’

Following the announcement on 9 July by Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden that performing arts could resume outdoors from 11 July with a socially distanced audience present, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, who support A Lovely Word, teamed up with the Unusual Art Sourcing Company to bring the usual poetry open mic to this outdoor setting.

A Lovely Word at St James Gardens will see featured poets perform alongside open micers both in the open and online (there are 10 physical slots and three online), and audience members are invited to watch in the park or via a live stream on YouTube. The open-air event is free to attend and seating is ‘bring your own blankets’ with facemasks required and allocated seating plots to ensure safe social distancing. Readers are encouraged to sign up to perform on the open mic by emailing (27-31 July) alovelywordpodcast@gmail.com and confirming your full name, mobile number and if you’d prefer to perform on ‘stage’ or online.

Be sure also to check out A Lovely Word’s Facebook page for details of their upcoming online workshops (28 July, 4 and 18 August). The second in the summer series of free spoken word workshops takes place on 28 July and will focus on writing and poetry. Hosting is previous headliner of A Lovely Word, Amina Atiq, a Yemeni-Scouse writer, performance artist, facilitator and activist, who has been featured on various artistic platforms from BBC radio to Liverpool’s Writing On The Wall festival.

On 4 August, poet, playwright and performer Nafeesa Hamid will expand on her previous workshop, which focused on finding your voice, and, on 18 August, there will be a scratch workshop, when participants share a new piece or writing and get feedback and comments from the group. This workshop space is open and inclusive, non-judgemental in nature and based on enhancing people’s practice in terms of performance through critical and constructive engagement with their work. Go for it!