The Final Kulturá

August at Kulturá

July at Kulturá

June at Kulturá

May at Kulturá

April at Kulturá

January at Kulturá

December at Kulturá

Loud and Clear

November's Kulturá was an exciting evening which saw the event permanently move from the cosy cellar to the delightful upper floor area of Kava Cafe due to the continual increase in audience members.

Guest lecturer, Clare Shaw, delivered a powerful, moving and memorial lecture entitled 'Poetry and Self-Harm.'

Feature poet, Lucy Burnett read from her first collection of poetry, Leaf Graffiti as well as her latest creative project, Through the Weather Glass.



This month's poetry discussion revolved around Vicki Feaver's poem Judith, the 1993 Forward Prize winner of best single poem, read by Shirley-Anne Kennedy.

Many of our open mic poets continued with the themes raised by Clare and Lucy in the earlier part of the evening. It was lovely to see so many new faces and hear new, varied and talented voices.

Thanks to Dave, Svetta and Danny at Kava Cafe for the wonderful hospitality on the night.

Due to the Christmas festivities December's Kulturá will be held on the 17th when the last in our 2015 series of lectures will be delivered by the poet John Duffy and our feature poet for the evening will be Maria Isakova Bennett.

November At Kulturá

Spotlight On Jackie Phillips

Each month at Kulturá we feature one of our Open Mic poets on the blog.
October's Spotlight fell on Jackie Phillips.

Jackie Phillips is a forty-something year old mother of three boys.  She works full-time as a Brand/Digital Marketing Manager and has been married for 23 years to her very supportive husband Tony who runs her local group of Cub Scouts as Akela.

Jackie says that since the first time she found a pencil in her hand she has been writing in one form or another but until eighteen months ago she kept all of her work hidden away in a darkened corner. That is until she entered Rochdale’s Literature and Ideas Festival, Poetry Competition. She was amazed when she won the competition and it gave her confidence enough to begin sharing her writing with others.

Now, just a short time later, she is regular attendee at Kulturá and other open mic events in the area, where she enjoys listening to other poets and performing herself. Jackie says she has learnt so much from attending these events, met many wonderful people and made some truly amazing new friends.

What I is

I is not man
I is not yours
I is not the other half
I is not unimportant
I is not weak
I is not helpless
I is not invisible
I is not deaf
I is not impossible
I is not unfeeling
I is not the problem
I is not heard
I is not content
I is not confined
I is not represented
I is not defined
I is not silent
I is not understood
I is not alone
I is not you
I is woman

© Jackie Phillips

Spotlight On Ian Duhig

Ian Duhig was our guest lecturer in October.

Ian has won the National Poetry Competition - twice. His forthcoming book,
The Blind Roadmaker, will be published by Picador in February 2016.

Two of Ian's poems were published in the Autumn 2015 edition of Poetry London  and an interview with him can be read in The Compass Magazine.

Wallflowers at Beverley
i.m. Mike Donaghy 

More instruments ring these walls than raised a roof
for God throughout all medieval Christendom;
stone arcades spring like dancers from the Minster floor,
keyed to their lord's calling-on song 'Da Mihi Manum'.

The Irish call the parchment drum this angel quiets
a bodhrán, though she lacks the ordinary beater:
Mike held his like a pen above the skin in wait,
counting on his own heart to inspire each tattoo.

But he might change to flute for quieter audiences,
bored without dancers' feet to ground his syncopation;
when he charmed them with Ruaidhrí Dall's 'Give Me Your Hand',
they applauded and rose to the dash of his playing —

so Mike's book Wallflowers notes offbeat theories:
that we're all God's three-dimensional handwriting
or how a pin's head really can stage angels' ceilidhs —
another made dance the mother of all languages;

then it gives all 'This Living Hand', Keats' last poem,
which dampens my skin like the touch of a felt mute.
I'll sit out this stone angel till she leaves her drum,
raises and plays something quick on an Irish flute.

© Ian Duhig

Poetry Todd

What a fabulous event October's Kulturá was.

Ian Duhig delivered a enthralling lecture entitled, The Blind Man's Road and Wendy Pratt delighted us with her sterling poetry.

Eileen Earnshaw read her favourite poem,  Production Lines by Robyn Rowland (Gallipoli/Çanakkale 1915translated by Dr Mehmet Ali Çelikel, Five Islands Press) a Gallipoli poem from a female perspective.

Eight poets read enthusiastically in the open-mic. Members of the audience included the poets Sheila Wild, Judy Kendall and Peter Riley.  Mr Write Out Loud himself, globetrotter Julian Jordan, honoured us with his presence and a review.

Thanks to Dave and Svetta at Kava Cafe for the wonderful hospitality on the night and for allowing us to hire the whole of Kava form January 2016.

Clare Shaw is our guest lecturer in November's and Lucy Burnett the feature poet.

October At Kulturá

Spotlight on Bob Horne

Each month at Kulturá we feature one of our Open Mic poets on the blog.
September's Spotlight fell on Bob Horne.

 'Bob Horne has an MA in Poetry from Huddersfield University. He has been writing poems seriously for a couple of years and has a collection, Knowing My Place, coming out in 2016. He helps to organise Puzzle Hall Poets in Sowerby Bridge and regularly attends sessions of the Albert Poets in Huddersfield and Gaia Holmes's Igniting the Spark workshops at Dean Clough in Halifax. He has also started a small publishing concern, Calder Valley Poetry. Its first pamphlet is currently in preparation.

Bob has played in a rugby team which beat Wasps, hooked a West Indian fast bowler for six, and finished ahead of an Olympic gold medallist in a World Championship race.'

White-Tailed Eagle 

I cross the trackless Parph.
Behind me indifferent Atlantic waves
break along the length of Sandwood Bay,
with its red-haired mermaid,
its bearded sailor still knocking at night
on the windows of the broken bothy.
Beneath the dunes, shepherds say,
wrecks of longship and galleon
have been smothered for centuries.

Massive tussocks make for hard going.
I rest on my stick, face north
towards the oldest rocks there are
then nothing but cold seas
to the Pole and beyond.

Like a sheet of white shadow
close enough to disconcert
it climbs from the cottongrass,
iolaire sùil na grèine -
eagle of the sunlit eye -
smoulders for a moment,
still as a Stone Age carving,
until it rises, in its own time,
above this wilderness, the bay, the ocean,
leaves me at best
a fleck of a far-off star
whose gleam may never reach
this earth.

 © Bob Horne

Past and Present

What a special Kulturá night September's event was. 

Peter Riley gave an assured, critically incisive lecture on the work of John Riley and Anne Caldwell read with an engaging warmth from past and new work. A fabulous pairing. Thank you Peter and Anne.

A strong open mic included readings by David Cooke, Bob Horne, Emma Decent, Shirley-Anne Kennedy, Andy Smith and Seamus Kelly. Great to see the poets Charlotte Wetton and Sarah Corbett in the audience.





In our poetry debate section Marian Tonge read 'To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence' by James Elroy Flecker. A lively discussion followed.

A football in Brazil's colours has been signed by yet more poets to entice Steve Ely to return to Kulturá for a third time in 2015, read in the open mic, and collect his signed hat-trick ball.

Peter Riley's pamphlet, including out of print poems by John Riley can be ordered via our blog, leave a comment here if you would like one and we will be in touch. There are only a few copies left.

In October Ian Duhig is delivering the lecture and Wendy Pratt is feature poet.

Dale Hibbert and Sveta have agreed to let Kulturá run our event from Kava in 2016. Thanks to Dale, Sveta and staff. 

Spotlight on Keith Hutson

Each month at Kulturá we feature one of our Open Mic poets on the blog.
August's Spotlight fell on Keith Hutson.















Keith has written for Coronation Street and many well-known comedians. Since starting to submit his poetry a couple of years ago, he's been in several journals including The Rialto, The North, Butcher's Dog, Pennine Platform, and has work forthcoming in Stand, The Interpreter's House and Magma. This year he won a Poetry Business Yorkshire Prize, judged by Billy Collins. Keith used to co-edit the online journal Hinterland, and he runs a creative writing class at the Square Chapel in Halifax, where he also hosts the monthly WordPlay spoken word and music event. He delivers poetry and performance workshops for Children And The Arts (Prince's Trust). He coaches boxing too.

The Observer’s Book of Ships 

Wet again in Devon. Plastic macs
drip shallows on the café floor.
Everyone’s fed up, but facts are facts:
there’s no return, till after four,

to Mrs Frigate’s guesthouse. Someone
tells him not to slurp his milkshake –
can’t be done. Dad and Uncle aren’t on
speaking terms. Mum and Auntie fake

a smile, beaming at the pepper pot,
the rain hats on their laps, his egg
and chips. He’d like to raise a laugh, but
that’s not easy with your leg red

from a recent slap. The damp and heat
steam from his betters’ flattened hair,
casting family as an aging fleet
decked out in Co-op leisure wear.

There’s treasure in his pocket, untouched
till another pot of tea heaves
to. He shifts and fidgets just enough
to sneak it out and thumb the leaves

below the tablecloth. Nobody knows
he’s spent his spends, the lot, on one
compendium of tonnage, tankers, bows
and port sides, plimsoll lines and trim.

Hold hard me hearty until hammock-ho!
– safe waters for a boy’s delight
in flags and funnels, brig and ballast. Stow
that cargo! Keep it covered. Sail at night.

© Keith Hutson

September At Kulturá

Calder and Beyond

August at Kulturá delivered yet another wonderful evening of poetry and great company.

Thanks to Sarah Corbett and Kim Moore for a wonderful night. Sarah delivered a fantastic lecture and feature poet Kim Moore, despite feeling compromised by a bad cough charmed us all. Keith Hutson, read for Kim when her voice faltered. It was a double act celebrating Kim's poetry. The audience really appreciated Kim's efforts to be there and perform when she felt she could have cancelled.

In the words of Bob Horne:

 "Another wonderful evening at Kava, expertly organised by Anthony and Shirley-Anne. Great to meet Kim Moore, whose poems I've admired since I first came across them. And if you don't follow her weekly Sunday blog, begin now - https://kimmoorepoet.wordpress.com. 

Sarah Corbett, clothed in the Calder valley, started things with an engrossing Hughes/Plath-inspired lecture. Andy Smith got us all talking with his reading of Paul Muldoon's 'Why Brownlee Left'. Followed by a rich variety of open mic contributions." 

This month's poetry discussion took place around 'Why Brownlee Left', by Paul Muldoon, chosen and read by Andy Smith. A lively discussion ensued.





10 open mic poets read:

• Shirley-Anne Kennedy 
• Anthony Costello 
• Jacqui Phillips 
• Marion Tonge 
• Bob Horne 
• Andy Smith 
• Pete Slater
• Joe Kozarzewski 
• Annie
• Keith Hutson 

Thanks to Dale and Zveta at Káva Kafe and our sponsors Sheila Wild, the artist James Fearon and The Elmet Trust.

September's Kulturá will feature Peter Riley and Anne Caldwell. We hope you will join us.

August at Kulturá