Bath Poets

On June 3rd we come together for the last event of the poetry year, our Grand Final at @bathbrewhouse where 9 slam winning poets will compete to be crowned the Bath Slam Champion! A fun, vibrant and eclectic event of spoken word slam, plus sets from our featured artist Eryn McDonald and our headliner Edward Tripp! 7pm doors (and sign up to slam), 7.30pm event starts. Slam finalists are @iwastalkingtothecat @rebeccarockerwrites @fr_gillard @osemanclive @hollybobspoetry @jaymeswithay_5 @teejpoetry @csimonstuff and @mattjthrower You can grab tickets here Find us @CandleLITSlam on Instagram or Facebook.j Slam finalists are @iwastalkingtothecat @rebeccarockerwrites @fr_gillard @osemanclive @hollybobspoetry @jaymeswithay_5 @teejpoetry @csimonstuff and @mattjthrower Edward Tripp is a multiple-slam winning performance poet, comedian, visual artist and former Bard of Exeter. Using poetry, props and the occasional theatrical effect, Edward performs at comedy nights and spoken word festivals across the UK. Edward holds the slightly dubious accolade of being the only UK City Bard to be appointed in the same week he won the Southwest ‘anti-slam’ championship. Technically, this means that Edward was recognised as the best and worst poet in his region simultaneously. Edward is originally from Northern Ireland and has lived in Devon for over twenty years. Eryn McDonald is a poet, performer, and survivor of the Bath Spa University Covid years during which they studied dance and drama and became one of those poets who can perform but can’t edit to save their life. They are a Lyra Festival Slam finalist, a two-time winner of the Milk Poetry Slam, and winner of the Mind Over Slammer Bristol Heat in 2024. They are currently touring their first pamphlet ‘Friezewood’, which explores the search for home in a queer neurodivergent body inside a mouldy weather-worn house inside a broken system. Their theatre show Girlhood on T co-created with poet Aish Humphreys will be showing at Queer Bath on the 14th of June at The Bell. https://linktr.ee/CandleLITSlam

On June 3rd we come together for the last event of the poetry year, our Grand Final at @bathbrewhouse where 9 slam winning poets will compete to be crowned the Bath Slam Champion! A fun, vibrant and eclectic event of spoken word slam, plus sets from our featured artist Eryn McDonald and our headliner Edward Tripp! 7pm doors (and sign up to slam), 7.30pm event starts. You can grab tickets here (link also in bio / linktree). Find us @CandleLITSlam on Instagram or Facebook. Slam finalists are @iwastalkingtothecat @rebeccarockerwrites @fr_gillard @osemanclive @hollybobspoetry @jaymeswithay_5 @teejpoetry @csimonstuff and @mattjthrower Edward Tripp is a multiple-slam winning performance poet, comedian, visual artist and former Bard of Exeter. Using poetry, props and the occasional theatrical effect, Edward performs at comedy nights and spoken word festivals across the UK. Edward holds the slightly dubious accolade of being the only UK City Bard to be appointed in the same week he won the Southwest ‘anti-slam’ championship. Technically, this means that Edward was recognised as the best and worst poet in his region simultaneously. Edward is originally from Northern Ireland and has lived in Devon for over twenty years. Eryn McDonald is a poet, performer, and survivor of the Bath Spa University Covid years during which they studied dance and drama and became one of those poets who can perform but can’t edit to save their life. They are a Lyra Festival Slam finalist, a two-time winner of the Milk Poetry Slam, and winner of the Mind Over Slammer Bristol Heat in 2024. They are currently touring their first pamphlet ‘Friezewood’, which explores the search for home in a queer neurodivergent body inside a mouldy weather-worn house inside a broken system. Their theatre show Girlhood on T co-created with poet Aish Humphreys will be showing at Queer Bath on the 14th of June at The Bell. https://linktr.ee/CandleLITSlam With thanks to @mrbsemporium for donating a book voucher to our prize fund.

On May 4th we return to our newly refurbished home at @bathbrewhouse ! Join us for the CandleLIT Slam at The Bath Brew House where 9 poets will compete to be crowned the winner! A fun, vibrant and eclectic event of spoken word slam, plus sets from our featured artists Jaymes with a Y and Teej!

 7pm doors (and sign up to slam), 7.30pm event starts. The event costs £5 for a seat, £3.50 to stand at the back - but there is a 50p surcharge when ordering your tickets online to help pay the ticketing system costs! We have discount codes if you face financial barriers, just message us for the code which you apply at check out! 

 You can grab tickets (including one of the six pre-bookable slammer spaces) here or comment ‘tickets’ to get the link automatically sent to you. Find us @CandleLITSlam on Instagram or Facebook. Jaymes is a queer, disabled poet living in Bath. His poetry explores themes of identity, found family and the nuances of every day life, which is amplified by his active work in the community. Co-host and founder of Safe-T Pin Bath (a trans led variety night) and performing at SARI’s Voices of Victims event for Hate Crime Awareness Week, Jaymes always aims to uplift the unheard. Further successes for this Overachieving Performative Masc include being a 2x Semi Finalist at Uni Slam, a Lyra Fest Grand Finalist in 2025 and being published in the Chimes Community Anthology. All in all, Jaymes uses their poetry as a form of activism, turning their words into a home for raw honesty, resistance and power. TJ is a Bath-based multi genre poet and friendly local witch. Representing Bath Spa, they were a semi-finalist in UniSlams 2021 and 2022. They explore themes of sexuality, grief, and mental health, while dabbling in mythology, cryptozoology, and the ancient art of self-deprecation.

Next Friday for the Larkhall Festival! Be there or be sat at home wishing you were there… Featuring: Peter Roe is The Grand Bard of Dorset (2024-29), The Managing Editor/Director/Publisher of The Jawbone Collective and The Jawbone Journal. A physically disabled, Neurodivergent, prize winning performance poet with three published poetry collections and a novelette. Long-listed, short listed and widely anthologised numerous times. His philosophical, comedic and life affirming poetry covers topics from Falling in Love with Your Barista and Pescatarian Mermaids to Smartphone Zombies and Political Fuckwittery! “The Gandalf of Poetry” “Like Pam Ayres but a bloke!” “Poetry meets Cohen” “His writing is better than a doctor’s!” Dr Bernie Munoz Chereau is a Chilean psychologist, writer, academic, community gardener and mother that settled in the UK 15 years ago. She battled homesickness creating Herbs Yourself, a guerrilla culinary and medicinal herb garden tugged in Fishponds, a few steps away from her house in Bristol. Herbs Yourself has become a community hub, and an alternative to the supermarket and the pharmacy to combat all sorts of ailments. She recollected the process in her memoir “Herbs Yourself: A Year At The Community Garden” (Mugwort Press, 2025). Instagram: @herbs.yourself and @berniviajera Books on sale on the night for £10 and online at East Bristol Books. Open mic (no mic) for anything short and spoken, expect some laughs and back by popular demand (well, actually back because they’re fun) - bookswap for World Book Night, bring a book, and Shhhpeakeasy Hidden Word poems on a postcard to be hidden in The Beaufort Bookshop. All for free! (Other than the cost of drinks and snacks at the bar and all the merch you’ll buy from the guests, of course!) See you all there!

CONTENT WARNING: OCD, compulsions and trichotillomania. Last month we had our first ever virtual slam, inviting poets who lived within 5 miles of Bath to send in videos whilst our awesome venue @bathbrewhouse got refurbished! 

 Today we want to share the winning poem, which happened to have been filmed AT CandleLIT in February! You can catch @teejpoetry performing a full set alongside @jaymeswithay_5 on May 6th! You can grab tickets (including one of the two remaining pre-bookable slammer spaces) here Find us @CandleLITSlam on Instagram or Facebook.
 
7pm doors (and sign up to slam), 7.30pm event starts. The event costs £5 for a seat, £3.50 to stand at the back - but there is a 50p surcharge when ordering your tickets online to help pay the ticketing system costs! We have discount codes if you face financial barriers, just message us for the code which you apply at check out! 

 TJ is a Bath-based multi genre poet and friendly local witch. Representing Bath Spa, they were a semi-finalist in UniSlams 2021 and 2022. They explore themes of sexuality, grief, and mental health, while dabbling in mythology, cryptozoology, and the ancient art of self-deprecation.

On May 4th we return to our newly refurbished home at @bathbrewhouse ! Join us for the CandleLIT Slam at The Bath Brew House where 9 poets will compete to be crowned the winner! A fun, vibrant and eclectic event of spoken word slam, plus sets from our featured artists Jaymes with a Y and Teej!

 7pm doors (and sign up to slam), 7.30pm event starts. The event costs £5 for a seat, £3.50 to stand at the back - but there is a 50p surcharge when ordering your tickets online to help pay the ticketing system costs! We have discount codes if you face financial barriers, just message us for the code which you apply at check out! 

 You can grab tickets (including one of the six pre-bookable slammer spaces) here or comment ‘tickets’ to get the link automatically sent to you. Find us @CandleLITSlam on Instagram or Facebook. Jaymes is a queer, disabled poet living in Bath. His poetry explores themes of identity, found family and the nuances of every day life, which is amplified by his active work in the community. Co-host and founder of Safe-T Pin Bath (a trans led variety night) and performing at SARI’s Voices of Victims event for Hate Crime Awareness Week, Jaymes always aims to uplift the unheard. Further successes for this Overachieving Performative Masc include being a 2x Semi Finalist at Uni Slam, a Lyra Fest Grand Finalist in 2025 and being published in the Chimes Community Anthology. All in all, Jaymes uses their poetry as a form of activism, turning their words into a home for raw honesty, resistance and power. TJ is a Bath-based multi genre poet and friendly local witch. Representing Bath Spa, they were a semi-finalist in UniSlams 2021 and 2022. They explore themes of sexuality, grief, and mental health, while dabbling in mythology, cryptozoology, and the ancient art of self-deprecation.

We can’t wait to share with you the winner’s poetry soon, but we are thrilled to announce right now that your April virtual slam winner is @teejpoetry ! Teej will be performing a set at our May 6th event - we will drop the poster VERY soon and tickets (and slammer sign ups) will start then. Keep an eye on our story for the 24 hour warning post. Congratulations to Teej our winner, the second and third place poets @f3lix1r and @requiem.for.the.sky and all the poets who entered this slam for making it a gorgeous competitive fight to the finish. We have ONE more in person slam before our Grand Final in June, so there are two more chances to join the final. Win the May slam, or be the highest second place of any of our slams this year. Who will join @iwastalkingtothecat @rebeccarockerwrites @fr_gillard @osemanclive @hollybobspoetry @jaymeswithay_5 and @teejpoetry to fight it out for the ultimate candle trophy (may not contain candle, to be decided haha).

After 4 days of judging the results are in! We are delighted to announced that the three poets moving forward to Round Two are @f3lix1r @requiem.for.the.sky and @teejpoetry ! We will be seeing another poem from them and then announcing the winner on April 20th, ready for their winner's set on May 6th (our next in-person event in the newly refurbished @bathbrewhouse ). We just want to take a moment to thank everyone who entered, we were truly blown away by the quality of all of the poems we got to listen to this week and it was very close at the top! We hope to see you at our in person events, or if we repeat the virtual slam next year (and yes, we heard y'all, if we run another it'll have a much larger inclusivity radius! hehe). Either way, thank you so much for sharing your emotive, funny, and passionate works with us! Stay tuned for the slam winner and the ticket drop for our May slam next week! Plus we will be sharing some videos from the video slam in the upcoming weeks for our community to also enjoy them!

This month things are going to be a lil different… Our beautiful venue @bathbrewhouse is having renovations so we’re taking this thing virtual. For one month only you can enter our slam via video, and still be in contention to win a candle trophy, a paid slot, and a space in our Grand Final in June alongside the other monthly winners and our wildcard entry. We know this is a whole new thing so we’ve laid it all out on our website (link in bio & linktree) to make sure it’s all clear. But the tl;dr is. If you live within 5 miles of the outskirts of Bath send us a video poem for round one BEFORE APRIL 6th. Then the 3 highest scoring poets from round one will be asked for a second poem for round 2. Highest scorer from round 2 wins. Simple! We’re so excited to open CandleLIT up to people who can’t usually join us on a Wednesday evening! Any questions? Drop them in the comments and we cannot WAIT to see your poems!!

STOP SCROLLING!!! There's still time to book onto my Poetry writing workshop for @curiousmindsfest (Link in bio or at end of this) This workshop will be accessible to all, no matter what stage your at in your writing journey, and a chance to try some new forms and techniques, there is always something new to learn & yet to be uncovered! Exploring Alternative Forms in Poetry with Manganaro - A Writing Workshop Wednesday 18 March 2026 15:00-17:00 @jesterscomedyclub Break the rules, bend the form and find your poetic edge in this playful, inclusive writing workshop. Poetry: a form of writing that allows us to jump through line breaks, punctuate the unexpected, and explain meanings with metaphors. Come and discover the many ways poetry can deviate from the traditional. During this friendly workshop we'll take a look at some examples of unusual poetry, as well as it at play in zines and performance. We'll then warm up with some writing exercises, ready for participants to find their unique twist. All abilities welcome and there is the option to showcase your work at The Open Mic night back at Jesters (sign up from 6:30pm, doors 7:30pm, start at 8pm. £1 entry) About Manganaro Manganaro is a poet, performer, and event organiser. They’ve performed across the UK and their writing explores themes of identity, bilingual experience, everyday nuances, drawing on the personal side of the political. Manganaro was a 2025 Queer Bath award recipient, the 2024 DIVA Magazine Lesbian Visibility Week poetry competition winner, and have supported artists such as Alice Oswald. Their work has been featured on BBC upload and in exhibitions as part of Fringe Arts Bath. /events/exploring-alternative-forms-in-poetry-with-manganaro-a-writing-workshop

BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW (NOT in an hour, or tomorrow, or next week, NOW) for the most major line up of poetry Bath has seen in a while! I put so much love & work into curating this line up (some of the most loved humans in UK poetry) and I'd hate for you to miss out Tyrone & Jas I met through @uni_slam & Anthony is a true force of nature with his work All Stars Poetry Evening with Anthony Anaxagorou, Tryone Lewis and Jasmine Gardosi with open mic slots available on the door this is seriously not an event to miss!!! Tuesday 24 March 2026, 19:30-22:00, St Swithin's Church Three powerhouse voices. One electrifying stage. A must-see night of live spoken word. This event, specially commissioned for Curious Minds, brings three of the UK’s most exciting spoken word artists to Bath for a night of live poetry. Anthony Anaxagorou is an award-winning poet, fiction writer and publisher. His collection Heritage Aesthetics won the RSL Ondaatje Prize, and his work is known for its clarity, political insight and emotional depth. Jasmine Gardosi, former Birmingham Poet Laureate, is a slam champion and beatbox poet whose performances move between spoken word, rhythm and sound, exploring identity, mental health and belonging. Tyrone Lewis, UK Poetry Slam Champion and author of Blackish and 2 Black 2 Furious, brings sharp humour and pop-culture insight, delivering work that is immediate, engaging and unforgettable. The line-up brings three distinct voices to the same stage, offering something special whether it’s your first time watching live poetry or you’re a seasoned fan. The night is hosted by Manganaro, multi award-winning Bath-based poet. There will also be 10 open mic slots available on the door, giving emerging poets the chance to perform alongside this outstanding line-up. There will be books available to buy on the night with signings in the intervals, supported by Mr B’s Emporium of Books Book Tickets HERE & NOW /events/all-stars-poetry-evening-with-anthony-anaxagouro-tryone-lewis-and-jasmine-gardosi @jasminegardosi @anthony_anaxagorou @tyronelewis22 @bathartscollective @bathpoets @curiousmindsfest

Post 2 of 2 / We thought Wednesday night would be enough to thaw ourselves out from the cold winter months and we were right! As warming as a hearty bowl of chicken noodle soup. We can’t wait to see you back at @bathbrewhouse in May. Details of our April video slam coming soon! Thanks to our featured artist @0_luckyduck_0 , our incredible headliner @calthepoet , our fantastic slammers and our gorgeous audience for another sold out evening of poetry on a week night. See you soon! 🕯️