HOT POETS - THE ENERGY CITIES POEM
Chris Redmond and Liv Torc from Hot Poets have been at the Energy Cities Annual Forum in Guimarães, Portugal - writing a poem for the conference about green transitioning cities...
Huge thank you to everyone at Energy City, especially Anna Francis, who brought us along.
Who’s Telling Me What? By Chris Redmond
There’s a lot of noise isn’t there?
Everyone’s got an opinion, an agenda, a business, a political idea. I find it easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of information and the range of things it’s makes me feel.
This is a note to self (and any other scrollers!) to remember to question, to step back and remember this space has been designed to keep our attention.
It’s ok to stop. It’s ok to walk in the woods. It’s ok to feel our own bodies and notice what they are telling us.
In fact it’s more than OK. It’s necessary. To reset. To find clarity amongst the chaos.
Have a good day x
New Poem!
I was sitting in a park with my 12 year old daughter. We found some torn up scraps of a gardening book under the bench we were sitting on.
We decided to make a poem out of little pieces of it. It’s a weirdly satisfying mix of instructional nonsense with a lot of familiar images. Something in the certainly of the instructions, even though they don’t make sense, is comforting. Every word is from the scraps. We called it, ‘And also of Turban’
Then a shield bug landed on my daughter’s watch and reminded us that nature always works in its own time and has its own hidden rules that we can sometimes get a sense of if we sit still for long enough and make ourselves listen from the inside out. Or something.
Tongue Fu comes to Bournemouth Writing Festival this Saturday 25th April with our forever entertaining mix of spoken word and improv music.
Delighted to be joined by long time Tongue Fu collaborator, Vanessa Kisuule
Vanessa is a writer, performer and facilitator based in Bristol. She has won
over ten poetry slam titles and performed nationally and internationally. She has
worked with and written for the BBC, the British Library, The Guardian, the Tate,
Royal Academy of Arts, Bristol Old Vic, CILIP and Glastonbury Festival.
She was Bristol City Poet (2018–20) and her poem on the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue, ‘Hollow’, has received over 700,000 views and is frequently used as a teaching resource.
Vanessa writes and presents The Poetry Detective for BBC Radio 4 and has two collections with Burning Eye Books. Her poetry has been widely anthologised, including in the Forward Poetry Prize Anthology 2019. She is co-tutor for the Southbank New Poets Collective, co-editor for Bad Betty Press and has judged the Forward Prizes and the Foyle Young Poets Award (2024). Her debut non-fiction book Neverland: The Pleasures and Perils of Fandom was published by Canongate in 2024.
Also joining us is the wonderful @jonny_fluffypunk
Hosted by Chris Redmond @chrisredmondmakesstuff
Fu band
@rosshughesmusic@mattbrowndrums.6161
Riaan Vosloo
Show 7.30-9.30pm
Tickets £15
Info and tickets in link in bio
@bournemouthwritingfestival
Photo Jon Aitken
Delighted to be bringing Tongue Fu to Bournemouth Writing Festival.
@bournemouthwritingfestival
And even more delighted to be joined by the one and only Jonny Fluffypunk as one of our featured poets.
@jonnyfluffypunk
Stand-up poet, lo-fi theatremaker and self-made underachiever Jonny Fluffypunk has been dragging his art around the UK and occasionally beyond for over 25 years, deafly fusing bittersweet autobiography, disillusionment and wonder into an act that has established him as a firm favourite at gigs, festivals and housing benefit offices across the UK and occasionally beyond.
Sat 25th April
7.30-9.30pm
Pavilion Dance, Bournmemouth
£15
Also featuring Vanessa Kisuule
Hosted by @chrisredmondmakesstuff with Tongue Fu band - @rosshughesmusic@mattbrowndrums.6161 & Riaan Vosloo
COME! It will be joy. We all need a bit of that!
Tickets in link in bio
With our work at @hot_poets we are championing the role of poetry and the arts to be a key component of a broader approach to climate and sustainability education.
I recently had the great privilege of attending a training day at @ucl with their Centre for Climate Change and sustainability in Education. It was for PGCE students studying primary education. I ran two workshops for them using our classroom resources.
If you have a school which might be a good fit for Hot Poets education programme please send them our way.
Frome Youth Climate Action out in town yesterday with their powerful message for us with their Plastic Bones artwork made with the support of @juliestarks.artist and campaign.
‘Don’t be a gannet save our planet
Use less plastic, this is drastic’ 🔥
Future Shed @edventurefrome are so pleased to have supported this initiative, led by the wonderful @chrisredmondmakesstuff who truly has held this project, which started back in the summer of ‘25 building a group of interested 12-18yr olds, with great care and dedication in amongst all the massive @hot_poets work! 🙏🏼🌍💚
Since last Saturday we now have twice as many young people who want to get involved going forward 😊❤️ … Now the Future Shed residency programme, led by @suepalmer_23 , that supported these projects about climate and health, is coming to an end, we will be looking for further funding. We are hugely grateful to the Climate Action Fund @tnlcommunityfund which enabled this to happen and to reach this point 💚🌍🙏🏼
#plasticbones #uselessplastic #futurecouncil #fromesomerset #thetimeisnow⏰
Frome Youth Climate Action Group give voice to their thoughts, responses and ideas as part of our screening of the powerful film Future Council @future__council film @togetherfilms_
Future Council follows 8 young people on a journey to see how they can understand and transform the systems enabling the climate crisis. It’s a tender, emotional and uplifting film - and deeply inspired our audience too.
The young people were focused and deeply thoughtful around what we can do, supported by the group lead Chris @chrisredmondmakesstuff
Stepping up and into climate action, speaking out … we can all do a bit more and it makes a difference🌍 we all need a liveable 🌎
The Future Council screening came after our trip through Frome with Plastic Bones - the art work made by the young people with @juliestarks.artist
250 flyers with info about plastic pollution were given out with clear info about how to take action.
The group will be back out in Frome this Saturday 14 - come and see! Come and show your support. Go to Victoria Park at 12 noon or find them in the town centre / Westway around 12.45pm.
We're part of Imagine at @southbankcentre in February half term with a @tonguefushow for Kids!
Join us for an adventure in poetry, science and music as we celebrate protectors of our planet, with performers @katefoxwriter , @jasminegardosi and @testamenthomecut .
Tell all your London-based pals with little ones - they're going to love it!
#halfterm #london #poetry
Starting off the new year grateful for 400 copies sold in the first month, to families, schools and even a class of PhD students!
To celebrate, @josiealfordpoet walked to the prettiest part of Bristol to take pictures of our even more beautiful book!
Get your copy at hot poets.com
Sometimes my daughters experiment with what I’d look like with a comb-over. You’re welcome.
Also, this is the tired smile of a man who has worked his nuts off for months. Comb overs cheer me up.
One of the products of the work/hustle is this book. I’m very very pleased with it. It is a unique, hopeful, science-backed compendium of extraordinary stories, humans and projects happening now to make the world a healthier place to live. It’s for 9-13 year olds. Every copy sold supports our education programme, which starts in the new year.
Tonight I will be celebrating this book at @rye_bakery Frome with my co-pilot (and book designer) @livtorc@munchsushimatt (Matt Harvey to everyone else - our excellent editor) and @hot_poets team and friends.
If you fancy it, we will be reading from the book and making merry. You can get tickets on the door.
head to @hot_poets bio for more info.
Big gloves
