Huge thanks to Mary for her brilliant performance of Tom Sastry’s script ‘Hygiene Factors’ at our event in June! 🫧 🧼 Sharp, funny, and totally engaging from start to finish. A real highlight of the night!
🗓 Don’t forget — our next event is coming up soon:
Unheard Voices – A Night of Bold New Writing
📅 Tuesday, 14th October 2025, 19:30
📍 The Greenbank, Bristol
🎟 hdfst.uk/e133531
One of Manchester’s longest running spoken word events, Verbose, returns on Monday 30th June 2025 at the Kings Arms.
Our second headliner for June
Tom Sastry is political, ironic, emotional, morbid and funny in all the wrong places. His new collection Life Expectancy Begins To Fall is book about people whose retirement plan is dying in the climate wars and whose current plan is pretending everything is normal. It was described by Costa Award winning poet Jonathan Edwards as “the most important – and certainly the most entertaining – book about the end of the world I’ve yet found”
Tom’s previous books have been (variously) Poetry School Book of the Year, Poetry Book Society pamphlet choice, highly commended in the Forward Prize and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize.
“A magician of deadpan” – Hera Lindsay Bird
“incisive, witty, surreal, truthful” – Amy Acre
"Tom Sastry navigates the mysterious everyday...making friendships and love affairs new and strange" -Carol Ann Duffy
June´s Verbose promises to be a night to remember and we recommend securing your seat whilst you still can!
Tickets are pay what you can from the link in our bio
Verbose: Monday 30th June 2025
Kings Arms, Bloom Street Salford 7.30pm to 9.30pm
Find us on Instagram and Facebook at @verbosemcr
One of Manchester’s longest running spoken word events, Verbose, returns on Monday 30th June 2025 at the Kings Arms.
Introducing our headliners for June
Tom Sastry is political, ironic, emotional, morbid and funny in all the wrong places. His new collection Life Expectancy Begins To Fall is book about people whose retirement plan is dying in the climate wars and whose current plan is pretending everything is normal.
It was described by Costa Award winning poet Jonathan Edwards as “the most important – and certainly the most entertaining – book about the end of the world I’ve yet found”
Tom’s previous books have been (variously) Poetry School Book of the Year, Poetry Book Society pamphlet choice, highly commended in the Forward Prize and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize.
“A magician of deadpan” – Hera Lindsay Bird
“incisive, witty, surreal, truthful” – Amy Acre
"Tom Sastry navigates the mysterious everyday...making friendships and love affairs new and strange" -Carol Ann Duffy
Molly Naylor is an award-winning poet, scriptwriter, and graphic novelist. She is the co-writer and creator of Sky One comedy After Hours. Her plays have been toured nationally and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her third poetry collection Whatever You’ve Got is published by Bad Betty Press. She hosts the creativity podcast Making Trouble with Molly Naylor. Her debut novel will be published in 2026.
Photo credit – Dave Guttridge
To enter the draw for an open mic slot, please email us on [email protected] between 1st and 5th June
Tickets are pay what you can - link to follow shortly in our bio
Verbose: Monday 30th June 2025
Kings Arms, Bloom Street Salford 7.30pm to 9.30pm
Find us on Instagram and Facebook at @verbosemcr
TOMORROW! We’re back at The Orchard Coffee & Co (@theorchardcoffeeco ) for another powerful night of poetry 🎤✨
Last month, Tom Sastry (@sastrytom ) and Yhonet Garcia (@yhonetcreative ) lit up the room with sharp wit, dark humour, and deeply personal poems of survival and healing.
Don’t miss this one—tickets available via link in bio!
📸 @delphiniumlilacphotography
#RaiseTheBar #OpenMic #BristolPoetry #SpokenWordUK
Shots of all the amazing writers and poets sharing a brilliant mix of work at Talking Tales 10th Birthday edition last night @therobinhoodbristol
Entertaining, provocative, funny, poignant and inspiring - come to the summer of love edition on 17th July ❤️
What a line up - join us to hear from @jamesmcdermott1993@sastrytom and @lauriebolger_ as they celebrate their latest #poetry collections in a glorious Triple Online Book Launch.
You're invited to join us on:
Tuesday 15th April
7.30pm BST
Go to our Linktree at our bio and click into the TRIPLE LAUNCH EVENT to reserve your place by paying what you can.
We can't wait to share their poems with you.
#poetryreading #booklaunch #poetrycommunity #onlineliterature
Out in the world for one week. Have you read Life expectancy begins to fall by @sastrytom yet?
Swipe for a wonderful sample poem from the book.
Part-elegy, part-satire. A subtle meditation on hope. Explore a world where 'pessimism is complicated by love' and optimism is found hiding in moments where 'nothing happens, in the most lavish way'.
Head to the Nine Arches Press link in our bio and revel in the wit, originality and innovation of this, our latest book.
#poetry #poem #poetrycommunity
Thanks to all who came to @gloucester_rd_books Bristol for the sold-out launch of Life expectancy begins to fall by @sastrytom
Thanks to Ian Irwin for this great photo.
‘In Life expectancy begins to fall, Tom Sastry turns his great gifts - wit, originality, formal innovation - to the big subjects of our time.
This may be the most important - and certainly the most entertaining - book about subjects like the end of the world I've yet found.’ - Jonathan Edwards
‘I admire Tom Sastry’s poems for their clarity, complexity, and kindness.
Refusing the treadmill of ‘emotional correctness’ the poems riff wildly on AI poets, inverse A-Bombs and defrosting billionaires, but also our intimate moments where, ‘nothing happens, in the most lavish way.' - @calebparkinpoet
Get hold of a copy from your local #indiebookshop or direct from us at Nine Arches Press - link in bio
#poetrycommunity #poetry #booklaunch #indiepublishing
Now Published: Life expectancy begins to fall, the new poetry collection by Tom Sastry @sastrytom - “A magician of deadpan” according to Hera Lindsay Bird.
“This may be the most important - and certainly the most entertaining - book about subjects like the end of the world I’ve yet found.” - Jonathan Edwards
In Life expectancy begins to fall, Tom Sastry asks how we normalise an apocalypse, taking us on a tour of bad coping strategies, unwelcome epiphanies, and striking reminders of what we still have.
Available to buy now in our online shop, link in Linktree / bio or your favourite indie bookshops.
Fantastic cover artwork by Tom Denbigh @tom_denbigh
#poetry #independentpoetry #newpoetry #poetrypublishing #poems #poetrycommunity #poetsofinstagram
