Sutton Coldfield Festival of Arts

• Venue: Royal Hotel - Cafe Kitchen

A varied menu of poetry to suit all tastes will be served up in Café Kitchen at The Royal Hotel on Saturday July 12 from 11am to 4pm. Sutton Coldfield’s own Julie Boden, a Birmingham Poet Laureate who is currently Poet in Residence at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, returns to Sutton Coldfield to perform some of her poetry and to host an exciting gathering of poets.

A selection of Suttonian scribes including Penny Harper, Jan Wild, Christine Coleman and Hazell Hills will introduce fellow members of their writing groups. We will hear from Scopus, Splinters, Cannon Poets, Inktank. Combination Poets, Gitanjali Multilingual Writers’ Forum and A Company of Poets.

Julie Boden and Mike Wyndham Thomas perform On The Cusp, Mike also performs talking blues with Dave Reeves. Chris Hoskins offers up a selection of poetry and song. Don Barnard (a former Birmingham Poet Laureate) and Beth Somerford perform Out Of Our Depth. Writers such as Helen Dennis and Joel Lane and an array of professional musicians promise to pop into Sutton on the day to join Julie in the festivities. Even Bluebeard’s Wives have escaped from their dungeons and will be reading from their Heaventree Press anthology on the day.

At this event Julie will also launch the ‘Poetree’ educational project which will take poetry into Sutton Coldfield schools in 2008/2009. Bring along your own poems on the theme of Work or Play to add to the Poetree, come along to sit back, to listen and enjoy – and for the brave amongst you - there may be one or two slots still available on the day for Sutton Coldfield poets.

Visit www.julieboden.co.uk