Happy New Year! I hope you all had a good Christmas? Why not start the New Year with poetry – come to Loose Muse at the Discovery Centre in Winchester on Monday 14th January, 7.30pm – 9.30pm £6 on the door and begin the year with two guest poets, Katrina Naomi and Janine Booth plus our very popular Open Mic.
I had the good fortune to meet Katrina Naomi last year at Kim Moore’s Poetry Residential in St. Ives and hear her read. She was excellent so I swiftly set about acquiring her for Loose Muse where I am delighted to say she will start our New Year in style!
I had the good fortune to meet Katrina Naomi last year at Kim Moore’s Poetry Residential in St. Ives and hear her read. She was excellent so I swiftly set about acquiring her for Loose Muse where I am delighted to say she will start our New Year in style!
Katrina Naomi is a poet, tutor/poetry mentor, translator and critic. She received a commission from BBC Local Radio for National Poetry Day 2018. She has just been awarded a 2018 Authors’ Foundation grant from the Society of Authors for work on her third poetry collection, which is due in June 2020 from Seren.
Katrina’s Japan-themed pamphlet ,’Typhoon Etiquette’ will be published by Verve Poetry Press in April 2019. She wrote these poems on an Arts Council-funded writing trip to Japan.
Katrina’s poetry has appeared in ‘The TLS’, ‘The Poetry Review’, ‘Modern Poetry in Translation’, and on BBC Radio 4 (Front Row and Poetry Please).Her poem ‘The Bicycle’ features in The Forward Book of Poetry 2017.
Her most recent full collection is The Way the Crocodile Taught Me (Seren, 2016).
Katrina tutors for Arvon, the 
Poetry School and Ty Newydd, and runs Poetry Surgeries for the Poetry Society. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths (her research is on violence in contemporary poetry). In 2016, Katrina was writer-in-residence at the Arnolfini and in 2018 at the Leach Pottery. In 2015 she became a post-doctoral researcher at Goldsmiths and was made a Hawthornden Fellow. She has also received an award from the Royal Literary Fund.
Poetry School and Ty Newydd, and runs Poetry Surgeries for the Poetry Society. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths (her research is on violence in contemporary poetry). In 2016, Katrina was writer-in-residence at the Arnolfini and in 2018 at the Leach Pottery. In 2015 she became a post-doctoral researcher at Goldsmiths and was made a Hawthornden Fellow. She has also received an award from the Royal Literary Fund.Hooligans, is Katrina’s 2015 pamphlet (Rack Press), and is inspired by the Suffragettes. It is Rack Press’s best-selling pamphlet. Her first full collection, The Girl with the Cactus Handshake, was shortlisted for the London New Poetry Award and received an Arts Council Award. She was the first writer-in-residence at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, which resulted in the pamphlet Charlotte Bronte’s Corset (Bronte Society). She is a previous winner of the Templar Poetry Competition, with her pamphlet, Lunch at the Elephant & Castle (Templar Poetry). Katrina was born and raised in Margate, Kent and lives in Cornwall.
Janine Booth is a poet, tutor, Marxist, social feminist and an advocate for Autism Equality in the Workplace.
Apart from her poetry Janine has had three books published; including, ‘Autism Equality in the Workplace: removing barriers and challenging discrimination’ (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016). Janine was part of the ranting poetry movement in the 1980s, but gave this up at the end of the decade. In 2014 she began performing again, as ‘an angry middle-aged woman poet’. Her three poetry books, ‘ Mostly Hating Tories’, ’The 3Rs: Ranting Rhyming Revolting: more poems by Janine Booth and ’16: the age of discontent’. are published by Hastings Press. Her recent book ‘Minnie Lansbury, Suffragette, Socialist, Rebel Councillor’ was published in November 2018.Janine is a well known figure in her trade union (RMT), Chair of the union’s Disabled Members’ Advisory Committee, co-Chair of the TUC Disabled Workers’ Committee. As part of her disability campaigning she runs training and gives presentations to trade unionists about Autism in the Workplace. She lives in Hackney with her partner, three kids, two cats and a dog. Janine has performed her work in many venues over the years one of which was Loose Muse in London and Agnes Meadows particularly recommended that I book her for Winchester.
Two very different poets to kick-start the year, come and see what you make of them. There will also be sessions of Open Mic so please bring your poems and flash fiction along to share.
Looking forward to welcoming you,
All best wishes,
Sue Wrinch
drawings and cartoon captions. Entry form and rules are at The Andover Museum. Entries close on Monday, September 4th.