Kathryn Simmonds was born in Hertfordshire in 1972, she has an MA in writing from the University of East Anglia. She currently lives in London. Kathryn received an Eric Gregory Award in 2002 and her pamphlet Snug, was published in 2004. She was winner of the 2006 Poetry London Competition and the 2007 Wigtown Poetry Competition. Katherine's collection Sunday at the Skin Laundrette, won the Forward prize for best first collection.

Inua Ellams is a Word & Graphic Artist. Born in Nigeria in ’84, he fell for visual art and worked solely in this field until he started writing in ‘02. Constantly striving to merge the disciplines, his work is known for its musicality, beauty and attention to detail.

His best selling first book titled “Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales” was published in ‘05, a critically acclaimed collection of “short stories disguised as long poems” and his first full length theatre piece ‘The 14th Tale’, commissioned by The BAC and The London Word Festival, was awarded an Edinburgh Fringe First and is going on National tour this Autumn.

Described as the love child of John Keats & Mos Def and influenced by classic lit and hip hop, Inua’s work crosses 18th Century Romanticism & West African tradition of story telling with contemporary diction, loose rhythm and rhyme.

Alex Brockhurst, Originally from Cambridge, Alex has lived in Brighton for many years where she has achieved success in the fields of Fine Art, Law & Psychology. Her tall-lighthouse pamphlet ‘black fen’ was published in April 2009.

Alan Buckley was brought up on Merseyside. He moved to Oxford in the eighties to study English Literature and has lived there ever since. He has worked, among other things, as a forklift truck driver a psychotherapist, and as poet in residence at a prison. His tall-lighthouse pamphlet ‘shiver’ was the Poetry Book Society Choice for summer 2009.

Brendan Cleary has published several full-length poetry collections including The Irish Card & Sacrilege from Bloodaxe & stranger in the house from Wrecking Ball Press. Over twenty years he has also published numerous pamphlets from various small presses, his latest being Jackson from Pighog Press. He currently lives in Brighton where he works as a poetry tutor. His second with tall-lighthouse ‘some turbulent weather’ was pubished in June 08.

David Crystal was born in Prudhoe, Northumberland in 1963 and now lives and works in London. He has worked as literary editor of DOG magazine and his work featured in the Body & Soul exhibition at the ICA. He has had two collections from Two Rivers Press. His new collection from tall-lighthouse is 'wrong horse home'.

Helen Mort was born in Sheffield in 1985. Five-times winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, she received an Eric Gregory Award in 2007 and won the Manchester Young Writer Prize in 2008. She has published two pamphlets with tall-lighthouse, ‘the shape of every box’ (2007) and ‘a pint for the ghost’ (2009). She teaches for the Open University.

Competition Adjudicator

Jo Bell is a poet, poetry professional and the co-ordinator for National Poetry Day.
Formerly an archaeologist of 18 years'standing (and digging), She lives on her narrowboat Tinker which in 2007 moved very slowly around the Cheshire Ring and is currently sinking.
She was Cheshire Poet Laureate 2007 & toured as one fifth of the Poetry troupe Bunch of Fives. Her first full collection is Navigation.

www.bell-jar.co.uk

click here to listen to Jo read one of her poems on PoetCasting

"Astonishing, inventive, idiosyncratic." Jane Routh, Stride.

"Deeply enjoyable ... hilarious." John Hartley Williams, Poetry London.

Since 1988, Joanna’s poems have appeared in many magazines, journals, and anthologies including Reactions 3, and in Writing Works (pub. Jessica Kingsley. 2006).

A Braid of Words, Joanna’s first pamphlet, was published by Poetry Monthly Press in 2003, to good reviews. In 2007 White Leaf Press published Joanna’s pamphlet Safe Passage.

Sally Festing  is a poet, biographer, radio playwrite, reviewer, journalist, art, social and garden historian. She lives in Manningtree, on the Harwich estuary, where she runs a women’s Poetry Society Stanza.

Luke Wright might just be the hardest working man in poetry. Since 2006 he’s launched his own curve-ball bid to become Poet Laureate, programmed and hosted Latitude’s poetry arena (the largest poetry event in Europe) and has become the newest poet-in-residence on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live.
In 2009 he took contemporary poetry onto primetime TV, writing all the poetry for Channel 4’s The Seven Ages of Love, a 30 minute documentary that gained ‘pick of the day’ in 8 national publications and was broadcast to over a million people.
He has four solo poetry stage shows: Poet Laureate, Poet & Man, A Poet’s Work Is Never Done, and his current one - The Petty Concerns of Luke Wright.
His first book, Who Writes This Crap?, co-written with Joel Stickley, was published by Penguin in 2007. A live show based on the book enjoyed a sell-out run at Edinburgh 2008.
He has recorded a spoken word album - The Rise and Fall of Luke Wright, Esq  A pamphlet is forthcoming from Egg Box Summer 2009.

David J, vocal pugilist. David’s career in the field of rap and poetry stretches back even before 1992, when he won the Choice FM Battle Rap Competition. Over the years he has developed a unique style of delivery that is heavily influenced by his hip-hop origins. Sometimes his voice seems to go forwards then flip backwards like some tricky verbal gymnast, at other times he ’s scratching words instead of vinyl. Often it seems there is more than one person speaking onstage. David’s performances at Latitude and Glastonbury have made him a legend on the live poetry circuit. He was featured on with the ‘LAST POETS’ on tour performing in Amsterdam and Antwerp, Belgium and more recently he was the warm up act at Patti Smith ’s latest book launch.

Allison McVety’s collection, The Night Trotsky Came to Stay (Smith/Doorstop), was shortlisted for the Forward Best First Collection Prize 2008. Her poems have been published widely including in the Times and PN Review and have been broadcast on BBC radio. Allison has an MA in Poetry and was shortlisted for the inaugural Manchester Poetry Prize 2008. Her second collection, To Be Determined (Smith/Doorstop), will be published in October 2009.

Susan Utting Peterloo Poetry Prize winner and founder of Reading’s Poets’ Café, Susan has lived and worked in Berkshire since moving from Manchester in the 80s. She was appointed Community Laureate for the Arts Council's Year of the Artist, and  Creative Writing Fellow at Reading University, where she currently teaches poetry. Publications include Something Small is Missing (a Poetry Business prize winner) and Striptease (both Smith/Doorstop). Her latest collection is Houses Without Walls (Two Rivers Press).

Denis Ahern from Cork, Ireland; 30 years in London Fire Brigade; lives in Stanford-le-Hope with wife of 38 years; enjoys reading and reciting but is scared of becoming a recognised poet because so many very
good poets end up starving in garrets.

Joshua Idehen is co-founder of the collective known as A Poem Inbetween People, the host and organiser of the spoken word event PoeJazzi, and a spoken word artist himself, performing all over London in prestigious events such as Onetaste, Poetry N Motion, The Cellar, Shortfuse, and the John Betjeman Festival in Cornwall, to name a few.

Bryan Wilson is a writer and performer. His powerful blend of poetry and music is gaining a wider audience in Britain and abroad. Bryan was born in Jamaica and came to Britain in the late 60's. He has worked with young people organising cultural events, as well as writing plays and performing. He started to write poetry in 1976, and he has now developed a stirring and entertaining performance style incorporating music, dance and drumming.

Martin Reed is 52 and a writer/performer. Most of his writing is related to professional street theatre, but he also writes poetry. Martin finds the use of the word 'but' in the last sentence particularly problematic, because he believes that the idea of 'performance poetry' should be interpreted in as wide and inclusive a way as possible. So his poetry often includes elements of drama and music. Performance poetry, in a way, can be seen as something that occupies the ground between these two.

Adrian Green lives overlooking the sea at Southend, Essex. He is a former editor of SOL magazine, reviews editor of Littoral, and has published 2 earlier pamphlet collections as well as poems and reviews in a number of magazines and anthologies. He has degrees in psychology and general arts as well as a post-graduate diploma in humanities
His poems have been published in Acumen, Chimera, Envoi, Essex Countryside, In Praise of Essex, New Essex Writing, Poet’s England – Essex, Southend Poetry, The Interpreter’s House, The Unsaid Goodnight (Stride) and many other magazines and collections.
www.greenad.co.uk"
His latest collection “Chorus and Coda” is available from the Littoral Press.

Ken Champion lives at Goodmayes. He is a widely published poet whose work has appeared in over a hundred magazines and anthologies in the UK and US. He has published two pamphlets of poetry, African Time and Cameo Poly (the tall-lighthouse) and his first full collection But Black & White Is Better was published by tall lighthouse last year. He reads in London and elsewhere and co-hosts More Poetry at London’s Borough Market.

Roz Hall travels with her performance work,
‘Five Hats & A Washing Line’, was Winner of the 2007 Frinton Literary Festival’s Poetry Prize.
Her collection Per Verse was published in 2007

RozHallPoet

Derek Adams is professional photographer and one of the organisers of the Essex Poetry Festival.
His chapbook,'Postcards to Olympus', was winner of the Poetry Monthly Booklet Award 2004 and was named "Best Individual Collection Of Poetry For 2005" in Purple Patch Magazine's annual Best of the Small Press list.
His collection 'Everyday Objects, Chance Remarks', Littoral Press was published in 2005.
A new collection 'unconcerned but not indifferent - the life of Man Ray' is now available from Ninth Arrondissement Press.
He was BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year 2006
www.derek-adams.co.uk

Philip Wilson lives in Colchester, has recently completed an MA in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia, is currently studying for a doctorate in translation and working on translations of a theological romance by the Middle High German poet Hartmann von Aue. Widely published in magazines, including: Magma, The Wolf, Rialto, Seam & Smiths Knoll.
His first collection 'Blessed But Not Broken By The Fall' is now available from Ninth Arrondissement Press.
www.philipwilson.co.uk