Bristol Hours Space Event Saturday 15th October Quiet Compere Tour event 8

Sarah L Dixon, The Quiet Compere (Photo credit Louise Hart)

Caleb Parkin – co-host

Caleb Parkin, Bristol City Poet 2020 – 22, has poems in The Guardian, The Rialto, The Poetry Review and was guest poet on BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Please. He won second prize in the National Poetry Competition 2016, Winchester Poetry Prize 2017 and other shortlists. He tutors for Poetry Society, Poetry School, Cheltenham Festivals, First Story, Arvon and holds an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes (CWTP). Publications: Wasted Rainbow (tall-lighthouse, February 2021), This Fruiting Body (Nine Arches Press, October 2021). In October 2022, he’ll publish ‘The Coin’ (Broken Sleep Books) and his collected City Poet work, ‘All the cancelled parties’.

Showcase poet photos and bios

Ben Banyard lives in Portishead, near Bristol, with his wife, two children and an over-excited border terrier. Hi-Viz, published by Yaffle Press in November 2021, is his third collection following We Are All Lucky (Indigo Dreams, 2018) and Communing (Indigo Dreams, 2016). Ben blogs at https://benbanyard.wordpress.com and edits Black Nore Review.

Dr Edson Burton is a writer, historian, programme-curator and performer based in Bristol. His academic specialisms include: Bristol and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Black History in the USA, Cultural continuities between Africa & the New World. He has been a consultant and coordinator for a range of HLF and Arts Council history projects in Bristol including most recently a study of Bristol’s Old Market ward Vice & Virtue (2014).

Edson has maintained a parallel career as a poet (Seasoned 2008) and writer for theatre and radio. His Radio dramas, the Armour of Immanuel (2007), the Chosen One (2009), have been Radio Four’s pick of the week. A long-standing associate of Bristol’s Watershed Cinema Edson has curated the highly regarded Afrofuturist season (2014) which formed part of the BFI’S Fear and Wonder Sc-Fi season.

Since then, he has become an active member of South West West Midlands Hub programming initiative Come the Revolution.

This residency marks completely new departure for Edson – being both massively exciting and full of possibilities. It is a chance to transform an unusual idea, through collaboration into an immersive experience.

Rachael Clyne from Glastonbury, was a professional actor, turned psychotherapist and is now retired. Her work is widely published in journals and anthologies. Her prizewinning collection, Singing at the Bone Tree (Indigo Dreams), concerns our broken relationship with nature. Her pamphlet, Girl Golem (www.4word.org), draws on her Ukrainian Jewish heritage. She has expanded this into a new collection to be published by Seren in 2023– You Will Never Be Anyone Else. It explores the themes of identity through childhood, relationships, sexual orientation and ageing.

Pey Oh is a Bath-based poet from Malaysia. Her debut pamphlet, Pictograph, was published by Flarestack Poetry in 2018. Her recent work can be found in harana poetry, Butcher’s Dog, Long Poem Magazine, Abridge, Iamb, Babel Tower Noticeboard and The Scores – A journal of Poetry and prose. A legitimate snack, Bagua, was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2021 and will be included in the Legitimate Snack Anthology 2022. She is Sky Arts Royal Society of Literature Poetry winner 2021.

Elizabeth Parker grew up in a garden center in The Forest Of Dean. Her poetry has been published in various poetry journals, including Magma and Poetry Salzburg. She was a prizewinner in the 2016 Troubadour Prize. Following her 2016 pamphlet, Antinopolis, published by Eyewear, Elizabeth’s first full collection, In Her Shambles, was published by Seren in April 2018. She is a founding member of Bristol poetry quartet The Spoke and co-host of monthly Bristol poetry event Under The Red Guitar.

Helen Sheppard is a Bristol based writer and worked as a midwife. Her poetry explores themes of birth, health, loss, and those whose voices are often unheard. She started to write in her forties during a ‘kick start your reading’ class.

She has performed at various events including Milk Poetry, RTB, Torriano Meeting House, Nuyorican Poets Cafe and Harvard Medical School.

Helen’s work has been Published widely, including These are the Hands, Under the Radar. Her debut poetry collection ‘Fontanelle’ published 2021 Burning Eye Books.

Helen interviews extraordinary poets for her podcast Health Beat Poets, their ‘take’ on Poetry & Health.