Our 2023 World Poetry Day celebrations were based all around the theme of Our Common Humanity. We had guest poets airing their worldly words at The Fisherman's Club, here on Eastbourne's seafront.
What a line up we had! Our audience was treated to tales from as far flung as Alvin Culzac's Caribbean childhood, fraught with storms both real and metaphorical; we heard the dulcet tones of Larry Navon ably accompanied by his guitar and Haiku.
We were privileged to host Mysarah, a representative from The Palestine Support Group who movingly recited 'Shades of Anger' by Rafeef Ziadah; Ben Cusden encouraged us to think deeply about the plight of the homeless with a truly stirring reading from his book, 'Cut the black Rabbit'.
Our evening was made complete by the magnificent Jess Mookherjee, reading from her collection, 'Notes From A Ship Wreck'
full of mythology seamlessly entwined with seafaring tales of discovery, of self discovery, of wonder.
It was a wonderful gathering of wordsmiths, all sharing a little piece of themselves, their talent and their time with us on this special day celebrating poetry, globally.
Other slots were wonderfully filled by our local and regular participants to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for helping the Poetry Café to continue, month after month, year after year.
A very special thanks, as always, goes out to 'Mr John' our own John Myers who is the founder of PCE and whose hard work in keeping the Poetry Café running is often unseen and too often unacknowledged, but never under valued by our community.
Brian Docherty, Mike Litchen, Mark Durbidge, Nikki Watts, Peter Wathen, Tales of Jean (Jean Obungu), Chris Ralls
You can find Jess' book here: https://ninearchespress.com/publications/poetry-collections/notes-from-a-shipwreck
You can find Ben's book here: https://www.benjamincusden.com/
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