Spinning a Yarn

Our friends over at YARN festival are putting together a stonkingly good poetry and storytelling night, 'The Special Relationship' over at the erudite Book Club in Shoreditch on Tuesday 1st May.

YARN celebrates stories and storytelling in all its tangled glory. They've been up in Birmingham as part of FlatPack festival recently, recreating the whole of Citizen Kane through the medium of storytelling, music, illustration and (strangely enough) film. We can't wait to check out one of their London-based ventures. 

The Special Relationship is a regular monthly event bringing its audience fiction, non-fiction, comedy, music and illustration. Hosted by TOM BASDEN, regular readers, SAM TARADASH and JARRED McGINNIS, will be joined for some May mayhem by the almighty RICH FULCHER, the coconut's NIKESH SHUKLA and Mr tiny-plays, CRAIG TAYLOR.

The Book Club, 100 Leonard Street, EC2A 4RH

Time: 7.30pm - 10.30pm

Tickets: £5 from http://www.yarnfest.com/yarns-may-mayhem-with-the-special-relationship/

Follow them on Twitter - @spintheYARN

Inc: Not a dusty old book!

We've had a lovely review from BlogAndBuySale, a site that showcases artists and designers.

They say: "We thought you could only find good poetry in dusty old books, how wrong we were! ... We were blown away by the poetic masterpiece... A great fourth installment of inc.magazine bringing poetry into the 21st century and making it fun".


We say: Read the review in full here, marvel at BlogAndBuy's inspiring array of creative goods, and then without further ado grab yourself a copy of inc. #4 for just £4 including p&p right here!

The bus drivers prayer/Word is born

Two cracking spoken word events for you this week.


The first is our old favourite WORD IS BORN, which is this Sunday at The Others in Stoke Newington.

The line up includes extra special sets from two exemplary providers of live hip-hop.

To begin with, Dizraeli & Bellatrix are going to give us an exclusive taste of a special set they have been concocting. Two mouths and one double-bass intertwined in splendid hip-hop polyphony.

Once you've recovered, the recently re-energised and rawly rambunctious JH Collective will be displaying their unique jazzed out hip-hop soul stew. 

There will also be the jam session as standard at the end and inc's own Will Coldwell/DJ Royale will be spinning funky hip hop soul and jazz to keep you entertained betwixt sets. 

Check the event page here.

The second is a new one called THE BUS DRIVERS PRAYER at Hackney Attic, the venue at the top of the new Hackney Picturehouse on Mare Street.

First night is this Thursday 3 november, starting at 8pm. After that it's first thursday of each month.

Local poet Richard Purnell will be compere alongside Jamie Smart.

The line up includes...

Political poet Grim Chip - one of the most intense and impressive performers on the spoken word scene

Singer songwriter Joe Chiari - grooves in various bands and has worked with likes of Chase & Status)

Soul singer Kimberleigh, who's been doing her thing at places like Ronnie Scott's for the past year

Rapper-poet Dylan Sage (host of shoreditch spoken word night Kid, I Wrote Back).

+open mic.

Check their facebook event here!

Hope to catch you at at least one of these!

Peace.