A celebrated poet will be among the performers at Burnham-On-Sea Book Festival’s special launch event this Thursday, April 21st.
In addition to music from local artists, the three sets during Thursday’s regular Ritz Acoustic Club night will each contain 20 minutes of poetry.
The event will be held at the Ritz Social Club in Burnham’s Victoria Street at 8 for 8.15pm. Non-members will be welcome with an admission charge of £3.
It will be the first event of the new Burnham-On-Sea Book Festival which will see over 20 events, including readings and panel talks, on Friday 22nd April and Saturday 23rd April in the Princess Theatre and Burnham-On-Sea library.
The first set at Thursday’s launch event will provide a platform for three local poets: Jonathan Pinnock, Paul and Hazel Lloyd.
The middle set will feature visiting and rising star Liv Torc, pictured above. She is a BBC Radio 4 Slam winner, a former Bard of Exeter, a Cape Farewell Siren Poet, host of The Rainbow Fish Speakeasy and The Hip Yak Poetry Shack.
Liv is a much-celebrated poet, performer and producer, who runs the poetry stage at WOMAD, the COP26 poetry and science project Hot Poets and the lockdown haiku and photography project Haiflu – as featured on the BBC Today Programme.
She has been commissioned by the British Library, the BBC, Poet in the City and Contains Art and has performed everywhere from Glastonbury Festival to the Southbank Centre.
She also has her own Arts Council funded show ‘Haiflu Ever After’ that she is currently touring. She is also support to Roger McGough, Hollie McNish and will be working with the United Nations to bring poetry into the climate change fight. Her books include Show Me Life (2015), Banana Poems (2021) and The Human Emergency (2021).
Rounding the evening off we have Adam Leppard from Weston super Mare. An actor, photographer and poet, his poetry started in his early teens but now he’s begun bringing it to live audiences. A regular at “From The Mud Cabaret” and “Rhyme Against The Tide” Poetry Slam, his writing style is predominantly story-based, fun and light-hearted. It is sprinkled with deeper thought and comedy but accessible for all.
Lewis Coleman, who has put together the festival’s programme, says: “We went to see Liv perform at another book festival the other week. Rebecca, my wife, and I knew that we must bring her to Burnham. We’re just over the moon that she has accepted our invitation.”
Ollie Davies, Chairman of the acoustic club and its principal sound engineer, added he was “proud that the Club was hosting the launch event.” He added: “in addition to music, the club had a long history of providing a platform for local poets.”
