Seren Virtual First Thursday | Kathryn Bevis and Sammy Weaver

This month Seren First Thursday welcomes poets Kathryn Bevis and Sammy Weaver to Zoom to read from their debut pamphlets Flamingo and Angola, America.

Kathryn Bevis’s Flamingo introduces us to a troupe of wild, unique, and captivating poems. Life and our own embodiment are brought sharply into focus as we encounter a variety of subjects including work, survival, love, and mortality. Formally inventive, these hopeful and sometimes surreal poems are not afraid to confront complex or difficult emotions. Cancer is posed as a ring-tailed lemur, capering through the sufferer’s body, and the title poem imagines death as a flamboyant transformation where the speaker shapeshifts into the afterlife. Each poem is a discovery and a joy: Flamingo is a debut of startling originality.

Angola, America by Sammy Weaver takes its name from a prison in Louisiana in the southern United Sates. In these strikingly original, thoroughly contemporary, and deeply moving poems, we are immersed in the world the inmates must endure. From the first poem, when we witness a home-made tattoo and understand that this scarring and incision is a “map in the connective tissue of pain and loss”, we are drawn into this world in a way that is carefully observed and beautifully empathetic.

As usual our main readings will be followed by an open mic. Please email sarahjohnson@serenbooks.com to sign up in advance. Readers are asked to stick to one A4 page of poetry or prose so that we have time to get though everyone.

Tickets are £2 plus Eventbrite admin fee. Book via eventbrite.co.uk.

Please note: Ticket sales for this event will close at 7:00pm GMT on the 2nd February, after which all attendees will receive an email from Eventbrite containing the meeting link. If you do not receive this email, or have trouble getting into the event, please email sarahjohnson@serenbooks.com directly.

Captions will be provided by Otter.ai.