Poetry for the Planet night

This will be a fundraising evening of poetry and creative reflection at the historic venue Dr Johnson’s House, a house of words, with readings from Julian Bishop, Jacqueline Saphra and others – all members of Poets for the Planet, a community of kindred poets, performers, artists and creative activists raising their voices to engage with climate and ecological emergency through poetry in all its forms.

The chosen works are explorations of our beautiful natural world, our devastated planet, and the feelings that arise when we engage with our precarious situation on Planet Earth: grief, despair and the hope of recovery.

In conversation with Jacqueline Saphra, the poets will discuss ways in which the tools – emotional and intellectual – that poetry provides, can allow us as poets and as listeners and readers to fully engage with the issues around climate change and nature loss.

In between the readings, the audience will be invited to explore their own responses to the climate emergency by putting pen to paper.

This exclusive fundraising event is strictly limited to 50 tickets. The ticket price of £16.96 includes 1 drink. 50% of the proceeds from ticket sales will go to Dr Johnson’s House, a charitable foundation, and 50% will go to Client Earth, a team of lawyers and policy experts dedicated to protecting life on Earth.

About the poets:

Julian Bishop has had a lifelong interest in ecology and worked for a time as Environment Reporter for BBC Wales. His first book of poems about the climate emergency We Saw It All Happen was published in January 2023. A former runner-up in the Ginkgo Prize for Eco Poetry, he’s won many prizes in competitions and been widely published in poetry magazines, most recently in Magma, The Morning Star, XR’s Rebel Talk, Riptide Journal and Finished Creatures magazine.
julianbishoppoet.com

Jacqueline Saphra is a poet, playwright, agitator and teacher of creative writing, author of ten plays, four chapbooks and five poetry collections. Her collection, All My Mad Mothers was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and she is a founder member of Poets for the Planet.
jacquelinesaphra.com

Anja König grew up in the German language and now writes in English. Her first pamphlet Advice for an Only Child was shortlisted for the 2015 Michael Marks prize and her first full collection Animal Experiments from Bad Betty Press, was nominated for the 2021 Laurel Prize. Her pamphlet Species was published by BadBetty Press in 2022. She is interested in ants, trees, slime moulds and people.
Species / Anja Konig – Bad Betty Press