Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast MAKE POETRY WEIRD AGAIN
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| HOW TO MAKE A POETRY FESTIVAL FROM THE DEPTHS | 13 Sep 2026 | 00:35:02 | |
Nols Nathankski takes an hour away from festival organising to talk you through what to expect from the Hold Space Poetry Festival 1-5th October 2026 in the Crypt Gallery. The Crypt Gallery sits under St Pancras New Church on Euston Road. It was a burial ground until 1854 and an air raid shelter in the war, and 557 people are still down there. From 1 to 5 October it is also a poetry festival. Hold Space: From the Depths is the second edition, after seven sold-out nights in Holy Week this April that produced a zine assembled overnight. This one goes further down. Twelve resident poets have the run of the crypt for five days, writing in it, recording in it, and performing in the evening work that did not exist that morning. The residency is not a retreat. It is an exposure. In this episode we go into the stone and find out what it does to a poem. What happens to your line breaks when the room is cold, the light is bad and the audience is partly dead. Why a church let a queer poetry organisation in. What it costs to run a festival the Arts Council turned down and the public paid for instead. ============================================================== THE SCHEDULE ============================================================== The crypt is open 10am to 6pm daily. Workshops and the open mic are separately ticketed. Featured poets open each open mic, two or three a night, before the floor goes to fourteen. THURSDAY 1 OCTOBER 10am Crypt opens · residency begins · set-up and intentions 3pm Penance Poetry Workshop (3 to 5pm) 3pm The Sacred Space Within (3 to 5pm) 6pm Open mic in the crypt Featured: Kristal Sisodia · Valera Simonchuk · H FRIDAY 2 OCTOBER 10am Crypt opens · residency · podcast recordings 6pm Open mic in the crypt Featured: Byuka Makodru · Nols Nathankski · Luigi Coppola SATURDAY 3 OCTOBER 10am Crypt opens · residency · live podcast recordings · Zine Day 1pm Trash Fire Poetry: Writing From The Ashes (1 to 3pm) 3pm Disasterpieces (3 to 5pm) 6pm THE GATHERING, upstairs in St Pancras New Church (6 to 9pm) Featured: Maddy Kilsby-McMurray · Emma Keun World premiere from Neil Bartlett OBE. No open mic in the crypt tonight. SUNDAY 4 OCTOBER 10am Crypt opens · residency · podcast recordings 11am Protest Poetry: Defamiliarising Violence (11am to 1pm) 1pm Saying The Unsayable (1 to 3pm) 6pm Open mic in the crypt Featured: Dr Maria Cohut · Pia Fajelagutan · Bee Wylie MONDAY 5 OCTOBER 10am Crypt opens · closing day · podcast recording · zine assembly 11am Rediscovering Joy In A Crypt (11am to 1pm) 3pm Penance Poetry Workshop (3 to 5pm) 5pm Stevie's Scary Stories Sharing Circle (5 to 7pm) 6pm Closing open mic in the crypt Featured: Stevie Grant · Alice Border · Tom Bland Zine launch and distribution at the close. ============================================================== THE WORKSHOPS ============================================================== All separately ticketed, all pay what you can, all small. Book individually. PENANCE POETRY WORKSHOP Thursday 1 October, 3 to 5pm · and Monday 5 October, 3 to 5pm Facilitated by Nols Nathankski Seven poets produce automatic poetry under deliberately restricted conditions. Over two hours, participants respond to three minute prompts and immediately perform their poems to the crypt. Poets are limited to pen, paper and water. Choosing to use a phone, drink alcohol, smoke or otherwise distract oneself results in becoming an audience member. None have failed yet. No photography or filming. Since its inception PENANCE has generated over 200 poems performed by more than 30 poets. THE SACRED SPACE WITHIN Thursday 1 October, 3 to 5pm Facilitated by Kristal Sisodia A meditative, poetic, psychedelic journey through sound, body and collective writing. Poetry becomes ritual, sound becomes language, and the body becomes a place to listen. Kristal works with singing, live instruments, loop station, meditation and collective writing, asking where poetry comes from, where it lives in our bodies, and who gets to have access to it. Bring a notebook and comfortable clothes you can move in. Nothing needs preparing. REDISCOVERING JOY IN A CRYPT Friday 2 October, 11am to 1pm Facilitated by Alice Border As light and frothy as you can get running a workshop in a crypt. Expect to write and discuss poetry that takes your ideas somewhere bizarre, somewhere funny, somewhere surreal, and almost certainly somewhere weird. TRASH FIRE POETRY: WRITING FROM THE ASHES Saturday 3 October, 1 to 3pm Facilitated by Maddy Kilsby-McMurray A new kind of writing circle, for unblocking your practice. After an initial prompt the poets make a new piece of work. Each is invited to share it, then destroy it. The scraps are combined and used to make the next pieces. Challenge the limits of inspiration and learn to tease new work from the ashes of what came before. Up to 15 writers, all levels. DISASTERPIECES Saturday 3 October, 3 to 5pm Facilitated by Emma Keun The world is ending, so come and make a disaster piece. Disasterpiece: disaster plus masterpiece, a work so ignominious it gains a cult following. Emma uses the term against the zeitgeist of disaster and collapse that permeates the 21st century. Apocalyptic poetry, made underground. 15 spaces. Dress for a cold tomb, bring a pen and a notebook. PROTEST POETRY: DEFAMILIARISING VIOLENCE Sunday 4 October, 11am to 1pm Facilitated by Dr Maria Cohut Turning anger into poetry, and poetry into an act of protest. What makes a poem a protest poem? When violence becomes everyday, banal even, how do we push back against that banalisation through the written and spoken word? Maria works through examples from the slam and spoken word scene and from classic and contemporary page poetry, with guided exercises drawn from Viktor Shklovsky's concept of defamiliarisation. Optional sharing. No experience needed. SAYING THE UNSAYABLE Sunday 4 October, 1 to 3pm Some losses resist language. Grief crouches in the body before it reaches the tongue. An intimate workshop for twelve poets on grief and loss, through generative writing, close reading and honest conversation, with the crypt itself part of the work. Anchor poems by writers who have found form for the formless, craft techniques for writing at the edge of language, two extended writing blocks, and a closing circle for optional sharing. Group size kept to twelve for depth and trust. STEVIE'S SCARY STORIES SHARING CIRCLE Monday 5 October, 5 to 7pm Facilitated by Stevie Grant Something wicked this way comes. A circle, not a class. Bring a scary story: one you wrote, one you love, one that has lived rent free in your head since childhood. Read aloud in candlelight, shiver together, and talk about what makes a story genuinely frightening and why writers have always been drawn to the dark. No experience necessary. Just bring something that scares you. ============================================================== THE TWELVE RESIDENTS ============================================================== PIA FAJELAGUTAN (she/her) Better known in the literary shadows as Liethers, or The Piss I Call Art, Pia is an Abu Dhabi-bred word wrangler and left-handed illustrator who turned childhood scribbles into a full-blown pen name rebellion. By day she hunts talent in the skies, the aviation world's secret poet. By night, or whenever the caffeine is strong enough, she brews free verse at open mics, prose, and eccentric illustrations that wrestle with identity, wanderlust and the occasional existential hangover. She is the author of the delightfully unhinged debut Whiskey For The Uninitiated, five years of identity crises, road dust and self-drawn chaos, and a multilingual poet who firmly believes the best poetry sneaks in when you are supposed to be adulting. Liethers does not do polished. She does unfiltered, with a side of feral charm. EMMA KEUN (she/her) Emma Keun lives in London. She is published in Kite String II, III and IV, anthologies for the open mic and poetry community, and in Word Space. She has four honourable mentions from Dark Poets Club and one highly commended from Creative Writing Ink. When not performing or writing she attempts building, sculpting or growing things. LUIGI COPPOLA (he/him) Poetry, music, rum and coke. Luigi has featured at Glastonbury Festival, Tate Modern, Greenwich Theatre, Koestler Arts, the Cutty Sark and the Southbank Centre's New Poets Collective. He is a Poetry Archive Worldview winner, Bridport shortlisted, Ledbury and National longlisted, and Lost Souls and Farrago Slam Champion. He makes music as The Only Emperor, and his debut comes from Broken Sleep Books. linktr.ee/PoetryPreacher DR MARIA COHUT (she/they) Maria is a Romanian writer living in Brighton with her ever-growing family of Giant African Land Snails, Madagascan hissing cockroaches and stick insects. Her writing is haunted by questions of identity, belonging, displacement, and what makes us human. It appears in many online and print publications, including the Borders & Belonging anthology (Cephalopress, 2022), The Hyacinth Review, The Hellebore, and The Other Side of Hope: Journeys in Refugee and Immigrant Literature, and has aired on radio. Her first chapbook, Spatter Pattern (back room poetry, 2023), explored gender-based violence by reimagining detective fiction tropes. Multiple Exposures (Flight of the Dragonfly, 2026) is her first full-length collection, reflecting on becoming uprooted, writing in an adopted language, and healing fractured identities. MADDY KILSBY-McMURRAY (they/them) Maddy is a non-binary poet and writer involved with a number of local creative and LGBTQIA+ groups. They are a neurodiversity advocate and regularly host talks sharing their lived experience as an ADHD-er. They volunteer with BCS, working to improve the tech industry as a whole. BEE WYLIE (she/her/bee) Bee is a weird little witchy word smith from the West Midlands. She has been writing poetry since around 2016 and performing spoken word on the London scene since 2021, and is a regular at the Word Zoo. She is currently illustrating her debut book, Dream Weaving, due to be published through Hay House: a collection of her earlier work, focused on spirituality, reincarnation, grief, the raw nature of love, and finding light in dark places. She is heavily influenced by her late mother Louise Wylie, a renowned psychic medium and spiritual teacher who taught Writing with Spirit at The College of Psychic Studies. TOM BLAND (he/him) Tom's first collection and verse novel, Camp Fear, was published by Bad Betty Press in 2021 and longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize in 2022. The book fuses poetry with satire, surrealism and psychoanalysis, calling on Freud, Artaud and Acker, 4chan and Lana Del Rey, and inviting the reader into the dark corners of the human psyche. STEVIE GRANT (he/him) Queer Hackney poet, working in the long queer tradition of gothic writing. He closes the festival with a sharing circle for stories that frighten, held in candlelight in the crypt. @steviepoems KRISTAL SISODIA (they/them) Actor and poet. Kristal weaves voice, rhythm and sound together to guide people into a deeper relationship with their words, bodies and stories, working with singing, live instruments, loop station and meditation. Their practice treats poetry as ritual and the body as a place to listen. ALICE BORDER (she/her) Slam-winning performance poet in London and part of the Make Poetry Weird Again collective. She has headlined everywhere from Somerset House to the Divine Fringe, and her work has been published by WriteLondon, Crunch and Edition. Key pieces include The Unsolicited Shit Pic and An Ode To Billingsgate Fish Market. Her debut pamphlet, Taste Me, is published in October. @alicesayingstuff H (she/her) After years of only writing therapeutically, H mysteriously started writing and performing poetry in early 2025. She revels in surreal social satire, weaving humour and sadness, language experiments and characters. She likes to express her tranquilised emotions, and the things she really wishes she had said at the time, to willing audiences. She has been published in three anthologies: Surrey Poet Laureate, Lost Souls, and Forge Press' An Anthology Against Hate. She goes by H because she does not really like her name. Yes, she has a poem about it. @haitch_speaks BYUKA MAKODRU (they/them) Byuka is a trans, disabled and migrant writer working across speculative fiction, experimental writing and poetry. Their practice spans immersive performance, ritual facilitation, visual art and publishing, tracing wordscapes through cross-medium world-building rooted in social justice, displacement, ancestrality, anti-colonialism, ecology and queerness. Their poetry performance work has been shared at Ugly Duck, House of Annetta, the Crypt Gallery, QUEERCIRCLE, Ubiskes3 in Lithuania and the Fringe Festival in Poland. In 2025 they facilitated workshops on poetry as spellcasting and created a deck of poetry oracles for the Burned House Horizon exhibition at Mimosa House, London. Their current practice explores psychogeography, deep listening, ritual and writing with ash, using the material as a portal between the living and the dead, and a channel to the lineages of witches, women and marginalised people burned at the stake. They connect to poetry as a tool for liberation and futuring. ============================================================== HEADLINE COMMISSION ============================================================== NEIL BARTLETT OBE Poet, novelist, theatre director and translator, and one of the defining figures of British queer culture. His work across four decades has consistently interrogated the relationship between queer history, form, and the body politic. He gives the world premiere of a new commission in St Pancras New Church on Saturday 3 October, surrounded by sixteen queer poets and four musicians. The church is carried on caryatids, stone figures holding the roof up with their own bodies, so we gave him some of his own. ============================================================== COME DOWN ============================================================== Hold Space: From the Depths · 1 to 5 October 2026 The Crypt Gallery, 165 Euston Road, London NW1 2BA Part of Bloomsbury Festival 2026, its 20th anniversary year Day ticket to the crypt, 10am to 6pm, pay what you can to £11 Workshops, separately ticketed, pay what you can Open mic every evening, separately ticketed The Gathering, Saturday 3 October, pay what you can to £10 Everything: outsavvy.com/organiser/make-poetry-weird-again ACCESS The crypt is reached by a staircase and there is no step-free access. The Gathering, in the church above, is step free. The crypt is underground and stone built and it is cold. Bring layers. Anything at all, email nols@makepoetryweirdagain.com and we will be honest with you about what the building can and cannot do. CREDITS Make Poetry Weird Again is made by Nols Nathankski. Recorded live in The Crypt Gallery. @makepoetryweirdagain · nols@makepoetryweirdagain.com TAGS poetry · spoken word · queer · london · poetry festival · crypt · bloomsbury festival · neil bartlett · open mic · zine · workshops · make poetry weird again | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS ON A PODCAST NAKED | 30 Aug 2026 | 01:18:11 | |
This week Nols welcomes the poet, performer and filmmaker Ernesto Sarezale and, true to form, the whole conversation was recorded with both of them completely naked in Nols's living room. There's a lineage to that: Ginsberg's Howl gave us the "starving hysterical naked," and Ernesto's own film opens on the same lines. So the clothes came off, and what was left was the work, the body, and two people telling the truth to a microphone. Ernesto is a fixture of London's queer spoken word world. He runs regular open mics, writes across concrete poetry, flash fiction and erotica, works in English and en castellano, and made Queer Tongues a guerrilla-shot documentary feature charting today's queer spoken word scene through live snippets and interviews with more than 38 performers, on sexuality, poetry, performance and the politics of the body. It screened at Brighton & Hove Pride's Film Pride festival. In this episode
Find Ernesto
Make Poetry Weird Again — poetry to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. Subscribe, share, and come find us at an event. | |||
| HOW TO TAKE POETRY FROM THE LIBRARY TO THE CASTLE | 17 Aug 2026 | 00:44:08 | |
Nols Nathankski sits down with Adam de Salle. Adam will not call himself a poet. He introduces himself as a Senior Library Assistant and an open mic performer, and leaves it there. Other people say the word behind his back. He is a public librarian in south London, which he'll tell you is not a job about silence at all it's community work, and the last safety net for people falling through every other one. He runs his own open mic in a library and a castle. He's a fixture at Word Space, White Feather and our very own, Hold Space Open Mic. He came to writing through Burroughs and the cut-up, and he keeps Shakespeare, in his mouth the way other people keep their phone in their pocket. This episode was recorded while he was in the middle of a heartbreak, and he does not pretend otherwise. What comes out of it is the grief that only love can produce. Six poems, three three-minute written between them with prompts from @alicesayingstuff , and a lot of talk about libraries. Find Adam on instagram @adamdesalle Check out his open mic here -Events & Activities | Eltham Library | Better Libraries Adam will be at Hold Space Poetry festival from the 1-5th October 2026. To support the festival please donate at the link below | |||
| HOW TO MAKE CRYPTOLOGICAL POEMS FOR THE UNINITIATED | 31 Jul 2026 | 00:59:15 | |
Nols Nathanksi records underground, in the Crypt Gallery beneath St Pancras Church during HOLD SPACE POETRY FESTIVAL in April 2026, while the Euston Road went on with its own noise a few feet above our heads. We took the Holy Week prompts down with us and used them the way you use a spade. Seven days of betrayal, overturned tables, barren blossom trees, a body washed, a body waiting. Two poets who did not flinch at any of it. Byuka Makodru @fortunetailedbeast writes with ash and treats the page as a portal. Pia Fajelagutan writes under the name @ThePissICallArt and treats the page as somewhere to spill. Put them in a room built for the dead and give them a liturgy to argue with, and this is what you get. Not a solemn hour. A loud one, mostly, with a few silences in it that we left in on purpose. In this episode
Byuka Makodru (they/them) is a trans, disabled and migrant writer working across speculative fiction, experimental writing and poetry, with a practice that runs through immersive performance, ritual facilitation, visual art and publishing. Their crypt installation was written up by Asiimov Baker: a book with honeycomb pages held together by steel wire and black hair, sheets of parchment threaded through, and beside it something like sheet music distended out of all proportion, clefs and staves in black and red, fine as a hair in places and unbearably loud in others. Their work appears in Ache Magazine issue four, an extended issue of feminist writing on illness, health, bodies and pain.
Pia Fajelagutan (she/her) is a poet, author and illustrator based between Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and London, whose work moves through migration, diaspora, philosophy and language. Her debut collection Whiskey For The Uninitiated became an Amazon bestseller and was carried into signings and appearances at the Emirates Literature Festival. She hosts workshops, performs internationally, and co-curates open mics and readings supporting emerging literary communities across the Middle East and the UK, with recent appearances at Hold Space Poetry Festival, Poetry Supper Club, Writers of Riyadh and the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. Hannah Kate + 2
Make Poetry Weird Again. Poetry to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. @makepoetryweirdagain · makepoetryweirdagain.com | |||
| HOW TO MAKE QUEER POETRY FOR 88 YEARS | 14 Jul 2026 | 01:10:19 | |
Nols meets a Willie Leo Coakley, legend of New York Queer Poetry at the Open Mic! Eighty-eight years is a long time to keep faith with a line of verse. William Leo Coakley has managed it. Poet writer and peace activist. Lover of men. Nols sits down with him to ask the one question worth asking a man who has done a thing that long: how. How do you keep the appetite? Coakley had an enemy a good one. Allen Ginsberg: the great howler, the Beat saint with his harmonium and his drug fuelled congregation, Coakley's poetry set its face against it. Coakley kept the old European hush, the rhyme, the measure. They shared a city and a century and could not abide one another. Coakley, quietly, is the one still here to tell the story. He is also the man who once put Thom Gunn into print on Helikon Press, the queer press he ran with his lover of 48 years. Thom Gunn, that other queer formalist who crossed from England to America and turned leather and grief and plague into stanzas built to hold. To have published Gunn and outlasted Ginsberg is a whole education in what poetry is actually for, and Coakley hands it over here. This is an hour with a living archive who flatly refuses to behave like one. The guest. William Leo Coakley New York poet, formalist, translator. His poems have appeared since 1958 in the Paris Review, the Nation, the London Magazine, Christopher Street and elsewhere across America, England, Ireland and Mexico, and he was chosen for the Discovery series at the 92nd Street Y Poetry Center. His poem "Horses Burning" took a prize in the Sotheby's International Poetry Competition, and his translation of Cavafy won the Der-Hovanessian Prize from the New England Poetry Club. He has recited Yeats at the Irish Repertory Theatre, Dickinson at the Botanical Garden, and his own poems at the Leslie-Lohman Museum. Publisher of Thom Gunn. Adversary, at a distance, of Allen Ginsberg. | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS WITH KRAZY EYES & NO BELIEF | 02 Jul 2026 | 00:38:47 | |
Recorded in Holy Week, beneath the St Pancras New church, among the 557 dead that reside there. Nols makes poems with HOLD SPACE poetry festival residents Emma Keun and Maria Cohut. Some voices you have to go down to reach. This one we recorded in the dark of Holy Week, in the crypt where sixteen poets kept their residency like a wake that refused to be sad; candlewax and cold stone and the particular electricity of people making things they were not sure they were allowed to make. What you'll hear is two poets in the season of descent: burial, waiting, the rumour of a door. Here is the resurrection joke the calendar hides since we pressed record, both have come up out of the ground and headlined the HOLDSPACE open mic. Whatever was buried in April is walking around now, taking the mic, refusing to stay quiet. Poetry to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed, as ever. In this episode
Maria Cohut Brighton-based poet of Romanian origin, haunted (her word, and we let her keep it) by identity, migration, defamiliarisation, and the complexity of being a person among other people. Her debut collection Multiple Exposures (Flight of the Dragonfly Press, March 2026) reads migration as a mode of being and identity as a thing you develop, photographically, in layers. Her earlier chapbook Spatter Pattern (back room poetry, 2023) walks into the subject of gendered violence wearing the coat of detective fiction. Find Maria's work:
Emma Keun Blakean Bard of the open mic is a london poet published in several major anthologies - influenced by fan fiction and queer tragedy. Emma makes every space she speaks at both sensual and spiritual while dealing with themes of embarrassment, the grotesque and the cruel haunting friction of love... A crypt resident, HOLDSPACE headliner and friend of the show! Her debut pamphlet will be released by MAKE POETRY WEIRD AGAIN - watch this space! Find Emma's work:
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| HOW TO FIND DIVINITY IN LUST AT THE OPEN MIC | 24 Jun 2026 | 00:42:16 | |
In February 2026 Nols Nathankski had the honour of sitting down with Robert Stanley Adams: a 73-year-old Canadian poet who writes from the seam where the divine and the erotic are not two things but one breath. This podcast only happened because Robert walked out of the open mic with Nol's coat! Some books arrive late because they had to be lived first. After a chance meeting at the Word Zoo open mic one of those London nights where the holy walks in off the street a myth was made. Robert has just published The Book of Love, a summation of twenty years of writing and of spiritual-sexual practice a lifetime's apprenticeship in holy love, finally bound. He's joined by his daughter Tamar, his baby granddaughter (the youngest guest this podcast has ever hosted), and his editor Lia, the midwife of the manuscript. Together they ask the question the work itself keeps asking: why has it taken so long for a voice like Robert's to reach the world and what does it mean to give your whole life to love, and only now hand it over? Robert on the marriage of the divine and the erotic body as scripture, desire as a way of prayer. Twenty years of practice distilled into one volume. Lia on editing a life rather than a manuscript. Tamar on growing up inside this work, and carrying it forward with a daughter of her own now in the room. And the long question of belated recognition: what the world misses when it isn't listening, and what it gains when it finally is. LINKS
MAKE POETRY WEIRD AGAIN poetry to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed makepoetryweirdagain.com ·Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/mpwa If this episode gave you something, consider supporting MPWA so we can keep making it. Subscribe, share, and come find us at an event. | |||
| HOW TO SAVE AN OLD CHURCH WITH AN OCTAVE | 15 Jun 2026 | 01:34:31 | |
This week Nols is joined by Mikey Kirkpatrick flautist, singer, composer, improviser and performer and writer, who makes work for street, stage, film and radio. Mikey records and tours internationally as Bird Radio, his singular take on new British folk (voice, flutes, loops, bones, homemade instruments and the famous red suitcase kick drum). He’s an associate lecturer at Goldsmiths and founding director of Alchemy, a collective of artists, teachers and mentors working with young people at risk of exclusion, and he teaches Music, Healing and Deep Listening for Morbid Anatomy in New York. Nols and Mikey met at the Octave Marathon at the Old Church in Stoke Newington. The event was a way to raise money to save one of the most unique arts space and consecrated church in london. Donate below or buy the album! (Nols is on it ;) ) Nols and Mikey go looking for the music in everything including poetry. Mikey opens up his many daily creative practices and the threads that hold them together, and traces the extraordinary journeys behind the music and the writing. They talk about what it means to be a pillar of a creative community, and the genuinely impressive work Mikey does with young people in London building shelter for them to make, listen, and find their own voices. Find Mikey & Bird Radio • Website: https://mikeykirkpatrick.wordpress.com • The Residency (Substack): https://mikeykirkpatrick.substack.com • Music (Bird Radio on Bandcamp): https://birdradio.bandcamp.com • Alchemy at Goldsmiths: https://sites.gold.ac.uk/alchemy • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeykirkpatrick MAKE POETRY WEIRD AGAIN poetry to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed makepoetryweirdagain.com ·Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/mpwa If this episode gave you something, consider supporting MPWA so we can keep making it. Subscribe, share, and come find us at an event. | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS WHEN NO ONE KNOWS WHERE YOU COME FROM | 03 Jun 2026 | 00:35:19 | |
Nols and Ameer make poems on the first day of Hold Space Poetry festival on April fools day 2026 Ameer Azad is a Pakistani-Bengali poet and author living in London. His work often covers surrealism, social satire and spirituality. Usually seen yelling at open mics in a scary voice. In this episode, Nols and Ameer write to a set of prompts and talk through making poems when no one knows where you come from. Prompts (provided by Chloe Smith of Skibbable open mic) Shout-outs
Make Poetry Weird Again is a Queer experimental poetry organisation based in north London. Poetry to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. The Crypt Gallery and Make Poetry Weird Again Present HOLD SPACE POETRY FESTIVAL: From The Depths 1-5th October 2026. @makepoetryweirdagain
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| HOW TO MAKE CHAOTIC GNARLEY PROJECTIONS FUNNY | 27 May 2026 | 00:43:21 | |
Nols Nathankski and H Phillips sit down to make poems in the crypt during HOLD SPACE poetry festival. H is a London based queer and silly poet. H began her open mic journey by doing a poetry for performance course @citylit. H talks from grief through objects and absurdity. A resident at Hold Space festival. H displayed poetry on the walls of the crypt and can be found headlining at the Hold Space Open Mic on the 31st May 2026 at HWK in Hackney Wick. Follow her @haitch_speaks Nols and H make poems with prompts from the Hold Space prompt sheet. H shouts out @everythingpoetry @wordspacepoems Make Poetry Weird Again is a Queer experimental poetry organisation based in north London. Poetry to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. The Crypt Gallery and Make Poetry Weird Again Present HOLD SPACE POETRY FESTIVAL: From The Depths 1-5th October 2026. @makepoetryweirdagain https://ko-fi.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS OUT OF QUEER FAILURE | 22 May 2026 | 01:12:00 | |
Nols takes a register of ten artists, poets, and authors who were told by courts, critics, markets, and silence that they had failed. They had not failed. This is their work. Read it. Look at it. Go toward it. Nols improvises ten poems in response to their stories and encourages you to do the same. Send your responses to nols@makepoetryweirdagain.com prompts below provide list of prompts in one sentence
01 CONSTANCE MARKIEVICZ 1868–1927 · Revolutionary, painter, poet Her prison letters — written on single sheets in tiny handwriting, incorporating drawings and poems — are the primary document of her interior life. → Prison Letters of Countess Markievicz — Internet Archive (free) https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.176226 → Her political writings — Marxists Internet Archive https://www.marxists.org/archive/markievicz/index.htm → W.B. Yeats: "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz" https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43279/in-memory-of-eva-gore-booth-and-con-markiewicz Eva Gore-Booth, her sister and lifelong love, was also a poet and radical. Her collected poems are harder to find online — seek them out. 02 CLAUDE CAHUN 1894–1954 · Surrealist artist, photographer, resistance fighter The largest collection of her photographs and archive material is held by Jersey Heritage and is fully free to browse online — the best place to start. → Jersey Heritage — full Cahun & Moore collection (free) https://catalogue.jerseyheritage.org/claude-cahun/ → MoMA — six works online https://www.moma.org/collection/works/83692 → Getty Museum collection https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/person/104PH8 → Metropolitan Museum — 56 results including Aveux non Avenus https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search?q=Claude+Cahun Her written work — Aveux non Avenus (Disavowals) — is harder to find in English translation. The Met has the 1930 original in their collection. 03 RADCLYFFE HALL 1880–1943 · Author of The Well of Loneliness The Well of Loneliness (1928) is now in the public domain in the US and freely available in multiple formats. Read it. → The Well of Loneliness — Project Gutenberg (free) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73042 → Standard Ebooks edition — clean free epub/mobi https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/radclyffe-hall/the-well-of-loneliness → LibriVox audiobook (free) https://librivox.org/the-well-of-loneliness-by-radclyffe-hall/ The obscenity trial transcript is worth reading alongside the novel — the gap between what the judge said and what the book actually contains tells you everything. 04 ALAN TURING 1912–1954 · Mathematician, codebreaker, father of computing The Turing Digital Archive at King's College Cambridge holds nearly 3,000 images of his letters, papers, photographs, and unpublished manuscripts — free online. → The Turing Digital Archive — King's College Cambridge (free) https://turingarchive.kings.cam.ac.uk/ → AlanTuring.net — virtual archive of computing history documents https://www.alanturing.net/ → His 1936 paper "On Computable Numbers" — the foundation of computing https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Turing_Paper_1936.pdf Andrew Hodges's biography Alan Turing: The Enigma is the definitive account and is available in most libraries. The film The Imitation Game is a simplified version — read the book. 05 REINALDO ARENAS 1943–1990 · Cuban novelist, poet, exile Before Night Falls, his memoir, is the essential starting point. It is not in the public domain but is widely available. The film adaptation by Julian Schnabel (2000) is also excellent. → Before Night Falls — Open Library (borrow free with account) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1740458M/Before_night_falls → Wikipedia overview with bibliography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinaldo_Arenas His Pentagonia — five novels including Singing from the Well, The Palace of the White Skunks, Farewell to the Sea, The Color of Summer, and The Assault — is his major work. Most are available from Penguin. His suicide note is one of the most important documents in queer literary history. It ends: Cuba will be free. I already am. 06 WILLIAM BLAKE 1757–1827 · Poet, engraver, visionary The William Blake Archive is the gold standard — facsimiles of his illuminated books as he made them, hand-coloured, in high resolution. This is how the work was meant to be seen. → The William Blake Archive — illuminated books in facsimile (free) https://www.blakearchive.org/ → Poetry Foundation — poems and extensive commentary (free) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-blake → Songs of Innocence and Experience — Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1934 → The Marriage of Heaven and Hell — Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45315 Start with Songs of Innocence and Experience, then The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The prophetic books (Jerusalem, Milton) are for later — they require some time to enter. Blake is buried at Bunhill Fields, Islington — a short walk from Canonbury. His grave is marked and visitable. 07 FRANZ KAFKA 1883–1924 · Prague, insurance, "burn everything" His three novels and most of his short stories are freely available online. Start with The Trial. Then Letter to His Father, which he also never sent. → The Trial — Project Gutenberg (free) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7849/7849-h/7849-h.htm → The Metamorphosis — Project Gutenberg (free) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5200 → In the Penal Colony — Project Gutenberg (free) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1195 → The Castle — Project Gutenberg (free) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18027 Letter to His Father (Brief an den Vater, 1919) — written but never sent to his father — is one of the most devastating documents of family, failure, and self-analysis ever written. Find it in any Kafka collected works. His diaries, edited by Max Brod, are equally essential. The entry where he writes about wanting to destroy everything is worth reading alongside the novels. 08 VINCENT VAN GOGH 1853–1890 · One painting sold The complete letters to Theo — over 800 of them — are freely available online in the scholarly Van Gogh Letters edition. They are among the greatest pieces of writing in the history of art. → vangoghletters.org — complete letters, searchable, free https://vangoghletters.org/ → Letters of a Post-Impressionist — Project Gutenberg (free)https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40393 → Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam — collection online https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection The letter where he writes "I cannot help it that my pictures do not sell. Nevertheless the time will come when people will see that they are worth more than the price of the paint" is Letter 686, July 1888. He painted the Starry Night, the Irises, and the Wheat Field with Crows while living in an asylum. The Van Gogh Museum has high-resolution images of all of them free online. 09 RYŪNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA 1892–1927 · Father of the Japanese short story Rashomon and In a Grove are the gateway — short, brilliant, structurally perfect. Cogwheels, his final hallucinatory work, is the one to read last. → Rashomon — Project Gutenberg (free) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1982 → Rashomon and Other Stories — Internet Archive (borrow free) https://archive.org/details/rashomonothersto00akut → The Essential Akutagawa inc. Cogwheels and A Fool's Life — Internet Archivehttps://archive.org/details/essentialakutaga0000akut Cogwheels (Haguruma, 1927) — written in the final year of his life, published posthumously — is his masterpiece. A first-person account of breakdown, cogwheels at the edge of vision, the sense of being ground through a system. Read it last. Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), adapted from In a Grove and the Rashomon story, is freely available on various streaming services and is itself a masterwork. 010 MAYA ANGELOU 1928–2014 · Defeat after defeat after defeat. Still. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) is her memoir and her masterpiece. Still I Rise is the poem. Both are worth your time today. → Still I Rise — Poetry Foundation (free) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rise → Maya Angelou — Poetry Foundation full archive (free) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/maya-angelou → On the Pulse of Morning — 1993 inauguration poem (free, YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59zGMWH3K5I → I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings — Open Library (borrow free) https://openlibrary.org/works/OL472609W/I_Know_Why_the_Caged_Bird_Sings Her autobiography runs to six volumes. The first three — Caged Bird, Gather Together in My Name, and Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas — are the ones to read in order. She did not publish her first book until she was 41. James Baldwin told her at a dinner party in 1968 that she was a poet. She had been a poet her whole life. MAKE POETRY WEIRD AGAIN poetry to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed makepoetryweirdagain.com ·Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/mpwa If this episode gave you something, consider supporting MPWA so we can keep making it. | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS THAT DELVE INTO THE SUBLIME | 20 May 2026 | 00:52:08 | |
Nols Nathankski delves into the sublime with Molly O'Leary Molly May O’Leary is an interdisciplinary performer. Her art has always and already been from/for the body but she has recently been approaching its rebellious and growing multi-dextrous power more directly… with ever-increasing glee and ever-evolving results. follow her on @mollymayinsta for developments The pair discuss philosophy, depression and the arts in ireland. They make (and dont make!) poems from prompts by Adam RW of storytime and from the crypt. This episode was recorded online in March 2026 after Nol's planned trip to Dublin was cancelled. Check out Molly's work here; https://mollymayoleary.bandcamp.com/ Make Poetry Weird Again is a Queer experimental poetry organisation based in north London. Poetry to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. The Crypt Gallery and Make Poetry Weird Again Present HOLD SPACE POETRY FESTIVAL: From The Depths 1-5th October 2026. @makepoetryweirdagain https://ko-fi.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO BUILD COMMUNITY WITH POETRY | 11 May 2026 | 00:55:59 | |
Nols Nathankski talks community with Dean Atta on the podcast! Dean Atta is a BAFTA-winning British poet, author and filmmaker, current chair of the Society of Authors Poetry and Spoken Word Group. Of Greek Cypriot and Jamaican heritage, Dean was named one of the 100 most influential LGBTQ+ people in the UK. He’s been commissioned by Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the National Portrait Gallery and Keats House. His novel in verse, The Black Flamingo, won the Stonewall Book Award. His memoir Person Unlimited was published by Canongate in 2024. His short film, Two Black Boys in Paradise, won the 2026 BAFTA Film Award for British Short Animation. In this episode, Dean talks about his forthcoming collection "I Don’t March to That Drum", reads two exclusive poems written in a Joelle Taylor workshop, and discusses making work with soundscapes alongside Antosh Wojcik. He reflects on his time with Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, the Roundhouse Collective, and his residency at Keats House, and speaks to the importance of open mics and workshops for sharing and developing your writing. Nols and Dean make poems live, using a prompt Dean created on the train as well as prompts from 48 Writing Prompts, out now on Burley Fisher Community Press. Dean is chair of the Society of Authors Poetry and Spoken Word Group. https://societyofauthors.org/groups/poetry-spoken-word/ Dean’s books • I Am Nobody’s Nigger - The Westbourne Press • The Black Flamingo - Hachette Children’s Group • Only On The Weekends - Hachette Children’s Group • I Can’t Even Think Straight - Hachette Children’s Group • There is (still) love here - Nine Arches Press • Person Unlimited: An Ode to My Black Queer Body - Canongate Books • Confetti (illustrated by Alea Marley) - Orchard Books • Auntie’s Bangles (illustrated by Alea Marley) - Orchard Books Dean’s film • Two Black Boys in Paradise, an animated short film, winner of the 2026 BAFTA Film Award for Best British Short Animation https://www.channel4.com/programmes/two-black-boys-in-paradise mentioned in this episode • joelle taylor — poet, playwright, ts eliot prize winner, founder of slambassadors, host of out-spoken at the southbank centre • antosh wojcik — poet, sound artist, drummer; one half of post everything; how to keep time: a drum solo for dementia produced by penned in the margins • malika’s poetry kitchen — collective founded by malika booker; dean is a longstanding member • keith jarrett — poet, former uk slam champion; new collection hide me under the blood and i shall be satisfied (bad betty press) is a pbs spring 2026 recommendation — dean and keith both came up through goldsmiths’ spoken word educators programme together writing prompts • 48 writing prompts — riso-printed a6 booklet, published by burley fisher community press, out now | |||
| HOW TO IMPROVISE A POETRY WORKSHOP | 08 May 2026 | 00:28:54 | |
Nols Nathankski introduces the Make Poetry Weird Again series of summer workshops raising money for HOLD SPACE POETRY FESTIVAL 1-5th October 2026 as part of the Bloomsbury Festival. Nols takes listeners through how he designed the workshops and how you can do them all too wherever you a re either solo or preferably with some other poets and friends. PENANCE POETRY WORKSHOP monthly / Make Poetry Weird Again Studio, Grosvenor Avenue, N5 / pay what you can Penance is the one that started it all. A monthly automatic writing workshop held in the MPWA studio in North London — three hours, pen and paper only, no phones, no booze, no editing. Each session runs on timed prompts: three minutes to write, then you read it to the room. No exceptions. Over 200 poems have been written in Penance sessions by more than 30 poets. It has become a small, intense corner of the London poetry scene — radical, confessional, sometimes surprising even to the people writing it. The workshop is soundtracked by the Longplayer, a piece of music designed to play for a thousand years without repeating. That's the vibe. Upcoming dates: 30 May, 27 June, 25 July, 29 August, 26 September, 31 October, 28 November, 12 December 2026 — all at 1pm. Access note: four flights of stairs, handrails provided. More accessible sessions planned. Book at outsavvy.com — search Penance Poetry Workshop. Pay what you can, minimum £1. PENANCE: THE LONG DAY monthly / Canonbury, N1 (exact address on booking) / £33 / unwaged pay what you can / strictly 7 places This is the escalation. Seven hours. Twenty-one prompts minimum. A living room in Canonbury. Food provided. Notebooks and pens provided. You bring yourself, as you actually are. The premise: what happens when you automatically write and perform for seven hours? Nols's working theory is that the first hour is still performance — you're managing yourself, deciding what you will and won't let onto the page. By hour three that falls away. By hour seven you're writing from somewhere else entirely. This is endurance art. It is not a craft workshop. There is no feedback, no workshopping, no critique. It is an act of excavation. Full refunds available to anyone who cannot face it the night before. That policy is part of the work. Upcoming dates: 23 May, 20 June, 25 July, 22 August, 19 September, 17 October, 21 November 2026 — all 1pm to 8pm. Book at outsavvy.com — search Penance The Long Day. £33 general / pay what you can unwaged. INTERTAINMENT — FREE PLAY WORKSHOP 1st & 3rd Sunday monthly / HWK London, 29 White Post Lane, E9 5EN / pay what you can The newest programme. We meet in the HWK courtyard at 2pm. You get a task card scored writing prompts in the Oulipo tradition, invitations rather than rules. The group decides which way to walk. We wander the canal, the estates, the parkland, wherever. Silent writing in the field for two hours. Back at 4.30 for an optional share / read something, name one thing that surprised you. Then pizza. Inspired by Stephen Nachmanovitch's Free Play Free Play: Improvisation in Life & Artthe idea that improvisation is a spiritual practice, not a skill to develop. Deliberately mixed poets, performers, complete beginners. The mix is the material. No experience required. Genuinely. Next date: Sunday 10 May 2026, 2pm–5pm. Only 8 tickets left at time of recording. Full accessibility: step-free, wheelchair accessible, accessible toilets, quiet space. Route chosen on the day with access needs in mind. Book at outsavvy.com — search Intertainment Free Play Workshop. Pay what you can, minimum £1. Links Penance Poetry Workshop — outsavvy.com/event/33964/penance-poetry-workshop Penance: The Long Day — outsavvy.com/event/35191/penance-the-long-day Intertainment — outsavvy.com/event/35674/intertainment-free-play-workshop All MPWA events — outsavvy.com/organiser/make-poetry-weird-again makepoetryweirdagain.com / @makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS IN A CRYPT TO FEEL ALIVE AGAIN | 06 May 2026 | 01:27:08 | |
Nols sits down in the crypt in february with Hebah Aboud and Cassie with a special feature from Richie Bliss of Ava' Word. Hebah Aboud is a poet, writer and community organiser. She runs poetry events in Rome and London. Check out @ancharnia for her poetry events. Cassie is a writer, art consultant and creative director from London @ceceqt Rich Bliss is a poet and open mic host from London checkout @richblisswords and @avawordpoetry This episode is from the original residency @thecryptgallerylondon in february 2026 before the first Hold Space Festival in April. We are back at the crypt gallery for our next residency and festival 1-6th October 2026. Unlike other podcast episodes this is a long conversation about all areas of life, faith and pain. Poetry gets in through the cracks. Being a field recording the editing has been difficult and the atmospheric sounds of the crypt seeps in. See tickets below to our next festival HOLD SPACE POETRY FESTIVAL OPENING CEREMONY Tickets, Thursday 1 October • 7 PM - 9 PM | Eventbrite We are fundraising for the festival with the below open mics HOLD SPACE: OPEN MIC Tickets | Multiple Dates @ HWK LONDON, London | Pay What You Can | OutSavvy | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS HEART WISDOM KNOWS | 29 Apr 2026 | 00:31:31 | |
Nols sits down in HWK in Hackney Wick to speak to MIKE the beautiful soul that has allowed MPWA to take up residence in their venue over the summer for the HOLD SPACE POETRY FESTIVAL FUNDRAISER OPEN MICS (see link below for tickets) mike runs HWK, a venue in hackney wick and the home of hold space open mic nights through summer 2026. he talks to nols about what it takes to run a space that holds poetry the logistics, the losses, and the unexpected joys. they get into wedding poems: why people want them, and what it means to write something true for someone else’s most public moment. and they talk about the poetry of running a venue the rhythms, the silences, the crowd energy that doesn’t show up on a spreadsheet. HWK is a third space, cafe, bar, venue and courtyard and our summer residence. The pizza is great too. www.hwklondon.com hold space open mic starts on the 13th May 2026 6-9pm tickets below. bi-weekly at hwk, hackney wick, through summer 2026. free to attend. all welcome. find out more and grab your spot →HOLD SPACE: OPEN MIC Tickets | Multiple Dates @ HWK LONDON, London | Pay What You Can | OutSavvy | |||
| HOW TO ACHE FOR TRANSCENDENCE IN A FAILSPACE | 22 Apr 2026 | 01:01:11 | |
Nols Nathankski gets spiritual with Chloe Smith a South Londoner who fell in love with reading and words 8 years old by reading the magical far away tree. Chloe then discovered poetry through substitute teachers at school. She was published as a young writer in primary school. As a teenager she navigated hormones and layers of identity through journaling, leaning towards song lyrics, leaving poetry alone. It was only hitting 30 when she revisited poetry and braved the open mic scene. Curating her own night in Croydon (@skibabble, which is on a hiatus) putting together day festivals and holding safe spaces for the community to express and progress. Chloe is a spiritual seed, who loves the art of good questions and longs to press through the veil of what is known to comprehend the great familial unknown. Chloe and Nols make poems with prompts from Adam RW of Storytime London. Get Chloe's book here; https://www.londonpoetrybooks.com/?s=Small+pockets+of+mischief | |||
| HOW TO SPIT POETRY IN FRONT OF 1500 PEOPLE | 14 Apr 2026 | 00:43:46 | |
Fresh from our Hold Space Poetry Festival in the Crypt Gallery @nolsnathankski was given tickets for @spitnights biggest ever show @theroundhouse in Camden by his friend the sensational poet Hebah Aboud. @hebah_a Nols decided to make some guerrilla radio by gauging audience reactions to a sell out night of spoken word & improv jazz in front of 1500 in a legendary venue. The response from the crowd was overwhelmingly positive, but the night was a bit too big and loud for Nol's tiny neurodivergent brain and this episode also celebrates the peace that comes from smaller and quieter spaces. The night was headlined by superstar poets @georgiejones @maureenonuwali @caitlinoryan and @harrybaker - who it turns out Nols weirdly went to school with, something he obviously couldn't stop telling bemused interviewees. This episode is a series of chaotic field recordings interviewing members of the audience and staff at the roundhouse who nols forgot to make notes of the insta handles of- please tag yourselves! Friend of the show @that1thea makes an appearance! Nols did get 3 poems from a SUPER SPECIAL GUEST POET at the end of the night - live outside the Roundhouse! Listen until the end to find out who it was... Prompt: Write a poem to perform in front of 1500 people. To support Hold Space Poetry Festival's return in October and keep it Free entry please come to one of our pay-what-you-can fundraiser open mic nights at HWK throughout summer! HOLD SPACE: OPEN MIC Tickets | Multiple Dates @ HWK LONDON, London | Pay What You Can | OutSavvy @makepoetryweirdagain www.makepoetryweirdagain.com | |||
| HOW TO BRING THE SPIRIT OF THE TÁIN BÓ CÚAILNGE TO THE OPEN MIC | 09 Apr 2026 | 00:59:48 | |
Nols Nathankski flys through the sky with Jo Morrigan Black (They/Them/It) Jo is a Paris-born writer, visual artist and performance poet. They have worked with indigenous leaders in Colombia, left stray feathers in Berlin and stalked the streets of Dublin as a vampire. Their stage performances combine Spoken Word, physical theatre and surrealist costuming to celebrate the queer and the unknowable in us all. Jo’s writing dwells in journals such as Poetry Ireland Review, Abridged and The Storms, where it was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Their work has been commissioned by the Runoviikko Festival in Finland, presented by the Irish Writers Centre and archived at The Linen Hall, Belfast. Showcased by Culture Ireland at Edinburgh Fringe 2025, their self-produced drag poetry show CARPET MUNCHER was shortlisted for the Binge Fringe Queer Performer’s Award and chosen as a Snack Mag Storytelling Top Pick. Jo was awarded a place in Island Of Many Voices 2026. @mothpoet - instagram Jo made this Paris open mic documentary: https://youtu.be/Mg5vTTrPDFk?is=dlneTUaUJokRdif6 The song referenced All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands: https://youtu.be/JHul8vzXsV8?is=qfjTCMjhf3Ua_4bQ Jo is currently Reading: Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King Jo and Nols make poems with prompts from Stevie Grant @steviepoems Keep this podcast flying www.Ko-fi.com/makepoetryweirdagain www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO KEEP RUNNIN' AT THE OPEN MIC | 01 Apr 2026 | 00:57:21 | |
Nols sits down on a rainy February day with Jake Nathan a poet and artist, from East London. They talk about mental health, masculinity, social justice and being working class in England. The show explores how Jake went from hip hop to open mic and the challenges of open mic burn out. Jake is a multiple-time poetry slam winner and grand poetry slam champion. Based in Essex, he performs his poetry and teaches workshops across the country. Jake has featured at the Faversham Literary Festival, Essex Writers’ House Festival, Margate Bookie Festival and the Medway River Lit Festival. His poems have been featured on BBC Radio and various podcasts. His page poetry has been published by Anti-Heroin Chic, Thanet Writers and elsewhere. A Life in the Day of Nathan Jake (Incomplete) is the debut pamphlet from Jake . Combining two of his passions, the pamphlet is composed of poems written to the titles of hip-hop songs. A Life in the Day of Nathan Jake (Incomplete) Nols and Jake make poems with prompts from Kestral Gaia. Keep this podcast runnin' on the patreon www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO HOLD SPACE IN A CRYPT DURING HOLY WEEK | 25 Mar 2026 | 01:02:07 | |
Nols Nathankski provides all you need to know about the Hold Space Poetry Festival. A sober gift to the London Open Mic scene in collaboration with the Crypt Gallery running from the 1st - 7th April 2026. A festival dreamed up and produced in only 2 weeks to run during the most sacred days of the Christian calendar. Of course it begins on APRIL FOOLS DAY! After an open call fifteen poets will take up residence in The Crypt Gallery underneath St Pancras New Church for seven whole days during Holy Week 2026. Yes, its a crypt. Yes, there are 557 departed souls down there. Yes, it's going to be SEVEN days of back to back open mic. A week of free experimental poetry, workshops, open mics, and a zine built page by page across the week. Entry is free throughout. Workshops are mainly free with some paid and pay what you can with booking. 1–7 April 2026 · The Crypt Gallery, 165 Euston Road, London NW1 2BA What's on: Wed 1 Apr — Residency opens. Set-up, intentions. Opening Ceremony & Open mic from 6pm Thu 2 Apr — Podcast recordings. Scary Stories workshop with Stevie Grant. Open mic from 6pm Fri 3 Apr (Good Friday) — Live podcast recordings. Writing from the ashes workshop with the Trashfire poet. Zine Day. Good Friday Open Mic. Sat 4 Apr (Holy Saturday) — Penance tea ceremony and workshop. Podcast recordings. Open mic from 6pm Sun 5 Apr (Easter Sunday) — Sensual Small Poem workshop with Alexia Chrysostomou. Open mic from 6pm Mon 6 Apr — Saying the Unsayable workshop facilitated by Nols. Zine workshop. The River Returns Home immersive performance fundraising for Ukrainian charities + Open Mic. Tue 7 Apr (Easter Tuesday) — Zine assembly and distro. Closing performances + Open mic. The resident poets — give them a follow: Pia Fajelagutan / The Piss I Call Art — Abu Dhabi-bred word wrangler, debut collection Whiskey For The Uninitiated. Feral charm, unfiltered verse. Emma Keun — London-based, published in Kite String II–IV, four honourable mentions from Dark Poets Club. Luigi Coppola / The Only Emperor — featured at Glastonbury, Tate Modern, Southbank Centre. Slam champion. Debut from Broken Sleep Books. linktr.ee/PoetryPreacher Maria Cohut — Romanian writer in Brighton . Debut collection Multiple Exposures out 2026 on Flight of the Dragonfly. Maddy Kilsbury McMurray — non-binary poet, neurodiversity advocate, LGBTQIA+ community stalwart. Oscar Rodriguez — Salvadoran American poet. Diaspora, generational trauma, noise music, queer liberation. Does it all at once. Em Cosgrove / Girl Can't Sing Well — spoken word artist. The body, decay, rebirth, and campy humour. Hyper-visual. Bee Wylie — witchy wordsmith from the West Midlands. Debut book Dream Weaving coming through Hay House. Exploring spirituality, grief, love. Tadgh Haran — trans poet, London. Work in Anthropocene, Scab, Perverse, Tentacular. Writes out of anger and curiosity. Sobriety anchors everything. Jordan Minga — Afro British, first-gen Ugandan, from Peckham. Poet and visual artist. Self-identity, spirituality, intergenerational discourse. Refuses to ask permission. Tom Bland - Tom has published Camp Fear and The Death of a Clown, with Bad Betty Press. His work has been nominated for the Polari Prize and have been on Dennis Cooper's yearly Fav Books List. He writes on the relationship between language and sexuality, trauma and liberation Leatrice — originally NYC, now UK. Memory, obsession, mental illness. Co-hosts Oxford DIY Pride. Debut collection Yearbook Signing. H Phillips — started performing poetry in early 2025 and has not stopped. Surreal social satire, tranquilised emotions, characters. @haitch_speaks Byuka Makodru — trans, disabled, migrant writer. Mixing immersive performance, ritual, visual art. Writing with ash. Poetry as liberation. Get tickets for all events here: OutSavvy - Make Poetry Weird Again tickets and events. Book tickets instantly via the OutSavvy app or website for Make Poetry Weird Again Find us: Instagram: @makepoetryweirdagain nols@makepoetryweirdagain.com | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS WITH 7 POETS IN A CRYPT | 18 Mar 2026 | 02:11:38 | |
Nols Nathankski makes a very chaotic field recording of day 4 in the Crypt gallery London during the February residency. Expect all kinds of phantasmagorical goings on. Nols made poems with N00mi, Rosie Reed Gold, Jo Delvauney, Pid'Or, Choral Poetique and Tanyeli Taze. The episode is endurance art and some have said impossible to listen to! You be the Judge! Give the poets a follow; @n00m_i @rosiereedgoldartist @tanyeli.taze @choralepoetique @ptplays @sweetamanita @pollyannaknight_ @chi.laferla Keep nols doing this @makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO TELL A STORY AT THE OPEN MIC | 10 Mar 2026 | 01:21:29 | |
Nols Nathankski sits down to tell stories with Adam RW, a poet, writer and literary tour guide based in London. Adam runs Bookmarked, a literary walking tour company, and Storytime, a weekly storytelling night. His first poetry collection was published in December 2023. Adam and Nols discuss the creation of Story Time, and it's unique place in the London Open Mic Scene. They talk to what makes a good story and make plans on how to get George Saunders, Karl Ove Knausgard and Nikolai Gogol (RIP) to perform at Story Time. Nols and Adam make stories with prompts from Maddy Kilsby-McMurray. The next story time is at Galeria Objets in London on the 18th March 2026 Hosted by Kofi Achina & Adam, stories from Georgie Jones, Takunda, Tony Bell & open mic spots. Follow the @TheAdamrw and @storytimelondon | |||
| HOW TO MAKE TRASHFIRE POETRY IN YOUR GARDEN | 05 Mar 2026 | 01:02:02 | |
Nols Nathankski sits down with Maddy Kilsby-McMurray a non-binary poet & writer based in Southend-On-Sea, UK. Maddy describes writing as their therapy, a way to process a world that is too harshand too fast for their queer, disabled heart. Nols and Maddy talk 'Trash fire poetry' written in haste and often destined to be burnt. They fortunately burn less poems now. Maddy and Nols make poems from Teresa Check out Maddy's work - www.trashfirepoet.com Instagram - @trashfirepoet Maddy shouts out southend pride - @southendpride Transpire - @transpire_southend St Mark's Church - @stmarkschurchsouthend South Street Coffee house - @southstreetcoffeehouse RJ Learmouth - @j.learmouth.art Dangerous Poetry Night Pride Poetry Keep this podcast's fire alive www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO WHISPER POEMS IN A CRYPT (DAY 2) | 23 Feb 2026 | 00:27:20 | |
Nols Nathankski makes poems in the crypt on Day 2 of the Make Poetry Weird Again Residency. No other poets show up so Nols has a bit of an existential crisis about the project and works through a series of prompts. Does his pages and meditates on what a successful residency is. Mainly he speaks his poems to walls and ghosts. The prompts are below. Write a poem that erodes. What is it made of ? What does it degrade into? Make a poem for the departed Make a remembrance poem for someone you wish you knew better. Make a poem for the last day of judgement. Make a poem with an echo that you have to tell to be quiet. Make a poem of several rooms - tell us about them. Make a poem that resonates - end in a great hum! Come to the crypt and keep Nols company on the 19th and 20th February 3-6pm. Keep us from the wolves. www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE ACTUALLY ENJOYABLE BUT OBVIOUSLY HORRID POETRY | 21 Feb 2026 | 01:12:07 | |
Nols Nathankski sits down in the Crypt gallery with Teresa Rendell, a poet and creative director based in London. Teresa makes sense of the world in fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Her poetry deals with very serious themes of childhood trauma, listener discretion is advised. Nols and Teresa speak to the London open mic scene and how to put together a one person show. @choralpoetique provide songs in the background. They make poems with prompts from the crypt residency on Day 1. Teresa shouts out the following poets and open mics. Wordspace Steve Tasane White Feather Poetry Kofi Achina Heart of the Community Chelsea Beechwood Krystal Sisodia Echoverse t’ART @t_tartpress If Poet’s Ruled the World Ted Temple host of spitnights and groove verse Cosmic Pumpkin Camden Women’s Writing Festival Tickets for the show (the three poems we did on the podcast are part of the show) https://www.citizenticket.com/events/etcetera-theatre/a-year-in-the-life/ A YEAR IN THE LIFE Written & Performed by Teresa Rendell “Actually really enjoyable, but obviously horrid” - a close and supportive friend “Very impressive” - my therapist Teresa’s debut spoken word show, A YEAR IN THE LIFE, reflects on (an imprecise) calendar year through poetry and one hell of a yap. This collection is full of pathos, dark humour, deeply personal stories, and pseudonyms. Teresa captures the realities of processing a sexual assault, while grieving the death of her dad. It’s been a rough ride, so buckle up, for 45 minutes on the dangers of public transport, a nightmare full of spiders, and just how frustrating recovery can be. Keep Nols making poems www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS THAT BRING DRACULA BACK TO DERBY | 19 Feb 2026 | 00:43:33 | |
Nols Nathankski sits down in the crypt with Dan Webber an award winning LGBTQ+ poet, performer, producer and events coordinator based in Derby. Who while yet to win a slam won Nols's heart with his tales of gothic queerness. The pair made poems as part of day 3 of the Make Poetry Weird Again Residency at the Crypt Gallery in London. Dan can be found on insta @imgenrefluid Find out more about his practice below. https://www.derbypoetryfestival.com/ https://www.derby.ac.uk/departments/school-of-humanities-law-creative-arts/dracula-returns-to-derby/ https://nottinghampoetryfestival.com/ Keep us sucking blood www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS ON A RESIDENCY IN A CRYPT DAY 1 | 17 Feb 2026 | 00:38:03 | |
Nols Nathankski's field recording of day 1 of the crypt gallery residency. Nols has created a series of poetry prompts on day 1 of the residency. Poets are welcome to come to the crypt between 16th - 20th February 2026 to create poems and perform them under penance conditions. Prompts.
Nols meets various visitors to the crypt over the course of the day. Teresa Rendall pops in to make a podcast and the pair make poems together as well as read some of Teresa's poem's together. Keep this residency going by joining the patreon www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO PERFORM POEMS WHILE AWAKE INSIDE THE DREAM | 17 Feb 2026 | 00:32:14 | |
Nols Nathankski and his friend the Bulgarian Pop Star Ivka Fox decided to record a catch up episode onFriday 13th February 2026 to talk to Ivka's new role as a pole dancer at a central London strip club and how this has influenced her writing. However the bad luck lived up to its favourite Friday and two attempts at recording failed due to a black out and an unexplained technical error. This show is an attempt to recreate the episode using voice note recordings of Ivka's new poems and a demo of Ivka's new track "Break Up Sex" This is the first episode of the podcast produced during the crypt gallery residency. Nols is making poems and podcast episodes in a central London tomb. If you want to reach out to ivka her instagram is @ivka_369 Keep this podcast awake in the dream www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS THAT SET FIRE TO DATA CENTERS | 14 Feb 2026 | 01:05:03 | |
Nols Nathankski sits down with Kestral Gaian (They/Them) Queer Writer and Poet, to talk about making poems on the Tube, The best sandwich and why we need to make poems that burn down data centers. Nols and Kestral make love poems with prompts from Kim Addonizio's book Ordinary Genius. You can buy Kestal's poetry book Tubelines below! Tubelines – Reconnecting Rainbows Press They can be found at www.kestr.al Instagram: @kes.tr.al Bluesky: @kestr.al Keep this podcast going by subscribing to the Patreon. www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS IN A CRYPT | 13 Feb 2026 | 00:14:53 | |
OPEN CALL TO POETS! MAKE POETRY WEIRD AGAIN PRESENTS PENANCE RESIDENCY @ THE CRYPT GALLERY, LONDON. We are very excited to announce that we will be having our first PENANCE residency at the historic Crypt gallery in London. FREE ENTRY FOR ALL. From @nolsnathankski : "Hey lovely human 🌒 I wanted to invite you to PENANCE at the Crypt Gallery, beneath St Pancras Church, running 16–20 February 2026. As someone who’s been part of Make Poetry Weird Again, it would be really special to have you there. PENANCE is about making poems under simple constraints, being properly present together, and seeing what happens. Across the week there’ll be PENANCE sessions, open working time, and daily podcast recordings in the space. Some sessions will be small and invitation-based, others more open. It’s completely free. No pressure to perform beyond what feels right. Turning up, listening, writing, or just being there is enough. If you’re up for it, let me know which day or days might work and I’ll share more details closer to the time. Would love to share the crypt with you 🖤 Nols" All poets that make poems under Penance conditions will have completed A poetry 'residency' and will receive an email confirmation of the same. There will be Penance prompts for all who attend to make poems under strict rules. - No Phones - No Vapes/Smoking - No alcohol Poets can work to automatic prompts and perform them in the space to be recorded on the podcast. All poets are welcome to simply come and make poems in the space. Nols will be making podcasts with poets, artists and whoever shows up! There will be workshops and a performance event. With details on how to book coming soon. If you are interested in attending on any date and wish to be recorded or have a great idea for making poems in a crypt. Send us a DM or email nols@makepoetryweirdagain.com. Share this with a poet you know or just people who like making things in crypts. There is no heating in the crypt so dress appropriately! The crypt is still the final resting place of 557 people so we must respect their presence. Keep Nols warm by signing up to the patreon. www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POETRY OUT OF 7 PEOPLE COMING TO YOUR PAMPHLET LAUNCH | 13 Feb 2026 | 01:17:25 | |
We put on a wake for Nols Nathankski's pamphlet "Oh, Nols!" at Burley Fisher Books on the 12th February 2026. The event Sold Out but only 6 poets and a wizard showed up so Nols turned the event into an impromptu poetry workshop which you can hear in its badly recorded entirety. When life gives you lemons - eat cake and make poetry. The prompts we worked to were
Huge thanks to Sam and Una of Burley Fisher Books for hosting the night so gracefully. Massive thanks to the poets that joined us. Redeeming Features Josh Hallam and his puppy Stevie Grant Haitch Tanyeli Taze Tom Oldham Neva Ziv Keep the sponsors from freaking out www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE PEOPLE FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR POEM AT THE OPEN MIC | 07 Feb 2026 | 00:44:25 | |
Nols Nathankski inspired by Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi makes an episode on stage craft at the open mic for beginners and people wondering whether they should come to a local open mic. His only expertise being his own addiction to performing at the open mic. Nols provides his own insights about performing at the open mic and gives examples of reading from your phone, from paper and straight from the dome. This show is an attempt at a performance workshop from an enthusiastic amateur. If you would like to provide your own expertise get in touch! The sponsors are freaking out that the show is bombing so this a desperate attempt for attention, much like every performance should be at the open mic. Keep the sponsors happy by signing up to the patreon. www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS THAT DISINTEGRATE | 05 Feb 2026 | 00:47:40 | |
Nols Nathankski gets to stan one of his favourite poets Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi who is the author of THE BOOK OF KANE AND MARGARET (FC2 / UAP) and Nols favourite poetry book of 2025 - DISINTEGRATION MADE PLAIN AND EASY (Piżama Press). Kiik is also a mentor and educator at Western Washington University. A chance encounter with Kiik's poetry online, led to Nols being forever changed. Kiik makes weird gentle poems, channelling voices that help him process feelings. The poems are delightfully surreal and speak to Nol's commitment to being very silly at the end of the world. Nols and Kiik make poems with prompts from Tyger Soul. Kiik performs some of his about the author poems and a poem for his children called Burial. Check out Kiik's website below; Buy his deluxe edition here - Disintegration Made Plain and Easy (Digital Deluxe) — [neonpajamas] Keep Nols meeting his poetic heroes by subscribing to the Patreon. www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO FEED THE POETS AT THE WORD ZOO | 02 Feb 2026 | 01:07:55 | |
Nols Nathankski takes a trip to the Word Zoo with host Tyger Soul. They talk about the last decade in the scene, the best tomatoes and how to jam with a band as a poet. The Word Zoo happens every 1st Thursday of the month, at The Others in SToke Newington. There are always Open Mic slots, a chance to say your poems or songs with our houseband Vibe Machine, plus featured acts and a book raffle. Search The Word Zoo for tickets and more info. Tyger Soul likes poems that bite. You'll often find him on a mic or traversing the country with his band Vibe Machine. All socials are @_tygersoul and @the_word_zoo They make poems with prompts from Leatrice Keep this poem biting on patreon www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO PRAY FOR TIME AT THE OPEN MIC | 31 Jan 2026 | 01:02:16 | |
Nols Nathankski takes to the sofa with Erika Loch. They talk shared open mic experiences and how to find quiet to write. Erika is a poet, lyricist, and a creative and commercial writer – writing in defiance of modern book burning, she leaves messages for those who seek to read between the lines. Erika collaborates with artists, brands, galleries, and organisations – she takes commissions via WORDS by Erika Loch and hosts monthly open mics @wordsoutloudchichester Find out more about Erika below! www.erikaloch.com | @erika_loch | @theunknownpoetproject (Instagram) They make prompts by Hedde Annersberg from Stockholm | |||
| HOW TO GET BRITS TO SIGN YOUR YEAR BOOK AT THE OPEN MIC | 29 Jan 2026 | 01:06:17 | |
Nols Nathankski its down for a cup of tea with Leatrice. An American Poet who is now living in Oxford. Leatrice makes intricate poems exploring early relationships, memory and connection. The pair discuss the stress of slam scores, the difference between New York & London open mics and making poems on the tube. Nols and Leatrice make poems with prompts from Vidya Gosain. Leatrice shouts out the following Open Mics: @oxfordpoetrylibrary @33artsy (Leatrice will be reading on 5 Feb 2026) @poetrymondaysjamboree Leatrice shouts out the following Poets: @garretandbasement @maybeitsmoberley @phoebn @sophias1000daychallenge @thewrongjam @alilewispoet Others: @reconnectpress (my publisher) @cailin.in.character (best friend & cover designer) Link to the "official" Yearbook Signing playlist—there's a song for the title, each poem, and the little epigraph/signature page at the end: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0V9mEQPegOTX8GLz2UCuxg?si=ac29bfb2d6364c61 You can buy Leatrice's book here: Yearbook Signing – Reconnecting Rainbows Press Keep Nols in poetry books by subscribing to the patreon. www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COOKING AND EATING AT THE OPEN MIC | 27 Jan 2026 | 01:01:50 | |
Nols Nathankski and Vidya Gosain sit down to cook about disenfranchisement at the open mic. Changes in the scene and how to give space to people with lived experience of racism and homophobia. Vidya (she/her) is a writer who finds the comedy and tragedy in everyday life; constantly searching for meaning in mundanity and trying to tell you stories about what she finds. Her favourite colour is green and her favourite chef is Anthony Bourdain. They make poems with prompts from Kim Addonizio's book Quiet Genius. First ever open mic night: @houseofrhymes_ @where.the.word.things.live NY poetry night - @voicesinpower_ / host: @imsuperdope_ The book I mention at 58 mins is called "Big Magic (Creative Living Beyond Fear)" by Elizabeth Gilbert (@elizabeth_gilbert_writer) Favourite poets / poet shout outs: @sumnerbrook @theadamrw @zakariyyee @aaronmccallumhepple @l.p.macpherson @hannahwallwork87 Favourite open mics / open mic shout outs: @everythingpoetrynight @storytimelondon @rhymesandstitches @versespoetrynight Keep this podcast cooking and Nols eating www.patreon.com/make poetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO FIND A PLACE TO ATTACK FROM! | 25 Jan 2026 | 00:31:40 | |
Nols Nathankski presents a fuck you to writing retreats and writing holidays. In this episode Nols will take you through some ideas of how you can find time every week to find a place to attack from. Not spending loads of money. Not going away anywhere. How to reclaim your time and dedicate it to your work. This episode looks at where to write, what sort of schedule you should set yourself and how you can comfortably and cheaply focus on your writing without having to go much further than a local library, church or cafe. Nols provides example schedules and prompts for how to begin and end writing sessions. Focusing on attention, rest and encouragment. If you have a writing practice you wish to share get in touch, we would love to hear from you! Keep this show going on patreon. www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO ESCAPE INTO ENGLISH AT THE OPEN MIC | 23 Jan 2026 | 01:08:35 | |
Nols Nathankski meets Hedde Annerberg (@heddeee_) who is a grassroots poetry organiser & writer from Stockholm. You can find their events @openmicpoetrynight ; if you're in Stockholm and can present your self there, they'd love to hear what you have to bring. They send their love to everyone who is a part of these nights; to co-host Ryan without whom they would not be doing this; to @alabaster_deplume for sending them to this podcast & for the work he does; to you, here, reading this, possibly listening, thank you A whatsapp group conversation about which open mics to attend while here, turned into an invitation to record an episode about Hedde's English speaking open mic in Stockholm. Nols and Hedde talk about making poems in the face of societal collapse and fascism. Why people need to be needed more, and their new pamphlet that they have just released. Nols and Hedde make prompts from Gwilym Hedde shouts out Alabaster de Plume @theopenmicpoetrynight Lets get this podcast international www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO FOLLOW YOUR BUTTERFLIES AT THE OPEN MIC | 21 Jan 2026 | 00:58:48 | |
Nols Nathankski sits down with Emma Keun, (she/her) to discuss following your butterflies, the queering of religious imagery and the best places to get emo at the open mic. Emma is published online (Dark Poets Club) and in hard copy anthologies (Kite String II and III; via Word Space, an open mic and poetry collective). She lives in London and when not performing or writing, attempts making and growing things. She has a poetry website https://elkwrites.substack.com/and can be found on Instagram as @elkwrites000555. Nols and Emma make poems from Kim Addonizio's Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the poet within. Emma Shouts out @wordspace @lostsouls @steviepoems @s-barks LGBTQIA open mic @ Morocco Bound Everything Poetry @ The Walrus, Lambeth Firepit Tales @ Firepit Art Gallery, Greenwich That Goddamn Poetry Jam @ Fiddlers Elbow, Kentish Town Poets in Putney Crossword Lyric See Emma perform at Stokey Bookshop on the 22nd January 2026 as part of a fundraiser for Hackney Night shelter. Support this podcast on our patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE VEGAN GOTH POETRY AT THE END OF THE WORLD | 20 Jan 2026 | 01:18:25 | |
Nols Nathankski sits down with Gwilym a Goth poet living in Wales. They talk about making gothic love poems in grave yards. They talk to the catharsis of poetry, vegan cooking and the end of the world. Nols and Gwilym make poems from prompts from Stevie Grant Gwilym's book is called Talking Headstones and can be purchased through his linktree https://linktr.ee/Praxis_Studios?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio Gwilym shouts out his all time favourite artist - Suzi Sabotage https://gothsforpalestine.bandcamp.com/album/goths-for-palestine-vol-ii Some Great Goth music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27HaBqJgfBM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll5wq7_2B3g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTC-vGWJaDQ Gwilym gives a big shout to Romanian Poet Paul Damian. If you want to fund Nol's decadent lifestyle please support the patreon. www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH OR DIE TRYIN' | 14 Jan 2026 | 00:53:53 | |
Nols Nathankski talks about self publishing "Oh, Nols!" his first poetry pamphlet and why you should self publish to. This episode was pre-recorded to be released after his surgery on the 13th January 2026...just in case he dies on the operating table. Nols discusses his feelings of uncertainty about the pamphlet and examines Maurice Blanchot's philosophy of literature to try and finds a weird friend in a dead French philosopher. In this episode Nols talks to the triumph and despair of self publishing your first poetry pamphlet. The weirdness of sending poems into the world to not be yours anymore. Who owns poems and what happens when it is not you reading them at an open mic? This is a poetic existential crises with some new poems thrown in and bits from the pamphlet. Expect poetic despair and a desperate request to join the patreon so the box of pamphlets does not haunt Nols like a ghost. Nols printed his pamphlet at the burley fisher bookshop community press: If Nols is still with us, he will be hosting a wake for the pamphlet at the shop on Thursday 12th February 2026 at 6pm-9pm This podcast was very influenced by The infinite conversation by Maurice Blanchot The Space of Literature by Maurice Blanchot The @hermetix episode below was also really informative. Maurice Blanchot, Literature, and Language with Bryan Counter An immodest proposal by Joseph Brodsky out now in Join the Patreon to get a copy or message Nols on instagram. www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO GET PERMISSION TO HURT AT THE OPEN MIC | 12 Jan 2026 | 00:54:42 | |
Nols Nathankski talks hardcore poetry with Pulling Teeth a London based poet who writes about love, spider webs , alcoholism and more importantly accidentally going on a date with a racist. They talk to his poetry video series Im Not Leaving Yet which is an exploration of the London Open Mic scene through poets performing their poems in the street. Nols provides some hardcore prompts for them to make poems from. Pulling Teeth shouts out Mikey T.Mo Nols and Pulling Teeth are working together to put on THROW WORDS DOWN an open mic with a hardcore backing band on the 29th January 2026 at the Fiddlers Elbow in Camden, Pulling Teeth is planning an open mic of his own so follow his pages for more info! Pay Nol's dentist bills by subscribing to the patreon. www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO READ THE TAROT AT THE OPEN MIC | 11 Jan 2026 | 01:30:20 | |
Nols Nathankski sits down for a chat and a tarot reading with Hebah, a jack of all trades, regularly performs a variety of moving yet comedic poetry in the London poetry circuit using her outfits and other items as props. Blending her acting, directing and DJing skills she has enhanced the listener experience by focusing on the way poems sound and feel, exploring the senses with her words. Her tarot and astrology work have also had measurable impact on her art as she fuses her tarot cards into her poetry performance. She plays with language as an English teacher and Corporate language coach, helping others to present themselves with confidence. She continues introducing blended poetry with 3 languages and cultures fusing her Iraqi origins with her British/Italian life living between London and Rome. Managing illness, death and instability have all played a major role in her spoken word and poetic resonance. She would like to thank and shout out the following people mentioned in the podcast: @deptforddoggerels @resonance.poetry @cwiththec @natethelyricist @spitnights @louisthehippie @houseofvox @iam_tariqq @yourstruly_reverend @jessica_fowler_actor @storytimelondon @rachel._.loveday @wordsoneggsontoast @kofi_anchina @wowromapoetryslam @gio_drew Nols and Hebah make prompts from POW's Dr Lee Campbell. Hebah has an open mic planned in Rome at the Cabaret Voltaire Galleria at the end of January. Keep this podcast going by subscribing to the Patreon www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO PERFORM POEMS AT A HARDCORE OPEN MIC | 06 Jan 2026 | 00:41:28 | |
Nols Nathankski explains how to perform your poems with a hardcore backing band for THROW WORDS DOWN the MAKE POETRY WEIRD AGAIN x AVA WORD Open Mic night - born on the podcast with Redeeming Features. The night is poetry experiment to try and raise £500 for MIND the mental health charity at the most miserable time of the year. On the 29th January 2026 at 6.30pm you can bring your poems to the Fiddlers Elbow in Camden and scream them into a microphone. Every performer will get 3 minutes and they will have the opportunity to have fast, slow or fucking extreme music backing them. Nols thinks all poets quietly want to be rockstars so this is a way to do it loud. If you are not a poet and just want to make loud noises then this is also a night for you. Nols explains how the night has been planned to work and plays clips from the very chaotic band practices which included Redeeming Features, Richard Allen, Rich Bliss, Colin B Osborn and Im Not Leaving Yet. Nols make poems based on some of the themes of the night. Screaming and shouting is very good for the soul, reduces anxiety and can be cathartic. We all need to scream our poems sometimes... See you on the 29th January 2026 - Tickets can be purchased below! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/make-poetry-weird-again-presents-throw-words-down-tickets-1977797556733?aff=oddtdtcreator If you want to get the first word on events and sneaky discounts - SIGN UP TO THE PATREON www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO PERFORM POEMS AGAINST HOMELESSNESS | 04 Jan 2026 | 00:50:04 | |
Nols Nathankski and friend of the show Stevie Grant make a special episode to promote Stevie's fundraiser for Hackney Night Shelter on the 22nd January 2026 at Stoke Newington Bookshop. Stevie Grant is a poet, performer and emergency shelter worker from Hackney who works with the people suffering from homelessness in London. Nols and Stevie make prompts for each other and make poems on the show. They also perform new material they have both been working on. If you wish to support Hackney Night Shelter please make a donation. We need your support | Hackney Night Shelter If you would like to know more about volunteering for Hackney Night Shelter email: volunteer@hackneydoorways.org.uk Find Hackney Night Shelter on insta: https://www.instagram.com/hackneynightshelter?igsh=MTFtMGUycTdwNTdxOQ== Find Stevie at SteviePoems on insta: https://www.instagram.com/steviepoems?igsh=MW83Z3A4Mzl0MzFrYg== Ticket page: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/hackneynightshelter1/2002560 Don't bother signing up to the Patreon - give your money to someone that needs it. www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE POEMS WHEN YOU THINK YOU HAVE CANCER | 03 Jan 2026 | 00:53:40 | |
Trigger warning: Death, Cancer, medical scenes, invasive surgery, lots of swearing. Nols first episode of 2026 looking back at a year of medical drama. The poems in this episode were made across 2025 around the multiple hospital and doctors visits Nols has to find out if he is dying too quickly or not. Nols explores how death and dying have been key influences on his poetry and his life in 2025 and the experience of navigating a national health service that is slowly being eaten up by private interests. Nols reads i like your body from page 10 of e.e. cumming's collected poems 1923-1958 E. E. Cummings: Selected Poems 1923-1958 | Faber Poetry Nols reads Heat Map by Richard Siken Heat Map | Poem and Pain Scale by Richard Siken out now in Rattle Magazine 89 -Pain Scale by Richard Siken - Rattle: Poetry #89 – Fall 2025 - Rattle: Poetry Find more Richard's work here: www.richard-siken.com Nols recites Bill Knott's 'Death' from his first book The Naomi Poems Corpse and Beans out now on Black Ocean Press The Naomi Poems: Corpse and Beans by Bill Knott — Black Ocean Nols also plays recordings of voicenotes and works to several prompts. If you have been effected by this episode reach out to a friend or family member or email nols@makepoetryweirdagain.com and make some poetry out of it. Keep this podcast going at www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO BRING BIG BOOK ENERGY TO THE OPEN MIC | 01 Jan 2026 | 00:50:47 | |
Nols Nathankski and Dr. Lee Campbell meet at betwixmass to make poems, talk queer love and gardening. Dr Lee Campbell is an artist, poet, filmmaker, co-curator of POW! Play on Words (a regular spoken word platform in London along with Colin B. Osborn) and Senior Lecturer at University of the Arts London.His debut poetry collection ’See Me: An (Almost) Autobiography’ was published by London Poetry Books in November 2024. Other publications of his poetry include The Atticus Review, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Otherwise, You Are Here - The Journal of Creative Geography, Queerlings, Streetcake. Step Away Magazine, London Grip and Flight of the DragonFly. His chapbook ‘Queering the Landscape’ was shortlisted for the 2024 Broken Spine Chapbook Poetry Competition. In 2025, he headlined at many established poetry platforms including The Word Zoo, Rhymes and Stitches, Big Trouble and Medway Poetry Night, Testing Grounds and The Poetry Shack. His experimental performance poetry films have been selected for many international film festivals and prizes since 2019 including shortlisted for Best Poetry Film at the Out-Spoken Poetry Prize 2023, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London. Dr Lee Campbell has performed at 150 open mics this year! Nols and Lee make poems with prompts from Sarthak Mukherji Lee shouts out Play On Words Colin B Osborn Redeeming Features Eliza Fiver Keep Nols happy in 2026 by subscribing to the patreon www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||
| HOW TO MAKE WEIRD POETRY OUT OF 2025 | 29 Dec 2025 | 01:35:36 | |
Nols Nathankski presents an end of year podcast with a round up of some of THE BEST POEMS made and spoken on the show. With highlights of moments from poets across the last 6 months. Someone told Nols that getting past 40 episodes means that he is a real podcaster now. Comment your thoughts below. This is a recap to celebrate the end of the first 6 months of MAKE POETRY WEIRD AGAIN and a desperate attempt to keep the sponsors happy. Featured poets Anika Paniza Allanah Campbell Avouleance Colin B Osborn Dave Jackson Keen Ella Frears Eliza Fiver Eliza Vezen Ivka Fox Jean Akintoye Kristal Sisodia Tanyeli Taze Thea The Mad Po3t Tyreece Asamoa Ollie Words on Eggs on Toast Sarthak Mukherji Stevie Grant Will from Switched Up Poetry The podcast continues into 2026 unless the Sponsors pull the funding. Help Nols pay the rent on the studio www.patreon.com/makepoetryweirdagain | |||