Words on the Wall is brilliant. It’s a spoken word afternoon in Hexham and I love it. It’s one of those regular events (3 times a year) that becomes a community, and this one is a raggle-taggle group of ever-changing top headliners and open mic spots, some of whom you get to know as they share their work regularly. This kind of format makes me attend to words, and to people, and helps me make connections I hadn’t imagined. One of the great things poetry can do can do is help us to listen to each other.
Words on the Wall been growing steadily, but last Saturday’s was something else. For this edition we were part of Hexham Book Festival; our little venue was rammed and a few of us regular open mic-ers had the chance of a longer slot – 8 minutes to spotlight our words. Even better, one of our headliners was our own Caitlin Kendall, reading from her first collection, Nothing is Yours. A collection, from one of us! And we had Oz Hardwick beguiling us too with his new collection. It was fantastic to be part of a busy, buzzing, standing-room-only poetry gig.