Review: Theatre at Shoot Festival 2022
Reviewed by Stella Backhouse | The ‘Performance’ strand of Coventry’s Shoot Festival 2022 concluded at the city’s Belgrade Theatre on Thursday and Friday last week with two very different new plays from woman playwrights: ‘Protests, hymns and caskets’ by lanaire aderemi and ‘Gamble’ by Hannah Walker and Rosa Postlethwaite…
May 2022 Round-up: Virtual Literary Events
May has arrived! The HCE magazine team have created another list of online literary open mics, events and workshops, to help you plan for the weeks ahead. Don’t miss out on taking part – seize this opportunity to “travel” far and wide, and even participate in events overseas…
REVIEW: RAYMOND ANTROBUS’ ‘ALL THE NAMES GIVEN’
Reviewed by Stella Backhouse | “But within Raymond Antrobus’s 2021 collection ‘All The Names Given’, the poet’s description of the antipathy between his dreadlocked Jamaican father and his white British maternal grandmother, the possibility of a revelatory third meaning opens up. […]”
Saboteur Awards: Shortlisted!
A huge thank you to everyone who voted in the Saboteur Awards for Coventry’s Fire&Dust as Best Regular Spoken Word Night and Stella Backhouse as Best Reviewer – we’ve been shortlisted! So we just need your votes once more, for a chance to win…
REVIEW: SALLYANNE ROCK’S ‘SALT & METAL’
Reviewed by Stella Backhouse | Hidden behind every domestic abuse statistic lies not just a heartbreaking story of real-life tragedy, but also, on the victims’ part, a toxic mixture of fear, shame and silencing that is the very reason these experiences remain out of sight in the first place. Sallyanne Rock’s brave new pamphlet ‘Salt & Metal’ breaks this cycle. By taking us inside an abused woman’s mind, she exposes the mechanisms used by perpetrators to […]
INTERVIEW: FIRE & DUST MEETS ANDREW MANYIKA
Andrew Manyika is a poet, comedian and renowned MC based in Zimbabwe, who likes using his unique combination of poetry and comedy to query and poke fun at the world we live in. Andrew was our headline guest at Fire & Dust on 10th March. We caught up with him after the gig, to ask a few questions…
REVIEW: CALEB PARKIN’S ‘THIS FRUITING BODY’
Reviewed by Stella Backhouse | “This queer ecopoetry revels in surreal, eye-popping possibilities […] Parkin’s ecopoetics lie in his exploration of the boundaries, fluidity and connectedness between bodies that seem wildly disparate. I use the word ‘bodies’ advisedly; one of the fluctuating boundaries interrogated by the collection is the one between ourselves and […]”
They Exist in the Verses, Too
In this new mini article, HCE’s Eve Volungeviciute dives into some poetry book recommendations that touch on our theme of gods and monsters…
April 2022 Round-up: Virtual Literary Events
April is here! HCE has created another list of online literary open mics, events and workshops, to help you plan for the weeks ahead. Don’t miss out on taking part – seize this opportunity to “travel” far and wide…
INTERVIEW: FIRE & DUST MEETS PHYNNE~BELLE
On 13th January, poet, writer, podcaster and animal lover Phynne~Belle from the San Francisco Bay area was our first Fire & Dust virtual headliner of 2022. HCE caught up with her after the gig, to ask a few questions…