Join us for an evening of poetry, conversation, and community with The Poetry Lighthouse. Meet fellow poets, readers, translators, and friends, discover new voices, and celebrate the power of poetry together.
📍118 Bethnal Green Road, London E2 6DC
🎟️ Pay-what-you-can ticketing (Every contribution will be used to support The Common Press)
⏰ From 7pm to 9:30pm, Monday 20th July
Programme:
[Reading] ‘Only one Earth’ by Pat Farrington
Pat Farrington spent her formative years in West Africa. Exiled to England for school, she went on to work as an assistant editor in educational publishing, three years as a primary teacher and then nearly 20 years as a director/producer for BBC Schools Television where, among other things, she wrote song lyrics for young children. After leaving the BBC, Pat worked for a charity, bringing writers into schools for residencies. Her two grandchildren, Rosa and Ada are a joy to her and allow her to revisit the natural world through a child’s eyes.
[Book Launch] ‘Poems from the Odyssey’ by Ed Martineau
Graduated from Cambridge University, Ed is a Classics teacher in High Wycombe. His collection Poems from the Odyssey is a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey - compiling a series of fascinating, constantly shifting pieces, spanning the events of the entire epic and the characters which populate it. From Telemachus’s fruitless voyage in search of his lost father, to Odysseus’s heart-pounding escape from the cyclops Polyphemus, to the slaying of the suitors, Martineau retells each episode with clarity and style.
[Book Announcement] ‘No Way of Returning Home’ by Melanie Hyo-In Han
Born in Korea and raised in East Africa, Melanie Hyo-In Han (she/her) recently moved from the US to the UK. She is the author of four collections of poetry and holds a PhD in Creative Writing and an MFA in Poetry and Translation. Currently, she serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Flora Fiction and the Two Languages Prize Editor at Gasher Press. Learn more at melaniehan.com.
TPL Anthology Poets’ Readings:
Rick McLean
Rick McLean is a Leeds-born poet based in London. His work draws from working-class experience, combining sharp social commentary, dark humour and a distinctly Yorkshire voice. His writing is punk poetry for modern Britain, exploring inequality, digital life, nostalgia and the everyday absurdities of contemporary city living. His poems carry a Northern rhythm forged as much on stage as on the page. This is poetry for those who hate poetry.
Mariam Saidan
Mariam Saidan is a Specialist Advocate for Women’s Rights and has worked as a Children’s Rights Advocate, studied Human Rights Law at Nottingham University (LLM) and Creative Writing at Kent University. She is Iranian, based in London and has lived in Iran, France, and the UK. She wrote her first journal at 8 years old during the Iran-Iraq war.
Satya Bosman
Satya Bosman is co-editor at Black Cat Press. She has worked in 14 Magazine, The Lake, The Storms Journal, The Poetry Lighthouse, Porridge Magazine, The Madrid Review and Eche amongst others. She won Third Prize in the Kent & Sussex Poetry Society folio competition 2025 and 2026 and was shortlisted for The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2026. Her debut collection Dream Logic published with Crumps Barn Studio in 2026.
Rishika Pandit
Rishika Pandit (she/her) is a poet based in London, currently pursuing her MA in Poetic Practice. She often writes about themes of belonging, immigration and the ecotones between natural and urban spaces. She is from the small town of Vadodara, Gujarat which is often a backdrop in her writing. Public transport, collecting random things and eavesdropping on conversations are parts of her practice. She speaks English, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali & a bit of Swedish.
Ellie Spirrett
Ellie Spirrett is a poet and member of Spread the Word’s Young Writers Collective. She writes about disability, ableism, friendship and the loneliness epidemic. Ellie is the self advocacy coordinator at Lewisham Speaking Up, an organisation that supports people with learning disabilities to campaign for their rights.
Anya Hunt- Byer
Anya Hunt- Byer is a Queer, disabled writer, actor and artist based in South London.She’s previously been published in ‘Within the Binding’ with spread the word, and her made her stage debut at theatre Peckham with Portic Unity’s spoken word theatre company. She is currently training in writing for stage screen, radio and television at the Royal Central School of speech and Drama.
Benedicta Norell
Benedicta has recently moved back to London after twenty-five years, but that’s not her record for taking a break from things she loves, as she stopped writing poetry for over thirty. Her debut pamphlet, Terrible Mother, was published by Black Cat when she was fifty-three. It’s been said that she writes with “wisdom, compassion and an uncommon honesty.” Her first full collection is forthcoming next year. For news and links to poems, check out her website.
Anna Mindel Crawford
Hello. I’m Anna. I’m from the UK and live in West London. English was my favourite subject at school and I studied Classics for my undergraduate degree but for a number of years shifted my focus onto careers in different fields including consumer and social research, and learning and development. I recently had the honour of judging London Borough of Hounslow’s annual Poetry Slam for secondary schools where I sat on the panel as the ‘local poet’.
Edwin Fairbrother
Edwin Fairbrother is a writer and poet from London, UK - with a BA in Media Studies and an MA in Music Business. He loves listening to and writing about music in his spare time - with articles published in Alt Press and Rave Report to name a few - as well as writing poetry and now fiction. Edwin turned to poetry initially to express his frustration with the current geopolitical landscape and certain aspects of our increasingly digitised and divided societies, as well as the occasional sparks that give our world its magic.
