Join the World Poetry Day celebration in Stafford

The Stafford writing group, Writer Types, is presenting the afternoon event featuring words, music, and food. Attendance is open to all, with performances in various languages, stories from other countries, and food service.

Zainz Catering provides food from South Asia. Visitors may take food into the Cricket & Hockey Club Function Room, where music from Algeria, Brazil, Africa, and Spain will be performed by Rob Johns on guitar and African drums. A bar service is available.

David Braziel, a Stafford-based poet and filmmaker, will host and introduce poetry in the mother tongues of Indonesia and Spain, Yoruba from Nigeria, and languages from Vietnam and China, performed by Natalie Bolderston and her mother.

Ingrid Wagner, co-organiser, states: “We often hear the spoken word of poetry or other literature in our own language. Listening to the same stories and poems in a different language has a strange kind of beauty to it.” The event welcomes members of the South Asian Women’s Writing Group from Southampton, Poet Laureate Kuli Kohli, Marcel Holdys representing the Polish community, and Victoria Ivanovna representing the Russian community of Stafford.

The a capella group Fish from Oblivion, a five-piece Stafford ensemble formed around 1998, will perform songs from Bulgaria, Georgia, America, the Middle East, and the Middle Ages.

Performers include Cathy Carson from Northern Ireland and Charles Kouasseu from Cameroon. Carson will deliver spoken word, and Kouasseu will perform the African folktale “The King’s Chair” with audience participation.

The event is sponsored by That Little Bookshop, Stafford’s independent bookshop.

Tickets are available at writertypes.co.uk or on the door. More information on Writer Types is on Facebook and Instagram.