Projects

A pile of soil is held between two cupped hands

Synergy Slam

Nurturing Poets and Amplifying EcoAwareness. Poetry and the Synergy Between The Natural World & The City. To be in synergy is when separate and different elements combine their collective strengths to achieve more than when they work alone.The natural world and the city live side by side.As long as we can observe them as connected together,…

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Work From Home

Work From Home is our ongoing Alumni Artistic Development Program. Work From Home takes place online and behind the scenes. It’s a space dedicated to those who have participated with us so we can keep the relationship and support ongoing. We value our alumni and through this programme we can connect and stay in touch,…

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On Our Own Terms

To celebrate International Women’s Day, Apples and Snakes hosted an event with Older Women Rock. ‘On Our Own Terms’ was an in-person workshop of poetry-writing and portrait photography for women in our 60s and 70s, with spoken word poet Leah Thorn and photographer Anita McKenzie. About the Workshop Older Women Rock! creates pop-up art spaces…

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On The Side

On The Side Apples and Snakes has commissioned six early stage career poets to be in residence as part of ON THE SIDE, an exhibition curated by Caps and Cans taking place at the Sidings, Waterloo. Each poet will each spend 6 days in the exhibition space, using it as their creative studio and writing…

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All Borders Blur

All Borders Blur

Mapping Intersections and Genre Crossings in UK Spoken-Word Poetries Since 1965 All Borders Blur: Mapping Intersections and Genre Crossings in UK Spoken-Word Poetries Since 1965 is a two-day academic conference co-organised by the FWF/ERC-funded project Poetry Off the Page together with Queen Mary University of London and the University of Vienna. Poetry Off the Page…

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Kat Francois stands holding a pilots helmet wearing a leather and fur aviator jacket

England Calling

Over 800 of the men and women who arrived in Tilbury on 22 June 1948 were among thousands of others that journeyed to the UK from the Caribbean in the post-war period. For many of them, it was not an arrival but a return. England Calling  is inspired by a Second World War radio show Calling the West…

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Future Voices

Future Voices

project overview To celebrate Apples and Snakes’ 40th anniversary, we launched Future Voices – a project that seeks to nurture and grow emerging talent from across England. We invited leading spoken word artists and filmmakers to run an intensive masterclass programme for the 40 emerging poets online. The aim of the programme war for participants…

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WORDCUP2023

WORDCUP 2023: Our national showcase of young poets WORDCUP 2023 brought together teams of young people from across the country with the aim of creating a community of young poets and a platform for their voices to be heard. Following poetry and performance workshops delivered in six regional hubs by leading UK poets, the young…

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Diversifying Children’s Literature

Joseph Coelho X Apples and Snakes x Otter Barry books We believe representation matters and that’s why we are working with Joseph Coelho, Waterstones Children’s Laureate, and Otter-Barry Books on a project which aims to help diversify children’s literature by developing voices traditionally underrepresented in children’s literature. Funded by Arts Council England, the project includes…

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A stack of books from John Keats on a table

Content Cottage with Keats-Shelley Memorial Trust

In 2022, three organisations came together to explore traditional poetry in the context of modern life, set in the English countryside. Content Cottage is a digital literature project on Romantic Poetry, from the UK’s leading spoken word organisation, Apples and Snakes, in partnership with the Keats- Shelley Memorial Association and First Story. The outcome of…

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Kindness Competition 2023

Kindness Poetry Competition 2023 Winners – congratulations Congratulations to Pravan Kubavat, Kyan Norris and Mattie Stone! Read their poems below. We had hundreds of entries from across the country and it was a great pleasure to read them all. Thank you to everyone that entered and everyone that made this competition possible. Pravan Kubavat My…

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Telling Tales

Telling Tales is a free six-week creative programme for 7-11 year olds. Participants get to work with an experienced writer to create stories and poems! At the end of the six weeks the young people present a sharing for family and friends and are certified with a Discover Arts Award. They are provided with a…

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Jerwood Arts Poetry in Performance Programme

Jerwood Arts | Apples and Snakes Poetry in Performance Programme

Jerwood Arts | Apples and Snakes Poetry in Performance programme is a unique opportunity for five/six spoken word poets from across the country to explore the performative potential of their practice. Running twice from 2020 – 2022, each iteration of the programme will culminate in two national showcases and a commission for one of the…

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A woman with long dark hair wearing a high necked, long sleeve white dress puts her arm behind her head, standing in front of a tall tower block

Behind The Words

“Poetry is like water, it takes on the vessel it’s in” Joelle Taylor (BBC Radio 4: Front Row – 11 Jan 22) Apples and Snakes celebrate turning 40 in 2022, and with any significant anniversary comes a time of reflection. We have thought long and hard about how we came together, what we’ve achieved and…

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Screenshot of 'With You I See Light', a poetry film by Aisha Sanyang-Meek. It shows Aiysha with her hair loose, sitting in a forest. Her pose is strong.

Cece’s Speakeasy: Call and Response

Apples and Snakes invited emerging artists from across England to produce acts of creative resistance against climate and environmental injustice in response to Cece’s Speakeasy. The resulting films were released in the lead up to Cop26, the UN’s climate conference heading to Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November 2021.  We invite truth-seekers, chocolate lovers…

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Poetry Off the Page

“Poetry Off the Page” is a five-year project directed by Dr. Julia Lajta-Novak from the University of Vienna and supported by an ERC Consolidator Grant and the START-Prize of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Spoken word poetry has been going through a noticeable boom for more than half a century. Movements such as Beat poetry,…

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Man in the bushes

Plot 17

A hip-hop garden block party for audiences aged 7+ Four pieces of wood Eight nails And a hammer Some compost A hand full of seeds And some water A playlist and some speakers all you need to get you started then by the time that you finished you’ll know How To Make A Garden Join…

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Spine Festival

Spine Festival Lite 2024

Spine 2024 Our flagship SPINE Festival is an annual pan-London spoken word and arts festival for children and families delivered in libraries across 16 boroughs. For 2024 we return with a lite edition from 21 March – 21 April 2024 exploring the theme of MAGIC & IMAGINATION. SPINE Festival Lite will feature the launch of our SPIN! anthology edited by…

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The gatherings

The Gatherings

Apples and Snakes, in partnership with Create to Transform Dialogue Spaces, are hosting a series of empowering, no-nonsense conversations as part of our commitment to evolve the poetry in performance and spoken word scene.  Our series of fortnightly online Gatherings will shine a spotlight on some of the most pressing issues in the UK poetry…

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Image which reads: Apples and Snakes The Podcast

Join Jerwood Compton Poetry fellow, poet and playwright Yomi Sode as he hosts Apples and Snakes: The Podcast. Through conversations and performances from award-winning poets, Yomi will explore what it means to be Black, British and a poet or spoken word artist. Season 3 – out now! This season we are putting out even more…

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The Hatchling

A spectacular dragon hatched in Plymouth City Centre on 14 August 2021, growing to the size of a double-decker bus. The Hatchling is a ground-breaking outdoor theatrical performance that unfolded over a weekend of events and reached an extraordinary finale over the coast of Plymouth, on 14 and 15 August 2021. The beautiful visitor hatched…

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Logo for Cece's Speakeasy event

Cece’s Speakeasy

Apples and Snakes in association with Jazz re:freshed and The Albany present: Cece’s Speakeasy  As global temperatures rise, the quality and quantity of our crops decreases. In the not-so-distant future, coffee bean production will halt – caffeine will become extinct. By 2050 there will be no more chocolate.  Step forward into 2031… Welcome to Cece’s Speakeasy.A…

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Open House

Open House has been running as part of SPINE festival since 2017. The project is specifically for refugee communities in London libraries, allowing participants to creatively explore language through culture. The groups meet for a series of workshops culminating in a final gathering at which participants exchange recipes & dishes from their home countries. The…

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Hippodrome Young Poets

Apples and Snakes was thrilled to be able to work in partnership with Birmingham Hippodrome to deliver a new artistic development opportunity for poets and writers aged 16-30 living in or near Birmingham, with additional support from Birmingham Literature Festival and Verve Poetry Press. Hippodrome Young Poets is a writing programme to support young poets…

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