On June 7th at Anglia Ruskin University Jon Stone organised an event where people picked an animal from the list he provided and wrote a poem inspired by it. It was a hybrid evening - there were Zoom participants and listeners.
The series of events is a chance for ARU students to meet local writers - and maybe one day for the other university to join in too. Readers included Claudine Toutoungi, Anne Berkeley, Kirsty Irving, etc. In future there might be video poems, or a live/video hybrid.
Having now attended 3 poetry events in a fortnight I'm beginning to form some generalisations about how much I'll like a open mic poem based on the age/gender of poet, type of introduction, length of poem etc. I know I have a terribly short attention span when listening to poems, but all the same, some of the pieces sounded long to me, even the ones that the poets described as "short". When a poet approaches the mike saying "Just 2 short poems. Is that ok?" trouble's ahead. Or more ominous still, "this began as a poem but it turned into a short story".
My story collection "By All Means" (ISBN 978-0-9570984-9-7), published by Nine Arches Press, is on sale from 
My poetry pamphlet "Moving Parts" (ISBN 978-1-905939-59-6) is out now, on sale at the 
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