Language, Live! Spoken Word and Poetry in the Northwest

It seems unusual, when we're so bound to the screen and the limit of 140-character soundbites, that poetry and spoken word are blooming. There are vibrant scenes currently flourishing across the country, from the punk-edged bohemia of Neu! Reekie! in Edinburgh to London’s Bang Said the Gun – and the Northwest scene is just as vital and accessible for both aspiring writers and those already with a successful track record. Anneliese Mackintosh is one of the latter: the Manchester-dwelling author of excellent short story collection Any Other Mouth describes the city's writing community as "extremely lively, and really welcoming with new people. The performance poetry scene is very active."

"Reading work onstage at events is very important for my writing," she says. "It helps me understand which parts are working. I wouldn't be the writer I am now if I hadn't started performing my work.”

Highlighted events are Bad Language (badlanguagemcr.wordpress.com) – a monthly night of spoken word, fiction and poetry in the Northern Quarter’s Castle Hotel, every last Wednesday – and, also at this venue, the bi-monthly cabaret night First Draft (firstdraftmcr.wordpress.com), offering a supportive audience for fresh work and writers of drama, fiction and poetry. Salford has Evidently (facebook.com/evidentlysalford), performing stand-up poetry every second Monday at The Eagle Inn.

"I wouldn't be the writer I am now if I hadn't started performing my work” - Anneliese Mackintosh

Liverpool has a rich history of poetry, going back to the Mersey Poets of the 60s, born from the influence of the earlier Beat scene. Many years ago Tony Kehoe stumbled upon a night that made him feel at home, avoiding the pretension and revisionism that, in some minds, plagued the scene. This is Come Strut Your Stuff (comestrutyourstuff.co.uk), and Tony – now event host – tells us that “The only criteria was just to be who you were.”

All nights here challenge the recent comments from Jeremy Paxman that poetry has "connived at its own irrelevance." Come Strut Your Stuff runs every first Monday in the Egg Cafe, striving to look past stereotypes – and even those of Liverpool itself, made tangible in institutions such as The Museum of Liverpool Life (which closed in 2006), to which Tony tells his fellow Liverpudlians, “Look, they’ve opened a museum in homage to you and you’re not even dead yet.” The name of The Dead Good Poets Society also rings out, meeting at the Garden Cafe of Blackburne House, Hope Street, on the first and third Wednesday of every month – a night that strives to open poetry up to new audiences and performers.

In Preston, keep an eye on Lancashire Writing Hub (lancashirewritinghub.co.uk), which has info on upcoming events and other writer-friendly resources; meanwhile, the Lancaster Lit Festival takes place 16-20 Oct, litfest.org. Hopefully, this burgeoning scene will be strengthened by you there, reading this piece.