SpokenWord Paris

Ben MacCaoilte is a bilingual poet from Ireland writing and performing in both Irish and English. Ben brings beautifully formed poetry to the stage. Impossibly detailed worlds are revealed in tight verses, inspired by people, places and lives that mattered. Ben’s poetry has been published in journals including The Waxed Lemon and Much More Than Words and he has released two performance poetry albums on the Crannóg Media label, Beyond the Apple Tree (2021) and Lifting the Gate (2022). Since the release of his first album Ben has performed at many festivals and events throughout Ireland and the UK including the Scene and Heard Festival 2023 Smock Alley Theatre Dublin, Ó Bhéal in Cork, International Writers Festival Dublin, the Power of Words Festival, Write by the Sea Festival, REIC at the Cork World Book Festival, the Bath Festival UK and the Culturel Centre Irlandais, Paris as part of the Festival of Ideas. Ben had the pleasure of supporting Declan O Rourke on his Irish Tour 2023 and Dr. Martin Shaw on his Medicine HouseTour. Ben has shared the stage with many fantastic creatives and musicians such as Declan O’Rourke, Liam O’ Maonlaí and Emma Langford. He is currently touring his poetry performance installation Lifting the Gate which premiered at Smock Alley Theatre in 2023.

Emily Ruck Keene is a writer. By day she is paid to tell others’ stories. By night she writes her own. For over a decade she has been a volunteer for the creative association Paris Lit Up, is a former President and open mic host, and currently a PLU magazine Poetry Editor. She can be found on social media – under EmilyRK and her website www.emily-rk.com – but prefers talking to people in real life.

Chris Burke is an English-Irish writer and journalist whose debut collection of poetry, The Noise of Everything at Once, was published by Happy House Books in 2017. He has won second prize in the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition and been longlisted multiple times in the UK National Poetry Competition, while his works have appeared in magazines including Southword, Antiphon, Prole and the French Literary Review.

Clairette Durand-Gasselin (@clairettedg) is a bilingual poet and visual artist. She lived in the US from 2014 to 2022, and now resides in Montreuil, France. She has been the Artistic Director of Mad Gleam Press, and is now a Blog Editor and the Secretary of Paris Lit Up. She’s also a French teacher for anglophones, and currently studies Literary Translation through a Masters at Université Paris Cité. She writes in both French and English, and initiates dialogues between her literary and visual practices, as a means to study the potentials of visual poetry. Her work explores memory, rituals, and resonance with places. Publications of her work include A Shape Produced by a Curve (Great Weather For Media), the Revue Miroir, the podcast Mange tes Mots and the website Synapse International.

DICK TURNER
Born, and currently living.
Founder of IDEAISM (not Idealism) and inventor of its physical manifestation, The Smile Machine.
Member of the Arthur Craven Society. Member and Secretary (Rumored) of the Exclusionist League.
Member (Lifetime) of the Association of Free Practitioners of Aleatoric Activities.
Author of New Math (Stories and poems, Apathy Press Poets, publisher), Selected Poems (Apathy
Press Poets, publisher), Baltimorology (Editor and contributor, Apathy Press Poets, publisher), Fisher
Random and Associated Essays (Apathy Press Poets, publisher), Opt Out (Philosophical Essay, A Good
Book, publisher), Heretical Thoughts on the New Normal (Philosophical Essay, A Good Book,
publisher), Unconscious Suffocation : A Personal Journey Through the Pandemic Panic (contributor).
Regular contributor to SpliceToday, an online cultural journal.
Composer, writer, filmmaker, visual artist, performer.
Likes : Constructive confusion.
Dislikes : Non-constructive confusion.
Dick Turner reads “The Smell” from New Math :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8wvQ9ILXR4&ab_channel=DickTurner
All of the above is non-contractual and subject to change without prior notification.
All investments imply a certain measure of risk.
Past performance is no guarantee of future returns.
Speak to your counselor for more information.

Originally from Montreal, poet Lisa Pasold is the author of five critically-acclaimed books. Her work has appeared in publications such as New American Writing, The Globe and Mail and Fence. Lisa is the creator of Improbable Walks, story-telling walks focusing on legends and place memory. She has created these art walks to critical acclaim for festivals and gallery residencies in cities such as New Orleans, Toronto, and Paris.

photo by Louis Maistros  

Poet and Zen monk, John High (Ninso) has received fellowships from the National Ednowment of the Arts, the National Endowment of the Humanities, four Fulbright fellowships. He is the author of over a dozen books, including his most recent novel Scrolls of a Temple Sweeper (Wet Cement Press),and a forthcoming co-translation of Osip Mandelstam’s poetry (Wesleyan University Press). A co-founder and former director of LIU Brooklyn’s MFA Program, he has taught at universities in Istanbul, Moscow, Hangzhou, and San Francisco, and facilitated workshops in creative transformation with children, teachers, social workers, incarcerated youth, and writers in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. He has read/performed his work internationally and in Paris for Upstairs at Duroc, Berkeley Books, Paris Lit Up, Spoken Word Paris, and the Ivy Writers Paris series. His daily ensō practice with Zen koans, teachings, and meditations can be found here, and here. Based in Lisbon, he lives with his wife, Andrea Clark Libin, also a writer.

Monday 31st July

at the Cave Café, 134 rue Marcadet, 75018 Métro Lamarck-Caulaincourt (line 12)

Theme: Plastic

Sign up downstairs 8pm. Show begins 8.45pm

Celebrating 6 months at the Cave Café!

Diana Norma Szokolyai is a writer, teacher, and Artistic Director of Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, an organization that leads writing retreats in France, Spain, and the US. Her writing appears Critical Romani Studies, The Poetry Miscellany, The Boston Globe, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and MER VOX Quarterly. Her poetry has been anthologized in Other Countries: Contemporary Poets Rewiring History, Stone to Stone: Writing by Romani Women, and Teachers as Writers, as well as translated into German for the anthology of Romani poets from around the world Die Morgendämmerung der Worte, Moderner Poesie–Atlas der Roma und Sinti.  She is author of the poetry chapbooks Parallel Sparrows and Roses in the Snow, as well as editor of CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos & Sourcebook for Creative Writing. In 2021, she was awarded a Center for Arts and Social Justice Fellowship at Vermont College of Fine Arts for her work translating Romani poets into English. Together with Dennis Shafer, she founded ChagallPAC, an interdisciplinary arts organization. She holds an M.A. in French, an Ed.M. in Arts in Education, and an M.F.A. in Writing. She teaches writing at Salem State University. A frequenter of Spoken Word since 2006, she’s thrilled to be back!