SpokenWord Paris

Unfortunately the 28th July SpokenWord has had to be cancelled due to illness.

So the summer break is starting a little earlier than planned.

SpokenWord will start up again Monday 1st September at the Chat Noir.

Cheers all,

David Barnes

Emmet O’Brien burst into the scene in March 2017, and has done more than your average 25 year old. Within the first 3 years alone he released a book, entitled “A Perspective From The Corrupt Mind Of The Youth” aswell as various videos reaching tens of thousands of views. O’Brien, is also an event organiser, starting his poetry and music event “Vybrations” in June 2017. In 2018, he opened up for Shane Koyczan. The wordsmith released his second book, entitled “Yup Ouveh” in May 2018, where copies were sold in both Ireland and the UK, aswell as copies being sold in Nigeria. O’Briens third book, entitled “The Illusion Of Perception ” released in March 2019. A play adaptation of the book was launched in March 19. In 2022, O’Brien had his latest poem “Story bud?” muralised onto the walls of temple bar in Dublin city centre. 2023 saw the poet teach in prisons around Ireland with a project called “Storytime” and the project was toured around Ireland to show inmates they can be creative. Since then, O’Brien has been inducted to the Writers in Prison list, by The Arts Council, and continues to workshop in both Mountjoy and Cloverhill prison

CYNTHIA GOOD, an award-winning poet, journalist and former TV news anchor, is the author of eight books including two poetry collections; the recently published In the Thaw of Day, and the chapbook What We Do with Our Hands. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in numerous acclaimed publications including Book of Matches, Free State Review, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Silver Birch Press, South Shore Review, Terminus Magazine, Tupelo Quarterly and Waxing & Waning. An MFA graduate from NYU, Cynthia lives in Santa Monica and Mexico with her Havanese dog Zuni.

Skye Jackson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her work has appeared in RHINO, The Southern Review, Palette Poetry, RATTLE and elsewhere. Her poetry has been a finalist for the Iowa Review Poetry Award, the RATTLE Poetry Prize, the RHINO Founders’ Prize, and in 2021 she received the AWP Intro Journals Award. Jackson’s work was also selected by Billy Collins for inclusion in the Library of Congress Poetry 180 Project. She currently serves as a Visiting Writer & Lecturer at Xavier University Louisiana, Chairwoman of the New Orleans Poetry Festival and was appointed the Writer-in-Residence of the Jack Kerouac House for summer 2025. Her debut poetry collection, Libre, was recently published by Regalo Press. 

Alex Vellis (they/them) is a Greek-British artist specialising in poetry and installation. They hold an MA in Creative Writing and are Open School East alum. Vellis’ work questions liminality, ergodic literature, the benthic, identity, place, and presentation. Their practice focuses on the process rather than the product; pulling away from typical artistic spaces to engage with more accessible areas.  Alex has performed nationally and internationally as a poet, in cities such as Paris, London, Oxford, Valletta, and Tallinn. Their work as an artist both individually and as part of a collective has been displayed in Dunkirk, Canterbury, Margate, and Cambridge. In addition to performance and installation work, Vellis delivers lectures at universities and festivals on events production, being a working-class artist, and poetry in the larger sphere.Their next books, The Last Bird On The Balcony & Where the Flowers Grow, will be released in June 2025 through Apoetical & September 2025 through Rebel Satori Press. 

Josh Cake is a poet from Melbourne, Australia who now lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with publications including Breakwater Review, Teesta Review, Paris Lit Up, The Anti-Misogyny Club, and Cordite. Josh has won the Peseroff Poetry Prize from the University of Massachusetts, was named the Most Impactful Poet by the Australian Enterprise Awards in both 2024 and 2025, and has just been named Poet of the Year 2025 by the Livewire Global Awards. Over the past year, Josh has performed poetry features in Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Brussels, London, Edinburgh, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, and New York. Following his debut album, ‘words to regret when i’m better at editing‘, Josh is currently touring a new album called ‘my poems pay taxes; my taxes buy weapons; my weapons kill poets‘. You can find Josh on Instagram at @joshcakemusic or download the albums at www.joshcake.com

Helen Cusack O’Keeffe is a writer and social worker based primarily in Paris since 2009. Publications can be found in the Bastille, Tightrope Press (Canada), Stoneskin Press (London), and Le Farming Times. Plays include Holey Tuscany, an absurdist maritime tragedy,  Napoleon, Femme, Rhinocéros, a bilingual Surrealist extravaganza, and The Terrible Mystery of Ophelia Dupont-Cassé co-authored with poetic genius Vincent Chabany.  She was an editor for Paris Lit Up magazine for issues 1-12. As a seasoned expert medico-legal witness, over the past 19 months she has interviewed many Palestinian families affected by the ongoing genocide.

Alex Dimitrov is the author of four books of poetry including, Ecstasy (forthcoming in April from Knopf), Love and Other Poems, Together and by Ourselves, Begging for It, and the chapbook American Boys. His poems have been published in The New Yorker, the New York Times, The Paris Review, and Poetry.Dimitrov has taught writing at Princeton University, Columbia University, and New York University, among others, and was also the Senior Content Editor at the Academy of American Poets, where he edited the popular series Poem-a-Day and American Poets magazine. He is the founder of the newly revived queer poetry salon Wilde Boys (2009-13, 2024-present), which brings together emerging and established writers in Manhattan. The first years of the salon were hosted in Greenwich Village. Wilde Boys is currently hosted at Kapp Kapp gallery in Tribeca. Dimitrov is also the co-founder of Astro Poets with Dorothea Lasky, and the co-author of Astro Poets: Your Guides to the Zodiac, as well as a forthcoming astrology book from HarperCollins. On X he writes the endless poem “Love” in real time, one tweet a day. Find him on Instagram at @wildeamericanboy.

Yann Rousselot is a writer and translator living in the Paris region, genetically from England and France but culturally from all over the place. Graduate of the Sorbonne (Language & Literature) and the University of London Institute in Paris (Translation), he is a regular performer at Paris Spoken Word and Culture Rapide, a juggler, a craftsman, and an avid consumer of anything that has a good enough storyline (SF/F in particular). His poetry collection Dawn of the Algorithm was released by Inkshares Press in 2015. You can find his work in print and online with The Bastille Magazine, Paris Lit Up Magazine, Canopic Jar, The Opiate, At Large Magazine, the Tampa Review, and his Substack An Ominous Mistake. Yann Rousselot https://linktr.ee/yesrousselot

Monalisa Maione is a Pushcart-nominated California poet who reflects on the ways human existence is fraught with contradictions and subterranean agendas.She writes dark, sometimes humorous poems that generally explore themes of power and control between individuals, institutions and the natural world in daily life.Poetry is her constant companion.

Edward Bell, writer, organiser and teacher, has written a spoken word Paris poem specifically for this feature at Spoken Word Paris: Paris is Parasite. Based in the City of Light for more than 12 years now, he has actively contributed to associative and literary life, been published in various places, and read deeply from the Book of Nature. Shortlisted twice for the Latin Poetry Prize in London, his poetry is as evocative as it is subtle, abundant as it is polished, witty as it is cheeky.