A monthly smorgasbord of poetry, music, art, dance and theatre.
This month we are delighted to welcome…
Barry Smith is both a poet and an arts festival producer. He is currently Director of the South Downs Poetry Festival and was one of the founding members of the Festival of Chichester. Barry edits the annual magazine, Poetry & All That Jazz. He curates the poetry for Blakefest and is Patron of the Shelley Memorial Project.
As a poet, his collection Performance Rites (Waterloo Press) has been described as ‘a masterpiece’ by both Acumen Literary Journal and Sentinel Literary Quarterly. His latest collection, Reeling and Writhing (Dempsey & Windle) has been endorsed by Louis de Bernieres as ‘mysterious, rich in imagery and feeling.’ His poetry has been shortlisted for the BBC Proms Poetry and the Culture Matters Bread & Roses Awards and nominated for the T.S. Eliot Prize.
Camilla Lambert moved to Sussex in 2012. As a 10-year-old she was successful in a BBC Children’s Hour poetry competition in 1956, but only wrote occasional poems until retiring in 2007 from a zigzag career in social policy research, working for the Open University and as an NHS senior manager. Since moving to Arundel in 2023 she has co-organised the annual Arundel Literary Festival.
She has been widely published in poetry magazines and been placed in a number of poetry competitions. Her pamphlet Grapes in the Crater was published in 2015, and her collection Night Thoughts on Survival – New and Selected Poems came out in June 2025. It is a record of her poetry writing since 2015, and includes a number of poems written from and about a family house on the south coast of Cornwall, the place, the people and her own childhood memories.
Breeze is a duo playing original songs and features songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Tony Whiting (currently also a member of Worthing/Brighton-based folk/rock band The Golgis) together with singer/songwriter/musical theatre performer and writer Shirlie Roden.
Danyah Miller is an award-winning international storyteller, trainer and writer who believes we’re all storytellers! Her imagination-rich work inspires curiosity, creativity and connection. Artistic Director of DMS Productions, she has created and performed in seven solo shows including I Believe in Unicorns by Michael Morpurgo, which toured nationally and internationally including three West End seasons. Danyah’s book Seven Secrets of Spontaneous Storytelling is published by Hawthorn Press. She recently featured in BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Great Influencer Experiment’ series.
Lyn Jennings tells us “A part of my love for poetry stemmed from my father who read to me every day as a child. Despite being able to read myself, I remained quiet as I loved being read to.
I grew up in Cornwall, a place known for its beauty, which often inspired me in my youth to write; and even to this day, the sea is a common feature in my poems. Poetry allows me to put onto paper the love I have for my family, as I often enjoy depicting small, cherished moments with each of them.”