We’re excited to kick-off series 2 of Apples and Snakes @ Home with spoken word performances and conversation from World Poetry Slam Champion, Harry Baker, and Freedom Studios' Associate Artist, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan. We'll also have a specially commissioned poem written and performed by the UK Poetry Slam Champion, Tyrone Lewis. Hosted and co-curated by Bristol City Poet Vanessa Kisuule.

Apples and Snakes @ Home is our online gig series where leading spoken word artists share poetry and conversation for you to enjoy from the comfort of your sofa.

About the artists:

Harry Baker
World Poetry Slam Champion, Harry Baker published his debut collection, The Sunshine Kid, with Burning Eye Books in 2014. The subsequent show of the same name was voted Best Spoken Word Show of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2015. His second book and show, I am 10,000, recently toured to sell-out audiences.

Tyrone Lewis
As comfortable in front of a camera as he is behind it, Tyrone is a full time video editor, the current UK Poetry Slam Champion and founder of Process Productions. He says words to people sometimes and has written some down in his debut poetry collection, Blackish.

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan
An educator, writer and poet, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan was the Roundhouse Poetry Slam runner-up 2017 and was short-listed for the OutSpoken Prize for Poetry 2018. She is an Associate Artist at Freedom Studios. Her poetry collection, Postcolonial Banter, is published with Verve Poetry Press, and she is co-host of Breaking Binaries podcast.

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Apples and Snakes | Spoken Word Trailblazers:
Apples and Snakes are England's leading spoken word organisation. We exist to champion poets and poetry in performance, amplify unheard voices and challenge expectations of what poetry is and can be.

A brief history of spoken word | performance poetry:
Throughout history and across all cultures stories have been told to entertain and connect communities. Since the mid 20th century a powerful new performance style has spread across the world: the spoken word poetry movement

Performance poetry or spoken word emerged from the jazz poetry of the 1920s and subsequent experiments of The Beat Generation writers. In the late 50s beat poetry found its way to the UK.

In the 1960s spoken word embraced its role as a popular voice for counterculture both in the US and the UK. During the US Civil Rights Movement poetry provided a powerful format for protest and artistic expression. During the 60s and 70s political black poetry laid the foundations of hip-hop in the US whilst the UK's ranting poets captured the anti-establishment feelings of punk.

In 1982 Apples and Snakes was founded in the upstairs room of a London pub. Soon after in 1984 the first poetry slam took place in Chicago.

As it developed, spoken word became a melting pot of influences from other art forms. Dub poetry grew out of the lyrical performance style of toasting, the Jamaican reggae scene of the 1960's.

Comedy poetry became a common feature of the cabaret scene and during the 90s spoken word artists started writing solo poetry shows. MC battles captured a popular consciousness and slams spread across the world. In the late 2000s poets began to get thousands then millions of views online inspiring more and more people and taking poetry into your front room

Currently spoken word poets around the world are headlining festivals, going viral and keeping the activist tradition alive.