MAKE POETRY WEIRD AGAIN

How to Make Poetry Go from Pose to Prose, with Dominique

Dominique’s charity life drawing session, How Does It Feel To Be Observed?, is on 26 November. Details below.

This week the studio has a life model in it. Dominique poses for artists all over London and writes poems when the mood takes her. She also belongs to the MPWA creation myth. Nols met her at a Sunday morning workshop at the Jago in March 2025, and that was the morning he first had the idea to run workshops of his own. The croissants upstairs have be...

How to Make Poetry on a Raft in London, with Chiara Ambrosio

Recorded on the Sunday after All Hallows, with the veil still thin, Nols sits down with the filmmaker, visual artist and poet Chiara Ambrosio to talk about rivers, radio static, grief, and the rooms we build so that we can dream in them.

Chiara’s first poem was Wings of Desire, watched at seven. Her second was the sea at the toe of Italy. Her grandfather, an orthopaedic surgeon and radio ham, taught her to tune: to turn a dial until the hiss be...

Nols Nathankski comes back up out of the crypt after the second Hold Space Poetry Festival and makes this episode after an evening with Neil Bartlett and Richard Scott at the London Review of Books on the 29th October 2026, they were talking about the reissue of Derek Jarman’s Kicking the Pricks: The Last of England. It’s an episode about queer ancestors and queer saints, the cesspit and the blue, Jarman the gardener, worth and the nation, and what you pull up when you throw a bucket down a well. With Blake’s “The Sick Rose” and five poems from...

Nols Nathankski takes an hour away from festival organising to talk you through what to expect from the Hold Space Poetry Festival 1-5th October 2026 in the Crypt Gallery.

The Crypt Gallery sits under St Pancras New Church on Euston Road. It was a

burial ground until 1854 and an air raid shelter in the war, and 557 people are

still down there. From 1 to 5 October it is also a poetry festival.

Hold Space: From the Depths is the second edition, after seven sold-out nights

in Holy Week this...

This week Nols welcomes the poet, performer and filmmaker Ernesto Sarezale and, true to form, the whole conversation was recorded with both of them completely naked in Nols's living room. There's a lineage to that: Ginsberg's Howl gave us the "starving hysterical naked," and Ernesto's own film opens on the same lines. So the clothes came off, and what was left was the work, the body, and two people telling the truth to a microphone.

Ernesto is a fixture of London's queer spoken word world. He runs regular open mics, writes across concrete poetry, flash fiction and...

Nols Nathankski sits down with Adam de Salle.

Adam will not call himself a poet. He introduces himself as a Senior Library Assistant and an open mic performer, and leaves it there. Other people say the word behind his back.

He is a public librarian in south London, which he'll tell you is not a job about silence at all it's community work, and the last safety net for people falling through every other one. He runs his own open mic in a library and a castle.

He's a fixture at Word Space...

Nols Nathanksi records underground, in the Crypt Gallery beneath St Pancras Church during HOLD SPACE POETRY FESTIVAL in April 2026, while the Euston Road went on with its own noise a few feet above our heads. We took the Holy Week prompts down with us and used them the way you use a spade. Seven days of betrayal, overturned tables, barren blossom trees, a body washed, a body waiting. Two poets who did not flinch at any of it.

Byuka Makodru @fortunetailedbeast writes with ash and treats the page as a portal. Pia Fajelagutan writes under the name...

Nols gets an email from an unknown poet from Iceland called Nikulás so of course they record a podcast a few days later.

Nik and Nols talk about his writing practice and hopes of sharing his work. Nik talks to leaving his home in Iceland because London and the world was more interesting. He write poems of longing and desperation. Recent work concerns his loss of his grandmother. These poems are sacred things and they came about because Nik sent an email.

Nik and Nols make poems with prompts from the PENANCE workshop. After t...

Nols meets a Willie Leo Coakley, legend of New York Queer Poetry at the Open Mic!

Eighty-eight years is a long time to keep faith with a line of verse. William Leo Coakley has managed it. Poet writer and peace activist. Lover of men.

Nols sits down with him to ask the one question worth asking a man who has done a thing that long: how. How do you keep the appetite?

Coakley had an enemy a good one. Allen Ginsberg: the great howler, the Beat saint with his harmonium and his drug...

Recorded in Holy Week, beneath the St Pancras New church, among the 557 dead that reside there. Nols makes poems with HOLD SPACE poetry festival residents Emma Keun and Maria Cohut.

Some voices you have to go down to reach. This one we recorded in the dark of Holy Week, in the crypt where sixteen poets kept their residency like a wake that refused to be sad; candlewax and cold stone and the particular electricity of people making things they were not sure they were allowed to make. What you'll hear is two poets in the season of...

In February 2026 Nols Nathankski had the honour of sitting down with Robert Stanley Adams: a 73-year-old Canadian poet who writes from the seam where the divine and the erotic are not two things but one breath. This podcast only happened because Robert walked out of the open mic with Nol's coat!

Some books arrive late because they had to be lived first. After a chance meeting at the Word Zoo open mic one of those London nights where the holy walks in off the street a myth was made. Robert has just published The Book of Love...

This week Nols is joined by Mikey Kirkpatrick flautist, singer, composer, improviser and performer and writer, who makes work for street, stage, film and radio. Mikey records and tours internationally as Bird Radio, his singular take on new British folk (voice, flutes, loops, bones, homemade instruments and the famous red suitcase kick drum). He’s an associate lecturer at Goldsmiths and founding director of Alchemy, a collective of artists, teachers and mentors working with young people at risk of exclusion, and he teaches Music, Healing and Deep Listening for Morbid Anatomy in New York.

Nols and Mikey me...

Nols and Ameer make poems on the first day of Hold Space Poetry festival on April fools day 2026

Ameer Azad is a Pakistani-Bengali poet and author living in London. His work often covers surrealism, social satire and spirituality. Usually seen yelling at open mics in a scary voice.

In this episode, Nols and Ameer write to a set of prompts and talk through making poems when no one knows where you come from.

Prompts (provided by Chloe Smith of Skibbable open mic)

Shout-outs

Nols Nathankski and H Phillips sit down to make poems in the crypt during HOLD SPACE poetry festival.

H is a London based queer and silly poet. H began her open mic journey by doing a poetry for performance course @citylit. H talks from grief through objects and absurdity. A resident at Hold Space festival. H displayed poetry on the walls of the crypt and can be found headlining at the Hold Space Open Mic on the 31st May 2026 at HWK in Hackney Wick.

Follow her @haitch_speaks

Nols and H make poems...

Nols takes a register of ten artists, poets, and authors who were told by courts, critics, markets, and silence that they had failed. They had not failed. This is their work. Read it. Look at it. Go toward it. Nols improvises ten poems in response to their stories and encourages you to do the same. Send your responses to [email protected]

prompts below

provide list of prompts in one sentence

Nols Nathankski delves into the sublime with Molly O'Leary

Molly May O’Leary is an interdisciplinary performer. Her art has always and already been from/for the body but she has recently been approaching its rebellious and growing multi-dextrous power more directly… with ever-increasing glee and ever-evolving results. follow her on @mollymayinsta for developments

The pair discuss philosophy, depression and the arts in ireland.

They make (and dont make!) poems from prompts by Adam RW of storytime and from the crypt.

This episode was recorded online in March 2026 after Nol's planned trip...

Nols Nathankski talks community with Dean Atta on the podcast!

Dean Atta is a BAFTA-winning British poet, author and filmmaker, current chair of the Society of Authors Poetry and Spoken Word Group. Of Greek Cypriot and Jamaican heritage, Dean was named one of the 100 most influential LGBTQ+ people in the UK. He’s been commissioned by Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the National Portrait Gallery and Keats House. His novel in verse, The Black Flamingo, won the Stonewall Book Award. His memoir Person Unlimited was published by Canongate in 2024. His short film, Two Black Boys in Paradise, won th...

Nols Nathankski introduces the Make Poetry Weird Again series of summer workshops raising money for HOLD SPACE POETRY FESTIVAL 1-5th October 2026 as part of the Bloomsbury Festival.

Nols takes listeners through how he designed the workshops and how you can do them all too wherever you a re either solo or preferably with some other poets and friends.

PENANCE POETRY WORKSHOP monthly / Make Poetry Weird Again Studio, Grosvenor Avenue, N5 / pay what you can

Penance is the one that started it all. A monthly automatic writing workshop held in the MPWA studio...

Nols sits down in the crypt in february with Hebah Aboud and Cassie with a special feature from Richie Bliss of Ava' Word.

Hebah Aboud is a poet, writer and community organiser. She runs poetry events in Rome and London. Check out @ancharnia for her poetry events.

Cassie is a writer, art consultant and creative director from London @ceceqt

Rich Bliss is a poet and open mic host from London checkout @richblisswords and @avawordpoetry

This episode is from the original residency @thecryptgallerylondon in february 2026 before the first Hold Space Festival in...

Nols sits down in HWK in Hackney Wick to speak to MIKE the beautiful soul that has allowed MPWA to take up residence in their venue over the summer for the HOLD SPACE POETRY FESTIVAL FUNDRAISER OPEN MICS (see link below for tickets)

mike runs HWK, a venue in hackney wick and the home of hold space open mic nights through summer 2026. he talks to nols about what it takes to run a space that holds poetry the logistics, the losses, and the unexpected joys.

they get into wedding poems: why people want them, and...

Nols Nathankski gets spiritual with Chloe Smith a South Londoner who fell in love with reading and words 8 years old by reading the magical far away tree.

Chloe then discovered poetry through substitute teachers at school. She was published as a young writer in primary school. As a teenager she navigated hormones and layers of identity through journaling, leaning towards song lyrics, leaving poetry alone. It was only hitting 30 when she revisited poetry and braved the open mic scene. Curating her own night in Croydon (@skibabble, which is on a hiatus) putting together day festivals and holding...

Fresh from our Hold Space Poetry Festival in the Crypt Gallery @nolsnathankski was given tickets for @spitnights biggest ever show @theroundhouse in Camden by his friend the sensational poet Hebah Aboud. @hebah_a

Nols decided to make some guerrilla radio by gauging audience reactions to a sell out night of spoken word & improv jazz in front of 1500 in a legendary venue.

The response from the crowd was overwhelmingly positive, but the night was a bit too big and loud for Nol's tiny neurodivergent brain and this episode also celebrates the peace that comes from smaller...

Nols Nathankski flys through the sky with Jo Morrigan Black (They/Them/It)

Jo is a Paris-born writer, visual artist and performance poet. They have worked with indigenous leaders in Colombia, left stray feathers in Berlin and stalked the streets of Dublin as a vampire. Their stage performances combine Spoken Word, physical theatre and surrealist costuming to celebrate the queer and the unknowable in us all.

Jo’s writing dwells in journals such as Poetry Ireland Review, Abridged and The Storms, where it was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Their work has been commissioned by th...

Nols sits down on a rainy February day with Jake Nathan a poet and artist, from East London. They talk about mental health, masculinity, social justice and being working class in England.

The show explores how Jake went from hip hop to open mic and the challenges of open mic burn out.

Jake is a multiple-time poetry slam winner and grand poetry slam champion. Based in Essex, he performs his poetry and teaches workshops across the country.

Jake has featured at the Faversham Literary Festival, Essex Writers’ House Festival, Margate Bookie Festival and th...

Nols Nathankski provides all you need to know about the Hold Space Poetry Festival.

A sober gift to the London Open Mic scene in collaboration with the Crypt Gallery running from the 1st - 7th April 2026.

A festival dreamed up and produced in only 2 weeks to run during the most sacred days of the Christian calendar. Of course it begins on APRIL FOOLS DAY!

After an open call fifteen poets will take up residence in The Crypt Gallery underneath St Pancras New Church for seven whole days during Holy Week 2026. Yes, its a...

Nols Nathankski makes a very chaotic field recording of day 4 in the Crypt gallery London during the February residency. Expect all kinds of phantasmagorical goings on.

Nols made poems with N00mi, Rosie Reed Gold, Jo Delvauney, Pid'Or, Choral Poetique and Tanyeli Taze.

The episode is endurance art and some have said impossible to listen to!

You be the Judge!

Give the poets a follow;

@n00m_i

@rosiereedgoldartist

@tanyeli.taze

@choralepoetique

@ptplays

@sweetamanita

@pollyannaknight_

...

Nols Nathankski sits down to tell stories with Adam RW, a poet, writer and literary tour guide based in London. Adam runs Bookmarked, a literary walking tour company, and Storytime, a weekly storytelling night. His first poetry collection was published in December 2023.

Adam and Nols discuss the creation of Story Time, and it's unique place in the London Open Mic Scene. They talk to what makes a good story and make plans on how to get George Saunders, Karl Ove Knausgard and Nikolai Gogol (RIP) to perform at Story Time.

Nols and Adam make stories...

Nols Nathankski sits down with Maddy Kilsby-McMurray a non-binary poet & writer based in Southend-On-Sea, UK. Maddy describes writing as their therapy, a way to process a world that is too harshand too fast for their queer, disabled heart. Nols and Maddy talk 'Trash fire poetry' written in haste and often destined to be burnt. They fortunately burn less poems now.

Maddy and Nols make poems from Teresa

Check out Maddy's work - www.trashfirepoet.com

Instagram - @trashfirepoet

Maddy shouts out

southend pride - @southendpride

Transpire...

Nols Nathankski makes poems in the crypt on Day 2 of the Make Poetry Weird Again Residency.

No other poets show up so Nols has a bit of an existential crisis about the project and works through a series of prompts. Does his pages and meditates on what a successful residency is. Mainly he speaks his poems to walls and ghosts.

The prompts are below.

Write a poem that erodes. What is it made of ? What does it degrade into?

Make a poem for the departed

Make a remembrance poem...

Nols Nathankski sits down in the Crypt gallery with Teresa Rendell, a poet and creative director based in London. Teresa makes sense of the world in fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Her poetry deals with very serious themes of childhood trauma, listener discretion is advised.

Nols and Teresa speak to the London open mic scene and how to put together a one person show. @choralpoetique provide songs in the background.

They make poems with prompts from the crypt residency on Day 1.

Teresa shouts out the following poets and open mics.

Wordspace<...

Nols Nathankski sits down in the crypt with Dan Webber an award winning LGBTQ+ poet, performer, producer and events coordinator based in Derby. Who while yet to win a slam won Nols's heart with his tales of gothic queerness.

The pair made poems as part of day 3 of the Make Poetry Weird Again Residency at the Crypt Gallery in London.

Dan can be found on insta @imgenrefluid

Find out more about his practice below.

https://www.derbypoetryfestival.com/

https://www.derby.ac.uk/departments/school-of-humanities-law-creative-arts/dracula-returns-to-derby/

https...

Nols Nathankski's field recording of day 1 of the crypt gallery residency.

Nols has created a series of poetry prompts on day 1 of the residency.

Poets are welcome to come to the crypt between 16th - 20th February 2026 to create poems and perform them under penance conditions.

Prompts.

Nols Nathankski and his friend the Bulgarian Pop Star Ivka Fox decided to record a catch up episode onFriday 13th February 2026 to talk to Ivka's new role as a pole dancer at a central London strip club and how this has influenced her writing.

However the bad luck lived up to its favourite Friday and two attempts at recording failed due to a black out and an unexplained technical error.

This show is an attempt to recreate the episode using voice note recordings of Ivka's new poems and a demo of Ivka's new track "Break...

Nols Nathankski sits down with Kestral Gaian (They/Them) Queer Writer and Poet, to talk about making poems on the Tube, The best sandwich and why we need to make poems that burn down data centers.

Nols and Kestral make love poems with prompts from Kim Addonizio's book Ordinary Genius.

You can buy Kestal's poetry book Tubelines below!

Tubelines – Reconnecting Rainbows Press

They can be found at www.kestr.al

Instagram: @kes.tr.al

Bluesky: @kestr.al

Keep this podcast going by subscribing to the Pa...

OPEN CALL TO POETS! MAKE POETRY WEIRD AGAIN PRESENTS PENANCE RESIDENCY @ THE CRYPT GALLERY, LONDON.

We are very excited to announce that we will be having our first PENANCE residency at the historic Crypt gallery in London. FREE ENTRY FOR ALL.

From @nolsnathankski : "Hey lovely human 🌒 I wanted to invite you to PENANCE at the Crypt Gallery, beneath St Pancras Church, running 16–20 February 2026. As someone who’s been part of Make Poetry Weird Again, it would be really special to have you there. PENANCE is about making poems under simple constraints, being properly present together, and see...

We put on a wake for Nols Nathankski's pamphlet "Oh, Nols!" at Burley Fisher Books on the 12th February 2026. The event Sold Out but only 6 poets and a wizard showed up so Nols turned the event into an impromptu poetry workshop which you can hear in its badly recorded entirety.

When life gives you lemons - eat cake and make poetry.

The prompts we worked to were

Huge thanks to Sam and Una of Burley Fisher Books for hosting the night so gracefully.

Nols Nathankski inspired by Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi makes an episode on stage craft at the open mic for beginners and people wondering whether they should come to a local open mic. His only expertise being his own addiction to performing at the open mic.

Nols provides his own insights about performing at the open mic and gives examples of reading from your phone, from paper and straight from the dome.

This show is an attempt at a performance workshop from an enthusiastic amateur. If you would like to provide your own expertise get in touch!

Nols Nathankski gets to stan one of his favourite poets Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi who is the author of THE BOOK OF KANE AND MARGARET (FC2 / UAP) and Nols favourite poetry book of 2025 - DISINTEGRATION MADE PLAIN AND EASY (Piżama Press). Kiik is also a mentor and educator at Western Washington University.

A chance encounter with Kiik's poetry online, led to Nols being forever changed.

Kiik makes weird gentle poems, channelling voices that help him process feelings. The poems are delightfully surreal and speak to Nol's commitment to being very silly at the end of the w...

Nols Nathankski takes a trip to the Word Zoo with host Tyger Soul. They talk about the last decade in the scene, the best tomatoes and how to jam with a band as a poet.

The Word Zoo happens every 1st Thursday of the month, at The Others in SToke Newington. There are always Open Mic slots, a chance to say your poems or songs with our houseband Vibe Machine, plus featured acts and a book raffle. Search The Word Zoo for tickets and more info.

Tyger Soul likes poems that bite. You'll often find...

Nols Nathankski takes to the sofa with Erika Loch. They talk shared open mic experiences and how to find quiet to write.

Erika is a poet, lyricist, and a creative and commercial writer – writing in defiance of modern book burning, she leaves messages for those who seek to read between the lines. Erika collaborates with artists, brands, galleries, and organisations – she takes commissions via WORDS by Erika Loch and hosts monthly open mics @wordsoutloudchichester

Find out more about Erika below!

www.erikaloch.com | @erika_loch | @theunknownpoetproject (Instagram)

They make prompts by Hedd...