MAKE POETRY WEIRD AGAIN

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...

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...

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 peopl...

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 o...

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...

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....

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 partic...

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...

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 d...

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 c...

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...

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 nols@makepoetryweirdagain.com prompts below provide list of prompts in one se...

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, depre...

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 Kea...

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 We...

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 checkou...

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 p...

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 poetr...

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 c...

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...

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...

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...

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 @rosie...

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 g...

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 fro...