The Poetry Place at Aviva Studios
Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor
The Poetry Place, the evening of poetry and spoken word hosted by Griot Gabriel, celebrates its third birthday with the annual Poetry Place Slam, featuring 10 performers and headlined by PA Bitez.
The Poetry Place is a poetry and spoken word organisation, founded in Manchester by Griot Gabriel from the desire to create a safe space for both established and new poets to share their creative work through writing, poetry, spoken word and performance. TPP runs quarterly poetry nights, at Aviva Studios, the home of Factory International, as well as creative writing workshops. The Poetry Place Slam 2024 will see 10 “expertly selected” poets take to the stage for three minutes each to perform their “most poignant and powerful poetry” for a chance to take home The Poetry Place Slam crown and a £100 cash prize.
Griot Gabriel is a hip-hop influenced poet, and youth worker in Manchester. His poetry explores race, resistance, personal identity and relevant social issues. Griot Gabriel has been commissioned to write and perform with and at Chanel, Warner Bros, Manchester United, Manchester International Festival and Glastonbury, and has has been selected to represent Manchester (current reigning champions) at global poetry slam competition Slamovision 2024. Gabriel will give a hometown performance of his poem ‘Where I’m From’ at the Slamovision 2024 Grand Finale – the ‘Eurovision for the Spoken Word’ – at Manchester Poetry Library on Thursday 12 December. You can also catch him in the new year as a headliner at Word Central.
The Poetry Place Slam will be headlined by Princess Arinola Adegbite, known professionally as Bitez, who is a multi-award-winning genre-bending performance artist, musician, filmmaker and poet from Manchester. Her poetry collection Algorithms of Meaning won an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors 2023 and she was awarded Manchester Young Creative of The Year for her artistic contributions to the city by the Manchester Culture Awards in 2021.
