Bad Betty Press

16/08/2024

16/08/2024

🌱 Happy Friday 🌱

Here’s a poem from ’s luminous collection, TREASURE - out next month! We cannot wait to share this book with you.

Pre-order link in bio

💫🍃🧡

16/08/2024

It’s not long to go now until comes to Nottingham to deliver a Masterclass at !

September 8th 2:30-4:30

£10-£15

You can also get tickets to watch Ray as well as a ridiculous line up that evening at

Bad Betty Masterclasses: sharpen your skills and develop your practice with some of poetry's leading lights.

15/08/2024

💫 Some pics from June’s Bad Betty Live. 📷 💫

Huge thanks to all the amazing acts who made it so special, host , venue and everyone who came along.

We’re back at Peggy’s on Sunday 8th Sept. Tickets on sale now - don’t miss out!

14/08/2024

Thanks Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre for featuring ‘Elders of the Pot’ by Jasmine Cooray your weekly poem. From Jasmine’s Forward Prize shortlisted collection, Inheritance.

Our is 'Elders of the Pot' by Jasmine Cooray and comes from her Forward Prizes for Poetry-shortlisted collection Inheritance (Bad Betty Press). Read more & get yourself a copy: https://badbettypress.com/product/inheritance-jasmine-cooray/

You can find out more about Jasmine in an interview with Forward Prizes for Poetry: https://forwardartsfoundation.org/in-conversation-with-jasmine-cooray/

12/08/2024

🔅 SPOTLIGHT ON: Nottingham Black Creatives Network 🔅

is a fantastic group of singers, musicians, poets, artists, photographers and event organisers, aiming to empower, encourage & support each other in Nottingham’s bustling creative scene.

Members include legends & .mclaren who blew us away at recent Bad Betty Live events, who won People’s Choice at the slam , who’s joining us at next month, and many more!

The next NBCN event is POWERHOUSES at on 19th Sept, and features Davina Songbird, , , Courtney and – 5 incredible artists working across r’n’b, jazz, soul and spoken word.

Get your tickets via the Playhouse, and follow for details of this & all upcoming events 🔥🔥🔥

05/08/2024

The Big Say Owt Birthday Bash - 18th October 2024 B.Dolan (rapper from Rhode Island, USA) - 5th November 2024 Bad Betty Showcase - 25th November 2024 Say Owt Slam - February 2025, date tbc Luke...

31/07/2024

We close at midnight!

Full details on our website send your poems before midnight.

30/07/2024

We’re back! Join us for an unmissable line-up. Sunday 8th September, with:


Fran Lock







Doors 6pm.
Ground floor venue with accessible toilet.
We recommend sampling the venue’s tasty Middle Eastern menu!

Tickets (going fast) via our link 🌳

30/07/2024

The fantastic SAY OWT collective team up with award-winning publishers Bad Betty Press to bring a showcase of brilliant performance poets delivering sharp sets of superb spoken word on 25th November.

Bad Betty bring three incredible poets: Berlin-based Jemima Foxtrot, Ess*x-based Jackson Phoenix Nash, and Sweden-based Joshua Idehan - who has contributed poems to Mercury-nominated albums 'Channel The Spirits' by The Comet Is Coming, and the Mobo-winning 'Black To The Future' by Sons of Kemet.

Plus Say Owt run their open mic as part of the night (sign up on the door).

Book your tickets at: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk/

29/07/2024

🔥 SONGBOOK: COLLECTED WORKS 🔥
by

Out October 2024, Joshua Idehen’s collected works has been a long time coming. Songbook comprises verses from Mercury-nominated and MOBO-winning albums by Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming, alongside watershed poems of spoken word legend, newly captured in book form. From Poejazzi and Benin City to a string of supreme collaborations, Idehen’s impact resonates far and wide across the landscapes of poetry and jazz/electronica. Cross-examining colonialism, masculinity, mental health and ways of healing, his writing is an essential provocation, a diasporic dance, a comedy roast, an intervention, a cannonball from which no one is safe, least of all himself.

“One of the most important writers working today.” Dr Obaro Ejimiwe aka Ghostpoet

“Joshua Idehen is in the tradition of Gil Scott-Heron. Like Gil, his recorded poems withstand the requirements of the page in their form, orchestration and impact. This could easily have been called Battle Song Book for the way it inspires the reader to rally against the wrongs, historical and present, of this world. Songbook feels like a large, black, tattered flag, running at enemy hordes, screaming, It’s on.” Roger Robinson

“The griot has committed to the page, and it’s like watching a good man turn himself inside out. Idehen gives us his whole heart: furious, loving, dark, tender, uncompromising, funny, f**k-you lyrics. It’s a work that cares about you and the world. I promise, a few Idehen songs before bedtime will leave you feeling revolutionary…” Leone Ross

“A writer whose poems leap from the page. A melody we tune ourselves to, whether in struggle or liberation. The ask is to be present, through it all.” Yomi Ṣode

“The poet laureate of UK jazz.” , The Guardian

24th Oct. Pre-order via our link 🌳

22/07/2024

Bad Betty live returns in September!


6pm
£10

💫
💫 Fran Lock
💫
💫
💫
💫

Hosted by and

Link in bio

19/07/2024

💫 Advance copies of ’s Treasure are making their way into the world 💫

“Moving, radical and innovative – full of verve and courage, vivid and electric. Foxtrot is one of our most potent laureates of material experience, of the rich, tangy, painful and complicated pith of living.” Rebecca Tamás

“Foxtrot is a savvy, sometimes savage, sensualist; her poetic speakers alert to injustice, but alive to pleasure in every way that counts. These are superbly tactile poems, full of wit, vigour and feminist jouissance.” Fran Lock

Jemima Foxtrot’s Treasure is a shining work of alchemy and liberation, exploring power dynamics, s*x work, desire, and female friendship with a fresh and playful perspective. Foxtrot investigates shimmering s*xualities, the economies of desire, the theft of childhood and pathways towards reclaiming it. Her language is lush: intimate, intricate, full of fertile earth’s possibility. The poems of Treasure live up to its name: showing us where the gold is—the joy—how to feed it into the soil of our lives.

Out 26th Sept. Launching Available to pre-order now!

17/07/2024

We are absolutely buzzing to share the news that ’s Inheritance is shortlisted for the Best First Collection 🍾🍾🍾

Huge congrats to Jasmine, and to everyone shortlisted.

01/07/2024

WE ARE OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS!

23/06/2024

Come join us for the launch of these books 6pm tonight!

launch at sponsored by *xypoems and

Join Bad Betty Press to celebrate five electrifying new works of poetry from pamphlet imprint, Little Betty. We’ll be launching pamphlets by Kareem P

18/06/2024

WE ARE BRINGING BAD BETTY LIVE TO

We couldn’t be happier to be bringing you a flavour of what we do to this beautiful festival.

You can catch and at 4:45 on the Sunday at Banda and Voices stage.

Then join us for a boogie while we watch Noname and Chaka Khan!

10/06/2024

Just two weeks until we launch Little Betty 2024 at ’s Last Word Festival. Get your tickets in the bag and join us to celebrate these electrifying pamphlets:

💫 Some People Are Trains - Jackson Phoenix Nash
💫 Unruly Blood - Olivia Douglass
💫 Oi You Lot - Kareem Parkins-Brown
💫 Impossible Heat - Ciara Maguire
💫 Green - Suzannah Evans

Sunday 23rd June, 6pm
Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Rd, London
tickets via roundhouse.org

06/06/2024

Thanks for this review of ’s Are You There 💫🐋

“Packed with beautiful imagery, these poems negotiate the personal while interrogating the efficacy of poetry itself.” 🥰

02/06/2024

Tonight is the night!

Bad Betty Live Nottingham.

6pm door

Last few tickets £10

https://peggysskylight.co.uk/events/bad-betty-live-2nd-june-2024/?

01/06/2024

✨Artist Spotlight✨

SAMANTHA FAIN


Samantha (Sam) Fain is a poet from Indiana. Her
chapbook Coughing Up Planets debuted with VA Press
in March of 2021. Her microchapbook, sad horse music,
debuted with The Daily Drunk in May of 2021. Catalina
Ponce of Cicada Editora translated this work, and Música
de Caballo Triste was published in 2023. Sam is the co-
editor of Kiss Your Darlings: A Taylor Swift Anthology, out
with Olney Magazine in 2022. Are You There is her debut
full-length collection. Find her at samanthafain.com.

✨ Bad Betty Live, Sunday 2nd June:

Join Malika Booker’s poetry masterclass, 2.30pm at & online (SOLD OUT)

7pm: live poetry & music at featuring .godden .booker .mclaren & hosted by

✨✨✨

31/05/2024

✨Artist Spotlight✨

SALENA GODDENgodden

Poet, author, activist, broadcaster, memoirist and essayist.
Born in the UK, Salena Godden is of Jamaican-Irish heritage and based in London. Widely and consistently anthologised, Salena Godden has published several books, she has also written for BBC TV and radio and has released four studio albums.

Published books include poetry volumes Under The Pier (Nasty Little Press); Fishing in the Aftermath: Poems 1994-2014 (Burning Eye); literary childhood memoir Springfield Road (Unbound)
Pessimism Is For Lightweights – 13 pieces of Courage and Resistance, was published by Rough Trade Books in July 2018. The poem Pessimism is for Lightweights was a p***c poetry art piece on display outside the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol for over eighteen months. The poem has been donated to Peoples History Museum in Manchester, where it is now on permanent display.

Short film, Is There Anybody Out There? (The Back of the internet) was commissioned by Google Arts and Culture and BBC Arts and is part of their Rhyme and Reason: BBC Arts programme, it aired in October 2019 and is currently streaming via BBC Four, BBC Arts, BBC iPlayer and Google Arts.

Mrs Death Misses Death is a debut novel by Salena Godden. A BBC Radio 4 documentary about the writing of Mrs Death Misses Death was broadcast throughout December 2018, the programme followed the work-in-progress over 12 months. The novel is now published by Canongate.

✨ Bad Betty Live, Sunday 2nd June:

Join Malika Booker’s poetry masterclass, 2.30pm at & online (limited spaces available!)

7pm: live poetry & music at featuring .godden .booker .mclaren & hosted by

Get 50% off the workshop when booked with a show ticket. ✨

30/05/2024

Coming this autumn:

✨TREASURE✨
by

Jemima Foxtrot’s Treasure is a shining work of alchemy and liberation, exploring power dynamics, s*x work, desire, and female friendship with a fresh and playful perspective. Foxtrot investigates shimmering s*xualities, the economies of desire, the theft of childhood and pathways towards reclaiming it. Her language is lush: intimate, intricate, full of fertile earth’s possibility. The poems of Treasure live up to its name: showing us where the gold is—the joy—how to feed it into the soil of our lives.

“Foxtrot is a savvy, sometimes savage, sensualist; her poetic speakers alert to injustice, but alive to pleasure in every way that counts. These are superbly tactile poems, full of wit, vigour and feminist jouissance.” Fran Lock

“Moving, radical and innovative – full of verve and courage, vivid and electric. Foxtrot is one of our most potent laureates of material experience, of the rich, tangy, painful and complicated pith of living.” Rebecca Tamás

Pre-order via our linktree or from your local bookshop. Out 26th September 2024.

29/05/2024

This Sunday at Peggy's Skylight

Bad Betty Live

SALENA GODDEN * MALIKA BOOKER * SAMANTHA FAIN * ALEX MAZEY * INGRIN MCLAREN * KATIE KEDDIE

£10
6pm doors
7pm show

https://peggysskylight.co.uk/events/bad-betty-live-2nd-june-2024/?

29/05/2024

THIS SATURDAY: Share new work, first drafts, and 'bad' ideas in a warm and inclusive workshop with Casey Bailey and Bad Betty Press ❤

🏢 Central Library
📅 Saturday 1st June
🕛 12noon - 2.00pm

This is a free workshop for ages 16+ - booking is advised. Click here for tickets https://badbettypress.com/events/

28/05/2024

Just popping on here quickly to say thank you and BIGlove to TOAST Poetry for lovely event last week with Norfolk & Norwich Festival. Thanks also to BBC Norfolk

Coming up: 'With Love, Grief and Fury' live shows and poetry gatherings: Friday May 31st The Wanstead Tap with Newham Bookshop, Forest Gate, London & Sunday June 2nd, Bad Betty, Peggy's Skylight in Nottingham. See you here and there!

tix and details on my linktree: https://linktr.ee/salenagodden

28/05/2024

✨Artist Spotlight✨

KATIE KEDDIE

Katie Keddie is a singer-songwriter based in Nottingham who, with her band, creates ethereal alt-folk tracks with delicate, emotive instrumentation and relatable lyrics.

In 2022, she released her debut EP ‘Alaska Sadness’ which received love from the BBC, with ‘Comfort and Despair’ being named Chill Track of the Week as well as one of Fresh on The Net’s ‘Fresh Faves’. Since then, Katie has performed at various venues and festivals across the country, including two BBC Introducing live sessions. In 2023 she headlined a show at The Bodega, toured with Amber Run, and opened the courtyard stage at Splendour Festival.

In April 2024, she released her sophomore EP ‘nothing much to say’ after working with producer and musician Noah Weinman (of ‘Runnner’), which received love from various outlets including the BBC, Alexrainbird and Clout Magazine. Her EP launch party at Rough Trade Nottingham was met with a sold out crowd.

✨ Bad Betty Live, Sunday 2nd June:

Join Malika Booker’s poetry masterclass, 2.30pm at & online (limited spaces available!)

7pm: live poetry & music at featuring .godden .booker .mclaren , hosted by

Get 50% off the workshop when booked with a show ticket. ✨

27/05/2024

✨Artist Spotlight✨

MALIKA BOOKER

Malika Booker is a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage. She co-founded Malika’s Poetry Kitchen and is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. With Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire, Malika is published in the Penguin Modern Poets Series 3, Your Family: Your Body (2017). A Cave Canem Fellow and inaugural Poet in Residence at The Royal Shakespeare Company, she was awarded the Cholmondeley Award (2019) for her outstanding contribution to poetry and elected a Royal Society of Literature Fellow in 2022. Malika is the first woman to win the Forward Prize Best Single Poem twice, first in 2020 with her poem The Little Miracles, commissioned by and published in Magma 75 (2019), and in 2023 with Libation, published in The Poetry Review (2022).

✨ Bad Betty Live, Sunday 2nd June:

Join Malika Booker’s poetry masterclass, 2.30pm at & online (limited spaces available!)

7pm: live poetry & music at featuring .godden .booker .mclaren , hosted by

Get 50% off the workshop when booked with a show ticket. ✨

26/05/2024