companions: LIVE is the most recent iteration of a project conceived by Christopher Kirubi, supported by Almanac Projects. It follows a podcast series and a series of workshops hosted at Stockwell Community Centre. This event brings together poets who participated in the workshops as well as invited guest readers to perform alongside one another.

The poets participating in companions: LIVE have been invited to read from their own writing alongside the writing of other poets who have deepened their understanding and pleasure of poetry. The event will be audio recorded and released as the fifth episode in the podcast series. (All episodes can be found via Almanac’s SoundCloud).

The poets invited to read at this event are: Rhoda Adum Boateng, Lara Baksu, Ed Burrell, Ann-Marie Cadell, Fiza Ghauri, Imani Mason Jordan, Kashif Sharma-Patel, Ebun Sodipo.

To be accompanied is to understand that we do not stand in this world alone, that we have the right to move and navigate towards our goals, dreams and desires in the safety and the emotional recognition that comes with being in the company of others . To accompany someone allows us to bear witness to their needs and to stand with them, to hold space for difference in motion together, it is to play the harmony out loud so the melody need not sound out alone.

companions seeks to bring together and magnify the moments where words, practices and lives can both slip together and produce friction. It invokes the openness of intimate conversation whilst allowing us to bear witness to the accumulation of many layers of voices, thoughts and feelings.

The project is supported by Arts Council England and realized in partnership with Almanac Inn.