An explosive poetry open mic night with two feature sets from cutting-edge poets, Kobi Essah Ayensuo and Gayathiri Kamalakanthan

Hosted by poets Ella Dorman-Gajic and Iftikhar Latif, Off The Chest, returns after a sell-out night last November, this time BIGGER with more tickets available. Off The Chest is an inclusive spoken word and poetry night, celebrating original voices and poetry that makes a statement.

The open mic segment offers the opportunity to poets of all backgrounds and ages to take to the stage. You will be able to sign up for the open mic on the night, with a limited number of spots up for grabs. Names will be pulled out of a hat. Funded by Arts Council England, Off The Chest has produced multiple poetry nights to sell-out audiences.

Get to know the feature poets:

Kobi Essah Ayensuo is a poet, musician, theatre-maker and creative of many hats based in London. Their practice often explores the intersections of their queer identity, Ghanaian heritage; navigating relationships and reimagining and decolonising the lens with which black history is told. Musically, they are influenced by a range of genres – their own sound can be described as soulful, alternative and harmonic – capturing the nostalgia, joy and confusion of growing into your skin and falling in and out of love. Their work often blends, harmonic soundscapes, music and poetry. Kobi Essah has been published with Ink Sweat and Tears, South London Gallery, Flipped Eye and Marques Almeida for London Fashion Week 2020. They have performed at several venues such as at the Southbank Centre, TheBarbican, Tate Britain, Wilderness festival and Brainchild Festival. Kobi Essah Ayensuo is also a BBC Words First finalist an alumnus of the Obsidian Foundation, Barbican Young Poets, The Writing Room and the Roundhouse Resident Artist programme. Most recently their debut play Sankofa: Before The Whitewash sold out at the Roundhouse’s Last Word festival. At present Kobi is working on their Debut EP.

Gayathiri Kamalakanthan is a Tamil poet and facilitator. They won theFaber & Andlyn Publisher’s Prize, the Primadonna Prize and were shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize and the David Oluwale Poetry Prize. Gayathiri is published in bath magg, Propel, zindabad zine, Burnt Roti and Magma; they’ve performed with DAYTIMERS, Apples and Snakes, Roundhouse and Wilderness Festival. They run the poetry workshop WORD-BENDERS at TheCommon Press bookshop. Gayathiri is represented by Curtis Brown.