This Tuesday, 4th April, sees the Black Box, Belfast host A Tribute to Charles Bukowski, as part of the Belfast Film Festival.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of Bukowski, there will be a screening of the rare, critically acclaimed film ‘Crazy Love’ by Belgian director Dominique Deruddere, based on three Bukowski short stories.

Afterwards, there will be a short readings from poets Christopher McLaughlin, Geraldine O'Kane, Colin Hassard and Kathleen McCracken, followed by an open mic; bring along your favourite Bukowski poem to read, and/or one of your own, influenced/inspired by the man himself.

Event: 8pm, Tickets: £4

Then on Friday, our monthly Purely Poetry open mic night returns to the Crescent Arts Centre.

We like to put the emphasis on 'open', welcoming all poets of all styles, experience, age and backgrounds; just sign up at the start of the night and get your name in the hat, to be drawn out at random to read. 

Everyone gets a maximum of seven minutes each on the mic, to make sure we can fit in all the readers. As usual, all our proceeds go towards the Crescent, a registered charity; support the arts.

Event: 9.15pm, Tickets: £4 BYOB

Gratitude and praise to all who came down to LOFT last night for the Grab Bag event. The crowd were treated to marvellous sets from openers Geraldine O'Kane and Colin Dardis, local musicians Nathan Miller, Ciaran McElhinney, and our special poetry guests Rachel McCrum and Toni Stuart.

Rachel and Toni are part of the British Council and the Scottish Poetry Library's exciting Commonwealth Poets United. Rachel recently travelled to Johannesburg and Cape Town to meet South African poet Toni, and Toni is currently in Edinburgh on the return leg of the exchange program. Both have been raised funds for a local school library project in Cape Town.

We are thrilled to have them read in Belfast, and were delighted with their work. Thank you!

(Photos courtesy of BAM Magazine.)

Pen Points Press's Geraldine O'Kane is organising a night of poetry and music, in the LOFT venue on North Street, Belfast.

Entitled 'The Grab Bag' (inspired by 'The Rattle Bag' and 'The School bag' anthologies), the night features poetry from Geraldine and Colin Dardis, and two special readings from Stewed Rhubarb Press's Rachel McCrum and South African poet Toni Stuart.

Music on the night comes from Nathan Miller and Ciaran McElhinney.

The event runs on Friday 28th March, at 19.30.
More details are available here.

Here's a sneak look at the cover of our next issue of FourXFour. 
Look out for it in early April.

In the meantime, take a look through our back issues.

Great to see another full room last night for Purely Poetry, with lots of people itching to get their names in the hat to read. In no particular order, a big thank you to:

Andy Ward, Mark Cooper, Michael Bell, Tom French, Jenny Cleland, Lesley Johnston, John Mc Guckin, Rory Jones, Tim Knight, Geraldine O'Kane, David Braziel, David Smylie, Siobhan McKinney, Frank F T Twaddle, Stephen Gharbhoui, Barry Simpson, David Davies, Mel Bradley, Lesley Martin, Helen Harrison and Mimi O'Halloran.

Twenty-one readers packed into one night is a lot of poetry! How wonderful to see so many people coming together to share in their love of  words and writing; and an extended thank you to all that attend that simply just want to listen and enjoy, poets and poetry lovers alike. And of course, praise and respect to the wonderful staff at the Crescent Arts Centre for once again allowing us to take over the cafe.

Our next Purely Poetry open mic is this Friday, 7th March, at the Crescent Arts Centre. Doors 9.15, start 9.30, £4 in and BYO. All are welcome to read: find out more at our Facebook event page.

The programme for the Belfast Film Festival launched this week. The line-up includes A Tribute to Charles Bukowski, with a screening of the rare film 'Crazy Love'. The Pen Points Press poets will also be reading some of their favourite Buk poems and work inspired and influenced by him.

Finally, here's a photo of the readers and musicians from the recent The Squat Pen reading at No Alibis bookstore last week, with Ross Thompson, Colin Dardis and others. Thanks to Ray Givans and Paul Jeffcutt for another fine blend of voices.