This Friday, Purely Poetry, the biggest and best open mic night in Belfast, returns once again to the Crescent Arts Centre. We love to see people unite through a love of poetry, so come along and be part of something beautiful.


Then, on Sunday 3rd, from 3-4pm, Poetry NI presents a special FourXFour showcase, with four of our poets showcasing their work: David Braziel, Ross Thompson, Geraldine O'Kane and Kathleen McCracken (whose work will be appearing in Issue Nine).

This reading will be held in Open Source Belfast's pop up place at 3-5 Commercial Court (just up from the Duke of York bar), running for the duration of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival.

The Belfast Film Festival has posted some videos from the Charles Bukowski tribute night in the Black Box. You can view all their videos from the week of events over at their Youtube Channel. Thank you to Lauryn Arthur for recording on the night.

A big thank you once again to all our wonderful listeners and readers at last night's Purely Poetry open mic in the Crescent Arts Centre. It does us the world of good to see so many people coming together to support local poetry. 

Our readers on the night were:
David Braziel, Tom French, Katy Waller, Ev Mcl, Anthony Ferguson, Norman Patterson, MK Maguire, Ross Thompson, Joel Auterson, Lesley Martin, 'Forty Two', Peter Francis Fahy, Ray Givans, Geraldine O'Kane, David Davies, Jenny Cleland, David Smylie, Tory Campbell, Lesley Johnston, Andy Ward, Patricia Devlin Hill and Mark Cooper.

Particular praise goes to our first timers, who read with aplomb and grace, and were all well received. A few of them were saying to us that they were surprised at how friendly and welcoming it was. That's exactly the mood we aim for!

We are back on Friday 2nd May for another open mic, we hope to see you all there.

Issue 8 of FourXFour Poetry Journal is now live. Our new issue features four more quality poets from Northern Ireland: Erin Halliday, Jim Meredith, Lesley Martin and Tom French. As usual, you can read it and download for free via issuu.com.

As a sidenote, checking our stats, we've had close to 10,000 hits since the start of the year across all our publications. Thank you to everyone of our readers who has enjoyed and shared the journal, your support means everything.

Here's Poetry NI's Colin Dardis talking about Charles Bukowski, and reading his poem, 'the strong man', ahead of tonight's A Tribute to Charles Bukowski: screening of the film 'Crazy Love' at 8pm followed by poetry reading, all at The Black Box.

Many thanks to Lauryn Arthur for the video, and to Jim Meredith and all the team at the Belfast Film Festival for organising the event.

To book your tickets and secure your place, please click here.