Raise the Bar | Salena Godden + Guests (w/ Bad Betty Press)

Name: Raise the Bar | Salena Godden + Guests (w/ Bad Betty Press)
Start: 2025-10-23T19:30:00+01:00
End: 2025-10-23T21:30:00+01:00
Location: Arnolfini

Schedule

Thu Oct 23 2025 at 07:30 pm to 09:30 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

Arnolfini | Bristol, EN

Raise the Bar presents 'The Autumn Edition 2025': a quarterly evening of raucous, dynamic, thought-provoking and life-affirming poetry at Arnolfini.
We are thrilled to welcome three poets recently published by Bad Betty Press: Antosh Wojcik, Desree and Rowan Lyster, plus a headline set from UK performance poetry legend Salena Godden!
🎧 Plus NGAIO on the decks spinning the best in afrobeats, global bass and UK funky vibes.
Hosted by Danny Carlo Pandolfi.

🗓️ Thurs 23rd October 2025
📍 Arnolfini, 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA
🕖 19:00 doors | 19:30 - 21:30 show (including interval)
💷 £8 (£6 concessions, £10 solidarity)
The poets:
⭐ SALENA GODDEN ⭐
Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning novelist, poet and broadcaster of mixed Jamaican-Irish heritage. Her highly-acclaimed debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death was published by Canongate in lockdown in 2021. It won the Indie Book Awards for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards and the Gordon Burn Prize.

Latest books: A hardback edition of Pessimism is for Lightweights - 30 pieces of courage and resistance was published by Rough Trade Books in 2023. The title poem is on permanent display at The Peoples History Museum in Manchester. A new full poetry collection With Love, Grief and Fury and literary childhood memoir Springfield Road - A Poets Childhood Revisited were published together with Canongate in May 2024.
A poem While Justice Waits was highly commended by the Forward Prize 2024 and a live performance from With Love, Grief and Fury was recorded live at Out-Spoken at The Southbank and broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s The Verb and Pick of The Week. The gorgeous paperback edition of With Love, Grief and Fury will be published in October 2025.
Salena Godden is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Patron of Hastings Book Festival and an Honorary Fellow of West Dean, Sussex. A consistent supporter of the work of other poets, writers and artists, Godden co-hosts and co-produces the monthly arts and culture radio show and podcast Roaring 20’s Radio which broadcasts LIVE on Soho Radio with her friends art journalist Amah-Rose Abrams and Leeds-based poet Matt Abbott.
⭐ DESREE ⭐
Desree is an award-winning writer, spoken word artist, educator and producer based in London and Slough. Her collection, Altar, was published by Bad Betty in 2025, selected as a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and shortlisted for the Forward Prize 2025 for Best For Collection.
An alumna of Born::Free Writers’ Collective, Jerwood Arts Poetry In Performance Programme and the Obsidian Foundation, Desree was Poet in Residence at Glastonbury Festival 2022 and Slough’s EMPOWORD. A familiar voice on BBC Radio Berkshire, her work has been broadcast on Sky Arts’ The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah; and published in JOY//US Poems of Queer Joy, Ink Sweat & Tears, Spoken Word London’s Anti-Hate Anthology and more. She performs across the UK and internationally. Her sell-out self-published pamphlet, I Find My Strength in Simple Things (2017) was published in second edition by Burning Eye Books in 2021.
⭐ ANTOSH WOJCIK ⭐
Antosh Wojcik is a poet, drummer, and sound designer. His work explores memory, heritage, labour, time & the destabilisation of these things. He is a co-founder of Sleepwalker Studios, a Dorset-based production company and has received film commissions from BFI Network, The Lottery Heritage Fund, Arts and Culture University of Exeter and Natural England. He wrote the screenplay for ‘The Memory Boom’ (dir. Xenia Glen) which premiered at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2024 in the Rebels With A Cause competition category.
His poems are published in bath magg, Action, Spectacle and Anthropocene. His debut poetry collection, Suburban Locust, is forthcoming from Bad Betty Press in Autumn 2025. “Like James Tate, but drunk.” -Roger Robinson
⭐ ROWAN LYSTER ⭐
Rowan Lyster is a Bristol-based poet and physiotherapist-in-training, currently living with Long Covid. Her poems appeared widely in publications including bath magg, Magma, Poetry Wales and The Rialto. She is a member of the 2022–23 Southbank Centre New Poets' Collective and her pamphlet is forthcoming from Little Betty. She can be found online at https://linktr.ee/rowanlyster.
⭐ RAISE THE BAR ⭐
The South West's leading live poetry night, running blockbuster spoken word events in Bristol and beyond since 2014.
“One of my absolute favourite poetry nights” - Hollie McNish
'One of the best poetry nights in the country' – Rafeef Ziadah
“Raise the Bar is one of the most professionally run and dynamically curated events in the country, poetry or otherwise” - Harry Baker
⭐ BAD BETTY ⭐
Bad Betty is an award-winning independent publisher of new poetry, and curator of live literature events taking place across the UK. Bad Betty’s books have won or been shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Michael Marks Award, the Laurel Prize and the Polari First Book Prize.
♿ ACCESSIBILITY / SAFEGUARDING ♿
Our events aim to be as safe, inclusive, accessible and welcoming as possible.
The venue is wheelchair accessible and has accessible toilets. For full venue accessibility information see https://arnolfini.org.uk/plan-your-visit/accessibility/
⚠️ CONTENT WARNING ⚠️
Poetry events include performers sharing personal accounts which you may relate to in some way. This may include content that is potentially upsetting or triggering. We provide a general content warning at the beginning of each event.
🌈 SAFE SPACE 🌈
Raise the Bar has a zero tolerance policy towards hate, discrimination and abuse of any kind. Our staff team will work together to ensure the space is respectful and welcoming at all times.