POETRY AT THE PIER with JOHN MCCULLOUGH, SAMATAR ELMI and BARRY FENTIMAN HALL

John McCullough’s first collection won the Polari First Book Prize in 2012. Reckless Paper Birds was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award 2019 and won John the coveted Hawthornden Prize in 2020. His latest collection Crowd Voltage addresses yearnings for community and probes fragmentation within groups and individuals.

Samatar Elmi is an award-winning writer, musician, editor and educator whose work brings poetry into conversation with myth, history, diaspora, sound and speculative futures. Samatar is touring nationally with three collections published concurrently: Agen Bien Fou (Kulvert Books, 2026), Reclamations: Disregard Prior Prompt (Aout Fecit, 2026) and 26 Poems for Cash, co-written with Sam Telford (Kulvert Books, 2026).

Barry Fentiman Hall is a writer who walks, based in the Medway Delta. He is the editor of Confluence magazine. His latest collection is Zoognosis – is a meditation on where humans and the rest of the natural world…