Salena Godden and friends

We are delighted to welcome Salena Godden back to Hastings, for her full show.

She will be joined by local poets YELLOW and GREEN, OLI SPLEEN and S-BARS! 

Salena's work is taboo-busting in the most dramatic and emotional way, yet remaining beautiful and subtle. She is a true icon of the spoken word scene. In the Guardian Salena said 'I’m a furious and emotional woman — when things pop up I have to talk’

Prepare to be invigorated, inspired and electrified by this powerhouse performer. She’s here to bring the house down!

This event will last approximately two hours including an interval.

Salena Godden is the author of the collections, Under The Pier, Fishing in the Aftermath: Poems 1994-2014, and the literary memoir Springfield Road. Her live spoken word album LIVEwire was released with indie spoken word label Nymphs and Thugs and shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for new work in poetry 2017.

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A hardback edition of her poetry Pessimism is for Lightweights - 30 Pieces of Courage and Resistance was published in February 2023 by Rough Trade Books. These are poems written for the women’s march, poems that salute peaceful protest, poems on sexism and racism, class discrimination, poverty and homelessness, immigration and identity. This new edition expands the collection to full book length and shows Godden at her inimitable best—deft technique and powerful emotional heft, with additional new poems reflecting on our fast- changing world with her trademark humour and resilience.

In November 2020, she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death won The Indie Book Award for fiction and was the winner of The Peoples Book Prize 2022. It was also shortlisted for The British Book Awards; The Bad Form Magazine Book Of The Year shortlist and The Gordon Burn Prize. Film and TV rights to this unique debut novel have been taken by Idris Elba and Green Door Pictures.