Yes We Cant, for those of you who don’t know – and yes, it’s cant without the apostrophe, cant as in natter or blather or chat – is our long-running poetry night. Held on the first Sunday of the month, originally in the Pretty Bricks pub in Walsall, then moving online during the pandemic. It’s stayed online since then, partly because we built up a loyal audience of folk who wouldn’t necessarily be able to make it to a physical event, and partly because we haven’t yet found a venue which meets all our needs about accessibility, cost, and the facility for us to host a hybrid poetry night which can be attended by folk in both the real and the virtual world.
At each Yes We Cant we have ten open-mic poets (a strict four minutes each), an ‘Alf Ender (a poet who’s recently had a collection of their work published) and a headline poet (who’s, er, the headliner). And over the years we’ve put on some of the very biggest and best names in UK poetry while creating a friendly, welcoming, pay-as-you-feel space for poets and audience alike.
All this preamble is by way of letting you know that the next Yes We Cant is on Sunday October 6th, on Zoom, at 7.30pm. Our headliner is Jonathan Humble, the force behind Dirigible Balloon; our ‘Alf Ender is Ash Bainbridge; there are ten open mic spots waiting to be claimed. As always, first dibs on those go to folk who’ve never read with us before, or haven’t read at Yes We Cant for a while. Get in touch if you’d like to read, or if you simply want to join our audience.
And there’ll be a half-time video of something obscure and wonderful, courtesy of our very own Dave Pitt. What’s not to like, folks? What’s not to like?