Torriano Meeting House

Poetry Art Politics Community 

Torriano Meeting House  is a user-funded grass-roots volunteer-run arts and community organisation in Kentish Town. We are best known for our poetry events but we have many other long running strands including storytelling for adults, writing and storytelling workshops, hosting local political campaigning groups, theatrical events, left wing folk club, and we very much support grass-roots creativity and social change.  

Torriano is a space for you to organise events and projects.

“What is the purpose of resisting corporate globalization if not to protect the obscure, the ineffable, the unmarketable, the unmanageable, the local, the poetic and the eccentric? So they need to be practiced, celebrated and studied too, right now.” – Rebecca Solnit

 

Our capacity audience is 20 people. Please bring a mask to events.

If you would like to make a financial contribution, donate here:

Torriano Teas

Hosted by Agnes Hay, Dan Kennedy and Penny Dimond. Drop by for conversation, poetry, music, tea.

Poetry Sunday

June 12th, 7.30 – Judi Sutherland reading from her new pamphlet ‘Following Teisa’ introduced by Pauline Sewards. £6/5 according to pocket. introduced by Pauline Sewards.

Torriano Poetry

Torriano Poetry, Sundays 7.30pm. £6/£5 according to pocket, cash on door. Poets from the floor welcome.

May 15th – Patrizia Longhitano, Destiny Adeyemi, Alba Frederick, Lisa Kelly, Stuart McKenzie, Cheryl Moskowitz with Fortune Teller poems.

Torriano Teas

Hosted by Agnes Hay, Dan Kennedy and Penny Dimond. Drop by for conversation, poetry, music, tea

Saad Mushatat: Retrospective.

Final weekend.
Friday 8th April viewing 5-10pm
Saturday 9th April live music 5-10pm with Master Soufian, Almighty fingers Recardo, Tara Mushatat and others.

Exhibition: Saad Mushatat

Friday 1 April, 6-10pm. Opening night
Saturday 2 April, 6-10pm. Storytelling.
Friday 8 April, 6-10pm. Viewing.
Saturday 9 April, 6-10pm. Music.

Saad, a natural raconteur – perhaps one of the most socially engaging on Earth – a writer of short stories, progressed from John Cass to the Canterbury School of Art at the age of 31, before  switching to Camberwell School of Art in 1990.

Since discovering the power of the image, Saad has never looked back. Painting became a foundation, a release, a story-telling tool, facilitating multilayered possibilities and interpretations. A medium that conveys thought through visual language, with a naive and primitive approach that characterises Saad’s work.

 Torriano Meeting House presents an alternative setting for Saad’s work to reach the community.

 An Iraqi artist and refugee in London, escaping the hell of Sadam Hussein, he was thankful to have fallen into the arms of John Rety, a Jewish poet from Hungary, who had experienced war, choosing instead love and poetry, and gave Saad his first exhibition in london in 1987 at Torriano Meeting House ! So it makes sense Saad’s last show in london would be where the roots started.

Torriano Poetry

At Torriano in the flesh, Sunday March 20th, 7.30pm.

Guest readers Serge Neptune and Richard Scott.
Poets from the floor welcome. Please pay in cash on the door £6 or £5 according to pocket.

………………………………………………………………………

Torriano Poetry in Cyberspace

At 6.30pm every Sunday Joan Michelson and Dan Kennedy will be hosting Torriano Poetry in cyberspace. Come at 6.15pm for pre-reading socialising.
There is no guest reader. The live session at Torriano is not broadcast here. Bring poems to read or just listen. Join us there, all welcome. All welcome to read or listen. Free.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3940991487?pwd=VXN0djNHU0F5M2pDK0dscXdRTkJwZz09
 Meeting ID: 394 099 1487
 Passcode: 8dFNdWq

Teas, women, art, poetry to start 2022

Torriano Poetry readings 2022

We will be beginning in-person readings at Torriano Meeting House on Sundays 7.30 

March 6th – John Greening and Stuart Henson reading from their collaboration, ‘a Post Card to’ (Red Squirrel Press)

March 20th – Serge Neptune and Richard Scott

Please pay in cash on the door £6 or £5 according to pocket

 Torriano Poetry in Cyberspace

At 6.30pm every Sunday Joan Michelson and Dan Kennedy will be hosting Torriano Poetry in cyberspace. Come at 6.15pm for pre-reading socialising.
Through the pandemic this gathering has held together a community that was scattered across the earth.
There is no guest reader. The live session at Torriano is not broadcast here. Bring poems to read or just listen. Join us there, all welcome. All welcome to read or listen. Free.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3940991487?pwd=VXN0djNHU0F5M2pDK0dscXdRTkJwZz09
 Meeting ID: 394 099 1487
 Passcode: 8dFNdWq

Torriano Teas

Every Wednesday from 23 February, 3 — 5pm. A social drop in hosted by Penny Dimond and Dan Kennedy where you will find poetry, conversation, songs, art and tea.

International Women’s Day

CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS Sunday 6th March. 3pm. The New Factory of the Eccentric Actor presents a celebration.

Unity Folk Club

Monday 28 February. Doors open 7.30 for 7.45 start. £4
helping to keep left wing folk singing alive. NOW BOOKED OUT.

Exhibitions

Currently: Agnes Hay

QUEUE exhibition – Ágnes Háy sketches, Steve Moyes composition – in the Torriano Meeting House. 

From Saturday 2 April: Saad Mushatat

La by Saad Mushatat

Torriano in cyberspace 20th February

At 6.30pm every Sunday Joan Michelson and Dan Kennedy will be hosting Torriano Poetry in cyberspace. Come at 6.15pm for pre-reading socialising.
Through the pandemic this gathering has held together a community that was scattered across the earth.
There is no guest reader. The live session at Torriano is not broadcast here. Bring poems to read or just listen. Join us there, all welcome.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3940991487?pwd=VXN0djNHU0F5M2pDK0dscXdRTkJwZz09

Meeting ID: 394 099 1487
Passcode: 8dFNdW

Torriano Teas Wednesday 16 February

Spring is coming! Torriano Meeting House is coming to life again! Drop by to an open house with tea, entertainment and conversation hosted by Penny Dimond and Dan Kennedy.
3 — 5pm.