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

 

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August Sunday poetry readings

A Sunday reading in the late 1980s

11th August – Canadian visiting poet Jeanette Lynes,  Nancy Mattson and Jacqueline Saphra
25^th August – Bendigo Australian poet Tru Dowling and Katherine Gallagher

7.30pm. £5/£4 according to pocket. Poets from the floor welcome

Dan Kennedy and Roy Lockett

Great poetry and fine singing at Torriano Poetry on Sunday 21 July, 7.30pm. £5/£4 according to pocket. Poets from the floor welcome.

New book from Dinah Livingstone

Friday 12 July, 7pm

Dinah Livingstone Embodiment book launch

Dinah Livingstone has published 9 pamphlets and 9 books of her poetry and received three Arts Council Writer’s Awards for it. Her first book collection, Saving Grace, was published by Rivelin Grapheme in 1987; Rockingham Press published her Time on Earth: New and Selected Poems in 1999; her ninth, collection is The Vision Splendid (Katabasis 2014).

Her books have received some good reviews. Her poems have also been published in newspapers, magazines and anthologies, and she has given many poetry readings and talksin London, throughout Britain and abroad. Her most recent prose book is The Making of Humanity: Poetic Vision and Kindness.

She ran the Camden Voices Poetry Group for twenty years (1978-1998) and her Poetry Handbook for Readers and Writers (Macmillan 1993) is dedicated to them.

Her translations include Poets of the Nicaraguan Revolution, (ed. and trans.), The Music of the Spheres by Ernesto Cardenal and Prayer in the National Stadium by Maria Eugenia Bravo Calderara (all bilingual text).

She runs the small press Katabasis and edits the magazine Sofia. Dinah loves London and has lived in the same house in Camden Town since 1966. She has 3 children and 2 grandsons.

Rojava solidarity evening this Saturday

The Filthy Quiet

Tuesday, 18 June 2019

To celebrate publication of her new collection, The Filthy Quiet, Kate Noakes has invited a number of friends to read with her.
As well as reading, I’ll be introducing – the other poets are Michelle Penn, Gale Burns, Cath Drake, Kate Potts, Peter Daniels and special guest from Paris, Margo Berdeshevsky.

Tickets are £5 with all proceeds going to Asthma Research. Refreshments will be available by donation.Kick off 7.30pm.

Tomorrow is Dorten Yonder!

28 June
A musical event from Dorten Yonder.  We’ll be playing our usual mix of songs by Maggie Eiseman-Renyard, traditional songs and dance tunes.  We’re also delighted to have two excellent support acts:  Chris Tymkow,

Unity Folk Club at Torriano | Drawing Emily Johns

well known to Unity attenders, and the Clean Cut Kids (Richard Cryan doing double duty, and Keith Taylor) – superb Bob Dylan interpreters.
We’ll open the doors at 7:30 for an 8:00 start; entrance is £6.00 on the door – bring your own refreshments.

Saad Mushatat exhibition

Private views: Friday 24 May 7—10pm & Saturday 25 May 6—10pm.
Fri 31 May 7­­—10pm poetry to accompany Saad Mushatat paintings
Saturday 1 June 6—10pm with music

The artist thinks of himself as a product of the 1970’s, an era in Iraq that “was blessed with culture, art and creativity, (and) was very fundamental in shaping our lives”.

Saad studied painting at Sir John Cass and Camberwell Schools of Art.