Poetry, Punk and Pop Culture - Samatar Elmi, Kaycee Hill, Jamie Woods, Jeremy Dixon

Sponsored by Chris Hemingway.Four poets who have fused timeless and classic themes with some of the defining symbols, personalities, tastes and tastes of contemporary popular culture read fiercely original poems inspired by myth, legend, rave-culture, movies and even social media!Samatar Elmiis a British-Somali poet, rapper, neofolk singer-songwriter and author of The Epic of Cader Idris (Bloomsbury, 2024).

His previous chapbook, Portrait of Colossus (flipped eye publishing, 2021), won the PBS Pamphlet Choice award.

Elmi releases music as Knomad Spock.Kaycee Hill is a mixed-heritage poet based in Bristol whose work is rooted in sound system culture and sonic inheritance, examining how music shapes who we become.

She won the inaugural James Berry Poetry Prize and the 2025 Eric Gregory Award.

Her poems appear in Poetry Review, Poetry London, and Five Dials.

She co-leads Braid, an intergenerational poetry performance group.

Her debut collection, Hot Sauce, is published by Bloodaxe.Jamie Woods was selected as 'a poet to watch' by Poetry Wales in 2025.

His debut pamphlet Rebel Blood Cells was published by Punk Dust Poetry in June 2023, and was named as one of the best Welsh poetry collections of the year by Wales Arts Review.

His new collection Black Skies Die Starless is a stylish coming-of-age tale, set in the 1990s.

Punky and unfettered, Intense, cinematic and evocative Jamies poetry explores the mess of a young man trying to grow up in the cultural wreckage and unrelenting rhythm of grunge and rave culture, the vacuity of Cool Britannia, and the search for something, anything, to believe in.Jeremy Dixons Bold in the Life (Broken Sleep Books) is an electrifying affirmation of Polari, the coded language once palavered through queer spaces, now reanimated in poetry that is unapologetic, irreverent, and deeply celebratory.

Jeremys first collection A Voice Coming From Then (Arachne Press, 2021) won 2022.