Please join us on Saturday 29 March 2025, 2.30-4.00 at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation for a wonderful line-up of poets and musicians.

You will find all the information you need regarding visiting the IABF on their website here. The event is free and everyone is welcome (no need to book tickets). Performers often bring along books and CDs to sell, please note we are only able to accept cash payments.

You can read about the poets and musicians below:

Imtiaz Dharker

Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist and video film maker, awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014, Chancellor of Newcastle University since 2020. Her seven collections, all published by Bloodaxe Books, include Over the Moon and the latest, Shadow Reader. Her poems have featured on BBC radio, television, the London Underground, Glasgow billboards and Mumbai buses. She has had eleven solo exhibitions of drawings and scripts and directs video films, many of them for non-government organisations working in the area of shelter, education and health for women and children in India.

Ella Frears

Ella Frears is a poet and artist based in London. Her debut collection Shine, Darling was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the T. S. Eliot Prize. She has held residencies at the Tate Gallery, the National Trust, Royal Holloway University physics department, the Dartington Trust’s Grade II listed gardens, 16 motorway service stations, the number 17 bus in Southampton, and Exeter University’s environmental history department. Ella’s latest book Goodlord, which takes the form of one long email to an estate agent, was shortlisted for The Forward Prize, a Sky Arts Award, and was long-listed for the Republic of Consciousness Prize. She hosts chat and music show Tears for Frears on Soho Radio. 

Martin Zarrop

is a retired mathematician who wanted certainty but found life more interesting and fulfilling by not getting it. He started writing poetry in 2006.

He has published three pamphlets:   No Theory of Everything,

        Making Waves on the life and science of Albert Einstein

        To Boldly Go

as well as three full collections: Moving Pictures (Cinnamon 2016),

Is Anyone There? (High Window Press 2020)

and Turn Around When Possible (V.Press 2023)

He has lived in the Manchester area since 1980 but zooms everywhere.

Ayanam Udoma

Ayanam is a Nigerian singer but considers his “musical home” to be Manchester. He grew up in Nigeria but moved to the UK at the age of 16 and it’s reflected in his musical style – taking inspiration from everyone from the Nsync to Outlandish to Paolo Nutini, and the Kooks – his musical taste is definitely “eclectic”, but what he enjoys doing is taking songs from every genre and playing around with their conventions, turning the most bubble gum of pop songs into neo soul musings.

A lyricist at heart, having written poetry since 16, his raspy tone may remind you of passionate crooners like Rob Thomas and Paolo Nutini. Although most of his sets are covers. His original songs explore his struggles with anxiety as he finds it therapeutic.

In 2019, Ayanam was a member of Sir Tom Jones’ team on The Voice UK.