Placeholder is home for poetry readings of the avant-garde, challenging, queer and radical. Following the success of this poetry reading series in Brighton, Wire Wool Events is collaborating with Placeholder to bring three outstanding poets together in Southampton. This is the 2nd event of the partnership, after a sold out debut.

Cat Chong is a poet, publisher, and PhD student at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where their work considers the intersections between genre, genderqueerness, and disability. They’re a graduate of the Poetic Practice MA at Royal Holloway and editor at Osmosis Press. Their work has been published internationally in publications based in the UK, Singapore, Canada, and the US. Their debut collection 712 stanza homes for the sun was published in 2023 by Broken Sleep Books while their second collection, the serial poem titled Dear Lettera 32, has just been released by Permeable Barrier as of February 2024.

Susmita Bhattacharya is an Indian writer. Her debut novel, The Normal State of Mind (Parthian, 2015), was longlisted at the Mumbai Film Festival. Table Manners (Dahlia Publishing, 2018) won the 2019 Saboteur Award for Best Short Story Collection. Her poems have appeared in Mechanic’s Institute Review, Janus Literary Journal

J Pyrite is a nonbinary person who has been writing poems for over half their life. Their work focuses on themes of trauma and recovery, mythologising lived experience through dazzling imagery and a fierce passion for all things beautiful and true.

6.45pm doors for 7pm start. Readings will end at 9pm.

£5 advance
Limited tickets available, please book in advance to avoid disappointment

This event is a toiletries donation point for Basics Bank.
Raffle prizes are books - proceeds go to Yellow Door.