Date: Sunday 1 March 2009
Time: 1.30pm
Venue: Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Nandita Ghose, A.F Harrold, Andre Mangeot, Ife Piancu

This event is aimed at encouraging anyone who has never been to a poetry event before to come and see the amazing and exciting range of possibilities that poetry has. Poet in the City's New Audiences initiative has fast become one of our most popular set of programmes with events at the Guardian on Spoken Word and at Imperial University on Work, Space and Maths. This event has a mix of our favourite performance and up and coming poets that we're sure you'll enjoy.

Nandita Ghose is a poet, performer and artist. Her TV drama, Bhangra Girls, was the first in the UK to feature an all-female Asian cast. Her BBC radio series Oxford Road, co-written with Mike Walker, won a Sony award in 2005. Her poetry has been widely published and she won The Edinburgh Fringe Festival Award for funniest poem and was recently short-listed for the Bridport Prize for the poem "Strange Fruit". He most recent performance, "Mrs Whippy Serves it Up" which combines poetry, surreal sculptural costumes, and real ice cream was premiered this year. She is currently working on a collection of poetry "Hanuman's Child" with accompanying artwork.

A.F. Harrold is an English performance poet, storyteller and writer, is renowned for his fabulous and unusual live shows. His work is widely published, in books, magazines and on the internet. In 2008 he was poet-in-residence at the Glastonbury Festival and in 2007 won the Cheltenham Literary Festival UK All-Stars Slam Championship. He has appeared many times on BBC radio and television channels and tours extensively throughout the year

Andre Mangeot's prize-winning poetry and short stories have appeared in many magazines and journals including The Times Literary Supplement, Daily Express and London Magazine. A short selection of his work, Natural Causes (Shoestring, 2003) is now in its second edition. His first full-length collection, Mixer, was published in May 2005 by Egg Box Press and a book of short stories, A Little Javanese, by Salt in 2008.

Ife Pianku is an exciting and talented performance poet, who uses her poetry to express her culture and viewpoint on society. Her magical blend of poetry and performance has seen her perform at venues as varied as The Royal Opera House, Ronnie Scott's and the Twelve Bar Club, and tour with the celebrated JazzXchange music and dance company. Her versatility has also allowed her to do extensive educational work, including a number of poetry placements in schools for Poet in the City, where she has demonstrated her exceptional gifts at inspiring and engaging with children.

This event is part of the 'Poetry and Choices' series, organised in conjunction with Poet in the City. Other events in the series include a Poetry and Choices panel discussion with some of the UK's leading poets and a Ben Okri 'showcase'. Poet in the City is a registered charity committed to attracting new audiences to poetry, making new connections for poetry, and raising money to support poetry education, in particular the placing of poets in schools.

This is part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Weekend, the LSE's first ever Literary Festival, celebrating the completion of the New Academic Building.

Podcast

A podcast of this event is available to download from the LSE public lectures and events podcasts channel.

Online Discussion

An online discussion covering the theme of Poetry and Choices is now live on Poet in the City's website.

Media queries: please contact the Press Office if you would like to reserve a press seat or have a media query about this event, email pressoffice@lse.ac.uk