Join ignitionpress for for an evening of readings to celebrate the launch of two new pamphlets by Michaela Coplen and Jacob Anthony Ramírez
Doors: 7pm
Admission is free. We advise you to register attendance via the link below to avoid disappointment.
[Please note that, given the increased number of cases of Covid-19, we encourage you to wear a mask or face covering to this event and to test before you attend.]
This event marks the launch of two new poetry pamphlets: Michaela Coplen’s Finishing School and Jacob Anthony Ramírez’s Kitchen Boombox. Both poets will read from their new collections, alongside readings from special guests Joanna Ingham, Katie Byford, and Fathima Zahra.
Michaela Coplen is an American poet and writer living in London. She was appointed as a US National Student Poet in 2013 and won the 2019 Troubadour International Poetry Prize and the 2020 York Poetry Prize.
Jacob Anthony Ramírez, who will be appearing via a video recording, is a poet and educator from California. He is the recipient of Lancaster University’s Portfolio Prize where he earned his MA in Creative Writing. His poetry appears in Haymarket Books’ The Breakbeat Poets - LatiNEXT, The Latino Book Review Magazine, The Indianapolis Review, and The Santa Fe Writers Project and elsewhere.
Fathima Zahra is an Indian poet based in Essex. She is a Barbican Young Poet and a Roundhouse Poetry Collective alumna, and has won the Bridport Prize, the Wells Festival Young Poets Prize and the Asia HousePoetry Slam 2019. Her work has been published in Tentacular Magazine, and anthologised in SLAM! You’re Gonna Wanna Hear This (Pan Macmillan), and A Letter, A Poem, A Home (Red River Press). She has also featured in BBC World News, The New Indian Express and Young Poets Network. Zahra's ignitionpress pamphlet, Sargam / Swargam, was published in 2021 and was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Selection (Winter, 2021). Zahra was recently selected to feature in the latest Primers mentoring programme and anthology from Nine Arches Press.
Katie Byford is a poet and filmmaker. She is a former Barbican Young Poet and member of The Writing Squad. Katie won the 2020 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition (Open category), and her work has featured in Magma, Popshot, Modern Poetry in Translation, Hallelujah for 50ft Women (Bloodaxe Books), and She is Fierce (Macmillan). Her pamphlet He Said I Was a Peach was published by ignitionpress in 2021. Katie's debut short film as writer/director, You Look Fine, was awarded Best Writer at the BFI Future Film Festival 2022 and the Women’s Rights Prize at the Très Court Film Festival. Her second film, The Styx, has secured a project grant from Arts Council England. She has been selected as a member of the London Library's Emerging Writers Programme for 2022.
Joanna Ingham writes poetry and fiction. Her poems have been widely published in print and online. She has two pamphlets: Ovarium (The Emma Press, 2022) and Naming Bones (ignitionpress, 2019). She won the Paper Swans Press Single Poem Competition 2020 and her first full collection was shortlisted in Live Canon’s 2021 Collection Competition.
Established in 2017, ignitionpress is an award-winning poetry pamphlet press with an international outlook which publishes original, arresting poetry from emerging poets.