Scarlett Sabet

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The Troubadour 12 May 2015

On Monday 11th May I was invited to perform a 10 minute set at The Troubadour's Coffee House Poetry Night. My set consisted of Shackles, Search and Destroy, I'm so on, alive... ,and Rocking Underground, and also new poems Into The Garden, Functioning and Euphoric Kiss. It was an amazing evening I really enjoyed performing. It was also fantastic to hear the rest of the poets I was billed with, there was such a variety of styles, I particularly enjoyed Mark Huband and Inua Ellams. A very stylishly curated event by the always lovely Anne-Marie Fyfe.

William Morris Gallery Poetry Reading 30 Apr 2015

I performed tonight at the Young Curators Poetry Night at the William Morris Gallery. I performed a new poem "Functioning" and also "Rocking Underground", the audience was great, and the night included lots of other really interesting poets, including Aisling Fahey the Young Poet Laureate for London.

Kensington Chelsea Westminster Today 14 Apr 2015

Scarlett was featured in the Kensington Chelsea Westminster Today this month. Read the article below.

Ask 25-year old London-based poet and performer Scarlett Sabet about her influences and she responds with a breathless litany of names: "Baudelaire, Rossetti, Blake, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Dickinson, Seamus Heaney, Dylan Thomas, the Beats Poets, Sylvia Plath, Keith Douglas, Kate Tempest, Dean Atta..." Not bad company to keep by a new poet on the block, you'll agree.

reminiscent of the young Clare Pollard... a promising successor, a new generation

Every day Sabet starts by writing three pages of streams of consciousness, "just to get into the flow." Some of the longer pieces in her first published collection, Rocking Underground , were written to the rhythm of an underground train while on her daily commute across town, hence its title; others could have been written anywhere.

In January she gave a reading at Shakespeare & Co, the famous bookshop on the Left Bank in Paris, a literary shrine and home to numerous twentieth-century giants, such as Joyce and Hemingway. In May she will be at The Troubadour in Old Brompton Road, where she has been given a ten minute set, quite something for a poet of her age and experience.

Several of her poems are deep and dark, like Weapon of Choice, Shackles and Unnatural Act. As such they are reminiscent of the young Clare Pollard whose first collection, The Heavy-Petting Zoo, received rave reviews when published in 1998, when she was aged just 19. Her poems were described as "poetic postcards from the edge," demonstrating a precocious adolescent's, "penchant for raw confessionalism." Sabet is a promising successor, a new generation.

With her Pre-Raphaelite looks, Sabet could have been depicted in a painting by Rossetti as well imagined reciting his poetry. As it is, she will be performing her own work as part of the "Spring to Summer's readings at The Troubadour, 263-267 Old Brompton Road, SW5 9JA on Monday 11th May between 8 and 10pm. Tickets £7. A limited edition of her first collection, Rocking Underground , is available, signed and numbered, from her website at £25.

The Troubadour, Coffee House Poetry 09 Mar 2015

I was invited by Anne Marie Fyfe to read a poem at the Coffee Hose Poetry "Big Yellow Taxi" themed night. I read a poem I wrote called "Euphoric Kiss", and had a great time hearing such a high standard and variety of poems from everyone involved.

Poetry Unplugged, 3rd March 2015 06 Mar 2015

On Tuesday 3rd March Scarlett took part in Poetry Unplugged at the Poetry Place in Covent Garden.

Shakespeare and Company, Paris 26 Jan 2015

Shakespeare and Company is steeped in literary history and it had been an ambition and milestone in my literary career to have performed a 30 minute set there with such an enthusiastic response.

The poetry reading was held in the library upstairs, where William Burroughs researched and started writing Naked Lunch. I was reading with the wonderful poet Heather Hartley. Heather read first, and I really enjoyed listening to her work, it's lovely and lyrical. She was reading from her books Knock Knock and her latest volume Adult Swim. I then did my set, and recited poems from Rocking Underground, along with two new poems, Into The Garden, and Euphoric Kiss. Afterwards I signed copies of Rocking Underground which are now also available from Shakespeare and Company. It was an amazing night I really enjoyed and will carry it with me for a long time.

It was first opened by Sylvia Beach in 1919, where it attracted bohemians and writers such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, Ford Maddox Ford, and James Joyce. Sylvia Beach was responsible for getting Joyce's Ullysses published, considered obscene, it was continuously rejected, and Beach triumphed only when she found a French printer that didn't speak English.

After the war it was reopened by George Whitman opposite Norte Dame George allowed writers, poets and artists to live at the bookshop in return they would help maintain and work at the shop. Thus, it became a literary focal point attracting many of the Beat Generation poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and the likes of Henry Miller and Anais Nin.

Shakespeare and Company is now run by George's luminous daughter Sylvia (named after Sylvia Beach) and she continues the tradition of allowing writers known as "Tumbleweeds' to live and work at the store. As well as holding regular poetry readings and book signings, she holds a biennial literary festival, FestivalandCo.

Outside Shakespeare and Company	Sign advertising the poetry reading
Heather Hartley, Scarlett Sabet, Sylvia Whitman	Laura Keeling, Heather Hartley, Scarlett Sabet, Sylvia Whitman
A sketch the artist Christine Wouters did of me whilst I was doing the reading at Shakespeare and Company

Poetry Unplugged, Covent Garden 20 Jan 2015

Last night Scarlett performed a reading from her new book 'Rocking Underground' at Poetry Unplugged in Covent Garden, one of the most prestigious poetry open mic nights in London.

Chelsea Arts Club 17 Dec 2014

The official launch of my book of poems "Rocking Underground" was at the Chelsea Arts Club on the 16th December 2014. The lovely artist Alice Stallard had augumented her original illustration to coincide with the event, and after an introduction from her, I performed three poems, Rocking Underground, a new piece of work Euphoric Kiss, and Unnatural Act, we then had an interval for book sales and drinks followed by more poems, The Master, Search and Destroy, Love Song and Shackles, and then Rocking Underground was requested to be read again.

The Chelsea Arts Club has always been a supportive and nurturing creative environment for me, so it was with high emotion and gratitude that I performed there.

The Troubadour, Old Brompton Road 16 Dec 2014

I was invited to read on Monday the 15th December at the prestigious Coffee House Poetry night at The Troubadour, Old Brompton Road, London. The theme was "Out of the blue!" Out of over 40 poets I was shortlisted with my poem "Rocking Underground". It was a privilege and an honour to perform at such a historic venue, that I have often made pilgrimage to, and especially as Bob Dylan performed there in 1962.