At the end of my residency at Keats Shelley House Museum, in honour of Byron200, Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, Dimitri Patrizi, and I gave a reading at Villa Wolkonsky, the British Embassy in Rome. Thank you to the wonderful team at the British Embassy Rome, Keats Shelley House, Sir Ivor Roberts, and Sheba Morabito.
I was honoured to names Poet in Residence at Keats Shelley House Rome to celebrate Lord Byron's bicentennial. My first visit to Rome, and on my first day in Rome, the first day of my residency I gave a reading in the museum's library, surrounded by letters written by Byron, and Mary Shelley. John Keats passed away in one of the bedrooms of the museums, so the presence of our great poets was strongly felt.
Honoured to be asked to read at the Italian Embassy in London to celebrate Lord Byron's Bicentennary. Reading Prometheus and some of my own work, alongside our wonderful Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. You can read more about the event here
Scarlett Sabet & Matthew Salyer, two powerful poets, will give a reading and discuss the topic of ‘Poetry as Salvation’ at Pictorum Gallery in collaboration with the Mayfair Times Literary Festival.
Scarlett Sabet is a poet and writer, known for her emotive performances and captivating stage presence, hailed by The Telegraph as “a rising star in the world of poetry”. In recent years, Scarlett has performed at iconic venues including Shakespeare & Company in Paris, City Lights in San Francisco, Keats House in London and Hay Festival. She has released four self-published collections, been nominated for a Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship, and in 2019 released a spoken word album Catalyst, produced by Jimmy Page. Scarlett is fast becoming “one of the brightest new stars on the international poetry scene” (Hunger Magazine).
Matthew Salyer is an associate professor of English Literature at the United States Military Academy, West Point, and a Pushcart-nominated author of two poetry collections, Probation and Ravage & Snare, as well as a pamphlet, Lambkin. He has twice been a finalist for the Iowa Review Prize in Poetry. His work has appeared in the Columbia Review, Massachusetts Review, New Orleans Review, Beloit, Hunger Mountain, Long Poem Magazine, and other journals.
Thank you to everyone that came to my second curated group poetry reading at The Social, London. Special to be back on stage and share my work with such a lovely audience, who also gave such a warm welcome to my fellow poets! Thank you to the brilliant Oakley Flanagan, Salena Godden, Vida Adamczewski, Safia Kamaria, and Rishi Dastidar. You all made it so magical.
Thank you to all the amazing poets who read, Oakley Flanagan Vida Adamczewski, Cecilia Knapp, Prerana Kumar, and Sonny Hall. It was such an honour to share a stage with you all and hear you read. Thank you to all the poetry lovers who attended, it was a sold out night.
Photo courtesy of FMCM
Thank you to the Mechanics Institute Review for publishing my new poem "Flag of Hope", it's close to my heart, inspired by the Women Life Freedom movement, and my Persian heritage. Thank you for giving my voice a platform.You can read my poem and interview in full here
A Flag for Hope
by Scarlett Sabet
Revolution and execution,
obscured the view
of a land
my Father would never return to
the lines of the body a battle ground,
strands of hair a flag for hope.
I can feel it when words are close,
reach out
hold a seance between pen,
finger and thumb,
resurrect the relatives whose voices came undone
and remember,
all the blood that was shed
before I was an idea
in my Mother’s head
Thank you Cheltenham Literary Festival! Wonderful to be invited to read my poem "For Jack" adiscuss the impact of Jack Kerouac's writing one hundred years on from his birth with A.M Homes, Geoff Dyer and Daniel Hahn.
It was an incredible honour to be invited to give a poetry reading at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and then discuss the creative process behind Catalyst, our spoken word album. A very special evening, my deepest thanks and gratitude to the Academy of Achievement, the Library of Congress and Carla Hayden the Librarian of Congress.
Photos courtesy of the Academy of Achievement
An honour to be invited to read in Parco Shelley next to Casa Magni by Keats Shelley House Rome, with Simon Armitage and Annelisa Alleva and Paolo Febbraro for the Keats Shelley 200th Anniversary at the Gulf of Poets Festival. Lerici is a beautiful part of Italy and it was fascinating to travel from Lerici across to Portovenere and around the Bay of La Spezia remembering Percy Bysshe Shelley and visiting Byron's Grotto.
