Raise the Bar is back and bigger than ever with a new season of spoken word shows at Arnolfini.
September’s event will be headlined by DANEZ SMITH all the way from the US, one of the biggest and most exciting poets in the world for both their thrilling live performances and acclaimed published collections.
Raise the Bar is a live event and online media platform bringing the country and world’s finest spoken word performers to Bristol, as well as a talent development platform for emerging artists in the South-West.
Our resident DJ Ngaio (of Booty Bass) will be spinning an incredible selection of hip-hop, R&B, world music and UK underground.
DANEZ SMITH:
Danez Smith is a Black, queer, poz writer & performer from St. Paul, MN. Danez is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017), a finalist for National Book Award, and [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry.
Danez is also the author of two chapbooks, including black movie (2015, Button Poetry), winner of the Button Poetry Prize. They are the recipient of fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and is a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow as well as the winner of the inaugural Four Quartets Prize from the Poetry Society of America. Danez’s work has been featured widely, including in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Buzzfeed, Best American Poetry, PBS NewsHour, and on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
