Sundays at the Oto

About me:

Poetry & Music every Third Sunday of the month, 3-5 pm, Café Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8 3DL. £4 entry.

Transmogrification Due to Temporal Relocation
Now changed to Diverse Deeds on a weekday evening, but the same basic recipe. Use the Diverse Deeds' MySpace Page to get details of future events.

Thursday, September 24: Sean Bonney + Grapefruits + John James

Sean Bonney has acquired a totally justified reputation as a poet and performer. His work is urban, political and therefore angry. The diverse voices of the streets and alleys of London come through in glorious waves of creative language, affirming through its rejection al nice acceptances. “Like getting a telephone call from the barricades, the Paris Commune.” That important! Most recent books: Baudelaire in English (Veer Books, 2008) & Document: Poems, Diagrams, Manifestos July 7th 2005 – June 27th 2007 (Barque Press, 2009). Sean Bonney runs yt communication with Frances Kruk and lives in London.

Grapefruits is the improvisatory duo of Oliver Barrett (Bleeding Heart Narrative) on cello, and Max Bondi (multi-instrumentalist and Tartaruga Records founder) on piano. Occasionally utilising a variety of percussion and electronics alongside the core of cello and piano, Grapefruits create extended improvisations that drag fragments of melody from swirls of sound and texture. building up cities of sound to live within: compelling listening.

John James has been writing poetry since the 1960s. You can get most of his work in his Collected Poems (Salt, 2002). John James is a legendary poetry performer: direct, energetic and totally alive. His writing combines quick witted and ever alert verbal invention with a masterful relaxation and humour, and political and cultural passion. Sometimes urban, sometimes rural – always full of actual, delightful and obstreperous human life. This a rare London reading from the Cambridge-based poet.

How to Travel

Cafe Oto is tucked away at the main crossroads in Dalston, just opposite & down a little way from Dalston Kingsland Overground Station (2 stations from Victoria Line at Highbury & Islington), and with good bus routes from Waterloo (76 & 243), Victoria (38), Kings Cross (30), Tottenham Court Road (38 & 242), London Bridge(149) & Liverpool Street (242 & 149), let alone North & East London. Ashwin Street is first off North side of Dalston Lane from the crossroads and other end immediately off Abbott Street (1st off East side of Kingsland High St).