l I te RA tu R e

With teamwork and cooperation as driving forces, poetry travels beyond the page and into the wider community. “We never wanted to publish poetry where the relationship ended with the book coming out,” she tells us. “We want to publish people that can read their work to an audience and connect, work that means something to someone.”

“Once you put a poem out into the world, it stops belonging to you,” Jake adds. “For example, Danez Smith wrote a poem about HIV that became a huge protest poem after George Floyd was murdered in 2020. Smith said that the poems belong to the community that claims it. We want to publish poets who understand that the meanings of their work will change based on how they share it. When the poems are on the page, it still exists in the world, and it will exist in a different way when they perform.” Amy agrees, “We ask ourselves, ‘How are writers making space for the reader? Are they building a world you can step into and inhabit rather than just read?’” words: Lizzy O’Riordan

To Do The Writers’ Conference

Hosted by Writing East Midlands, The Writers’ Conference is a great opportunity to connect with fellow writers in the local area. A day of workshops and talks, we can’t wait for this early next month.

Sat 1 April

At the heart of Bad Betty is a strong editorial and publishing team that come together for poets they believe in. Their extensive events programmes encourage their authors to take up space and branch into the wider community. Readers and audiences are invited to see poetry as a subtle form of worldbuilding, exploring the lines between what constitutes protests or cultural criticism and the dreaming up of new, alternative worlds.

I can’t wait to see how they bring this vision to Nottingham and the wider East Midlands area. They are currently preparing to continue their schedule packed with open mics, workshops, and featured sets, ready to enrich an already thriving cultural scene here in Nottingham.

@badbettypress

To Read

Salt Modern Stories Collection

Fancy a small read? Nothing too hefty? Try picking up a book from Salt’s Modern Stories collection; alongside Nottingham’s Giselle Leeb, they have plenty of other pocketsized tales.

To Follow Northern Gravy

Yeah, yeah, I know we’re the East Midlands… but Northern Gravy is still worth a follow. A literary periodical who pays their writers for each piece, they’re regularly looking for new submissions.

@NorthGravy

Cinema has always remained nostalgic. For British audiences, the glamour and escapism have often remained something out of reach, untouchable – the ultimate escape from the grey and (lesser) green folds we often find ourselves in. The preservation, restoration and appreciation of film have never been so important, especially within the digital age when even the melancholy of movie memories now vanish amongst the deluge of streamed content. Film – in the traditional sense of the word – is memory and so are those spaces we visited… those churches of celluloid. Therefore, films are to be experienced through visitation and curation, lending focus to the discovery of stories that have become closer and closer to artefacts. Distributed within those niche corners, they now survive as remnants of physical media championed by the boutique labels most cinephiles (and collectors) hold dear to their hearts.

I’m obsessed with film. Growing up in the 1980s, visiting the cinema felt like an event. It began with a long line crowding to see the latest Spielberg phenomenon E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982; that distinctive Amblin vibe of fuzzy familiarity, the signature sentimentality sucker-punched with a heavy dose of childhood trauma. Years would pass until you could see the film again, scenes playing over and over in your mind. No streams… only movie daydreams.

Today, it’s an instant fix, the twentieth century’s most dominant art form absorbed into a saturated media landscape; a deluge… a swamp we trawl through. We dig a little and find a gem but for most of us (if you allow it) we are controlled by algorithms, those smartly shrunken screens via commute; the passive infinite scrolling; content overload for the less content; movies repackaged as a TikTok sugar rush. Yet, despite the impact of other media over the years – the influx of television, video games and streaming – cinema has survived. Just about. Helping it survive is the last of the movie stars performing impossible missions and creating the ultimate cinematic experience, reminding us of those action heroes of yesteryear. It’s both nostalgic and refreshing as we watch (in awe and disbelief) a sixty-year-old man riding a bike off a cliff, plummeting towards the earth. Cinema on Cruise control.

A RIch e x PeRIeNce

words: Rich Johnson illustration: Ilinca Sivoglo

Whether action and adventure, kitchen sink drama or fantasy, we choose to spend time with characters on the screen while sharing the experience with strangers in a dark room. Cinema is time and space, projecting us into (familiar) domestics or an epic universe of infinite possibilities. The credits roll and you spill out into the night… or are blinded by the light of a Savoy Sunday afternoon. Back down to earth, we’re reminded this is England, Not Hollywood. Yet, myths were forged here – the archetypal rebel evolving into an iconic swashbuckling hero of the Golden Age, the Americanised poster boy – Robin Hood defining the outlaw as any legend should… or at least the versions we have come to love on the big screen.

To Remember Being Human

It’s richpieces.com

A lot of big screens – those lost palaces, left to ruin and bulldozed – have now vanished. Forgotten Art Deco architecture – Fridays at the Futurist, Saturdays nights and Sunday mornings… even a Monday at the Metropole – are long gone, nothing more than urban ghosts. Despite being consigned to bingo halls or holes in the wall, some remain hidden and may trigger our memories. The Savoy retains its nostalgia like no other, while a major beacon – Broadway Cinema – remains a constant; one of many spaces around the country to have taken advantage of multiple platforms of delivery. A diverse programme also offers as many alternative viewing experiences as possible – Q&As, live events, streamed content, festivals and courses – which has helped retain a devoted audience during such challenging times. Here in Nottingham, ‘movie memories’ are forged for a 21st-century audience, spaces we belong to… offering choices for all.

To Follow Arc Cinema

Can’t be bothered to keep track of all the latest releases? Let The Arc Cinema do it for you. Drop their Insta a follow to fill your feed with the finest new films.

@arccinemabeeston