Creation Theatre & Live Canon Poetry Readings

We are delighted to be bringing back our poetry nights at the new-look Summertown Arts Centre in 2026. Take the time to gather, listen to some brilliant writing and catch up with Oxford’s vibrant literary community. 

Our next poetry night is:

Monday 9th November a 7.30pm: featuring Mona Arshi, Simon Alderwick, Natalie Perman, Glyn Maxwell

Produced in association with Live Canon and Summertown Arts at the URC.

Glyn Maxwell

Glyn Maxwell is a poet, playwright, librettist and teacher. His poetry books include How The Hell Are You, Pluto, Hide Now, and The Breakage, all of which were shortlisted for the Forward or T. S. Eliot Prizes, and The Nerve, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. His Selected Poems, One Thousand Nights and Counting, was published on both sides of the Atlantic in 2011. On Poetry, a guidebook for the general reader, was published in 2012. The Spectator called it ‘a modern classic’ and The Guardian’s Adam Newey described it as ‘the best book about poetry I’ve ever read.’ Drinks With Dead Poets, a fictional sequel, followed in 2016. Maxwell’ latest collection, The Big Calls, is a (not very flattering) study of England, taking in the UK government’s Covid response, the treatment of migrants, conduct over Afghanistan, police corruption, Grenfell Tower – in the forms of Tennyson, Kipling, Rossetti, Oscar Wilde. Maxwell has taught at the Universities of Warwick and Essex in the UK, at Columbia, Princeton, NYU, The New School and Amherst College in the USA, and is currently Head of Studies on the MA at The Poetry School

Simon Alderwick

Simon Alderwick’s poetry has appeared in Magma, The Telegraph, Ink Sweat & Tears, Alchemy Spoon, Berlin Lit and elsewhere. He is the author of reaper in a headlock and ways to say we’re not alone, both published by Broken Sleep Books. In the words of Bobby Parker, “his lines stalk the edges of civilization and return carrying a strange, electric wisdom. (His) poems confront the absurdity of culture, the brittleness of faith, and the quiet horrors that bloom in ordinary lives.” Simon grew up in Surrey, has lived in Pembrokeshire, Gloucestershire, London and the Philippines, but is now settled in Oxford with his wife and young family

Mona Arshi

Mona Arshi is a poet, novelist and essayist but she trained as a Human rights lawyer. Her writing has been featured in The Times, The Guardian, Granta, The Yale Review and The Times of India as well as on the London Underground. Her first collection of poetry  Small Hands (published by Liverpool University Press) won the Forward Prize. She was writer in Residence at Cley Marshes a bird sanctuary in Norfolk during lockdown. She’s been awarded an honorary professor at Liverpool University and was a fellow in creative arts at Trinity College , Cambridge .Her novel, Somebody Loves You was published by And Other Stories and was shortlisted for the Goldsmith prize and Desmond Elliot Prize amongst others. Mona is also co-editor of an anthology, Nature Matters published by Faber. Her third collection of poetry Mouth was published by Chatto and Windus in July 2025 and concerns excavating the voices in the Iliad and Antigone and giving voice to silenced women in war and its aftermath. It was awarded the Autumn PBS in 2025.

Natalie Perman

Natalie Perman is a writer and editor based in London. A former Foyle Young Poet, she is an alumna of the Genesis Emerging Writers Programme and the Roundhouse Poetry Collective. Her writing features in the Financial Times, The White Review, Poet Lore and The London Magazine.

Previous readers in the series include:

Rupinder Kaur Waraich, Jane Thomas, Katie Griffiths, Satya Bosman Antony Dunn, Minying Huang, Catherine Redford, Tina Sederholm, JC Niala, Barney Norris, Lesley Saunders, Yasmin Inkersole, Lauren Thomas, Susannah Hart, Kate Wakeling, Rehema Njambi, Louie Rudge, Glyn Maxwell, Isabella Mead, Tessa Foley, Deborah Finding, Barbara Barnes, Mary Mulholland, Laura Theis, Lucy Ingram, Arji Manuelpillai, Kerry Priest, Cheryl Moskowitz, Ben Philipps, Henry St Leger, Alice Stainer, Jenny Wong, NJ Hynes, Matt Bryden, Alan Buckley, Carl Tomlinson, Jon Stone, Lesley Curwen, Mick Wood, Sarah Gibbons, Suzanna Fitzpatrick, Ilias Tsagas, Sarah Wedderburn, Kit Byford, Maia Elsner, Miranda Peake, Martin Figura, Helen Ivory, Richy Cambell, James Peake, Michelle Penn, Samuel Prince, Sarah Sibley, Laura Theis, Jen Feroze, Andrew George, Miles Gibson, Charlotte Johnson, Hélène Demetriades, Jill Abram,  and Miles Gibson, Jenny Mitchell, Jane Thomas.