A series of three cabaret-style events taking place in the Forum at Wellcome Collection promoting connections between poetry and the medical sciences, providing a platform for new poets, and attracting new audiences to poetry. The title of the series comes from a Kenyan folk tale where a rich man’s wife wasted away despite having every material need satisfied while a poor man’s wife prospered because he fed her “the meat of the tongue” by reciting poems, telling stories and singing songs. These events take place on the second Thursday of the month; 13 March, 10 April and 8 May from 19.00 – 20.30

Thursday 13 March
Theme: Disfigurement
Poetry about physical and mental disfigurement and its healing, featuring:
• Jackie Kay – one of the UK’s leading poets, she has written poems about disfigurement, after shadowing the reconstructive surgeon Ian Hutchison of Saving Faces.
• Aoife Mannix – talented poet and performer, whose recent show ‘Growing up an Alien’ on the South Bank received fantastic reviews, and whose poetry often addresses the body, and body perception
• Saadi Youssef – Iraqi-born poet who writes in an indirect and oblique way about disfigurement in war, and has been described as the best translated poet to come out of Iraq in the 20th Century (with translations by Sarah Maguire)

Registration required:

Yes

Free:

Yes