Off The Chest is back, bringing their explosive brand of poetry to Deptford Lounge once again. Join Ella Dorman-Gajic and Iftikhar Latif for a night of incredible open mic poetry where audience members can share themselves in an intimate and friendly setting. Plus, expect feature sets from two top poets, Jess Murrain and Esme Allman as well as music from Off The Chest’s in-house DJ. As always, everyone is welcome whether this is your first poetry event or just one of the many you are attending this year!

About our featured poets

Jess Murrain

Jess is a theatre-maker, actor, filmmaker and co-founder of Theatre with Legs, a queer, experimental theatre company. She is an alumnus of Southbank New Poets Collective (21/22), winner of Ledbury Poetry Prize 2021 and Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry & Poetry Film 2023. Her debut poetry pamphlet, One Woman-Horse Show is published with Bad Betty Press.

Esme Allman

Esme is a writer, poet and facilitator from London, whose work explores history, imagined worlds, and desire within the context of black femininity. Her forthcoming poetry collection Sweet Bone Girl will be published by Broken Sleep Books in March 2025. Her writing has been published in the following anthologies: Scotland’s Transnational Heritage (Edinburgh University Press, July 2022), Articulations for Keeping the Light In (Flipped Eye, July 2022) and Colour of Madness (Pan Macmillan, May 2022). She has undertaken poetry commissions from Pace Gallery, creating the accompanying digital catalogue to Gideon Appah’s latest exhibition The Play of Thought, a series of thirty poems in conversation with the artist’s dream-like landscapes and portraiture paintings. In October 2023, she was commissioned by Poetry Vs Colonialism in conjunction with the London Metropolitan Archives to write a poetry response to the archival material on the spice trade in the nineteenth century.

Headshot of Esme taken by Helen Murray

About Off The Chest: Off The Chest has been creating spaces for poetry since 2019.  Formed by poets Iftikhar Latif and Ella Dorman-Gajic, our mission is to give a platform to poets of diverse backgrounds and celebrate original voices in the UK poetry scene. We do this by holding poetry events and workshops across England and online.

How to sign up for the open mic: We will take sign-ups for the open mic at the event, both before we start and during the interval. Open micers will have up to 4 mins to perform their poetry.

Tickets price between £5 and £8. To book please click here.