Kate Potts Launch Readings
Kate Potts' third full-length book of poetry, Pretenders, was published by Bloodaxe Books in March 2025. It was launched at Bloodaxe's online reading and discussion event on 25 March (scroll down to watch the video), and will be launched in person in Stroud on 12 April 2025.
In Pretenders, Kate Potts asks: what is it like, as a daily, lived experience, to feel like a fraud or a fake? And what can ‘the imposter phenomenon’ – a sense that our true abilities and achievements, and other core aspects of our identities, are unreal, undeserved or mistakenly bestowed – tell us about who we are and how we relate to one another?
Through lively and vivid poetic monologues drawn from original interview material, and through original poetry, Pretenders considers individual feelings and experiences of fraudulence, pretence and persona in a wider social and historical context. The varied, hesitant, questing voices build to create a bold and innovative chorus. Pretenders shines a light on our value systems and hierarchies, interrogating notions of ‘realness’, self-assurance, and the self.
Kate Potts' Whichever Music was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice in 2008 and shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. Her first book-length collection, Pure Hustle, was published by Bloodaxe in 2011. Her second collection, Feral, was Tristram Fane Saunders' Poetry Book of the Month in The Telegraph for October 2018, and a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Autumn 2018.
FORTHCOMING LAUNCH READINGS & ONLINE WORKSHOP
Tuesday 8 April 2025 9:00 AM - 11:15 AM BST, Cath Drake's Veranda (online workshop)
Alternative Selves, Personas in Poetry, Kate Potts
In this workshop, Kate Potts will look at how poets have used alternative selves to explore and express their truths, as well as looking at poems that describe and consider multiple or changeable selves. In this rather special masterclass, Kate will consider themes and processes she has explored in depth for her new book, Pretenders, a multi-vocal exploration of 'the imposter phenomenon', just as it is launched by Bloodaxe in March.
Start time: 10am UK time // 5pm Perth Australia // 6.30pm Adelaide & Darwin // 7pm Brisbane & Sydney, AEST // // 9pm NZ
Online workshop via Zoom. 2 hrs 30mins long. Tickets £30.
Booking details and more information here.
Museum in the Park, Stroud, Saturday 12 April 2025, 2.30 to 4.30pm
Gloucestershire, GL5 4AF
Launch event for Kate Potts's third poetry book Pretenders. The guest readers are J.L.M. Morton, Adam Horovitz and Cath Drake.
All welcome. Tea, coffee, cake and wine will be provided (donations appreciated). Books will be available to buy.
More information here.
Buzzwords in Cheltenham, Sunday 13 April 2025, 7pm
Upstairs at the Exmouth Arms, Bath Road, Cheltenham
Open mic and readings 8pm
Guest poet Kate Potts
Kate will be reading from her third book of poetry, Pretenders.
Pay on the door, £5 waged, £3 unwaged.
Full details will be posted in due course at: https://buzzwordspoetry.blogspot.com/
Wednesday 7 May 2025, 7pm, Swindon Festival of Literature
venue tbc
Joint reading with Bloodaxe poets George Szirtes and Kate Potts.
Full details to follow. The full programme launch will take place at Swindon’s Central Library at noon on Thursday 3 April 2025. Tickets go on sale that day.
Gloucestershire Poetry Society, Wednesday 4 June 2025, 7 pm to 9 pm (online event)
Crafty Crows June 2025 Edition – Featuring Kate Potts
Hosted by Chloë Jacquet
Kate Potts will be reading from her new book Pretenders, which explores imposter feelings and 'imposter syndrome' through interwoven voices drawn from interviews, and through original poetry.
FREE tickets will be available from 30 days before this event.
For booking details for this online event, see here.
PAST EVENTS
JOING ONLINE LAUNCH READING
Tuesday 25 March 2025, 7pm
Online launch reading by Gwyneth Lewis, Kate Potts and Arundhathi Subramaniam
Bloodaxe's online launch event for Gwyneth Lewis, Kate Potts and Arundhathi Subramaniam was livestreamed on 25 March 2025 and is now avilable on YouTube. All three poets were celebrating the publication of their new poetry books by reading live and discussing their work with each other and with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley.
Gwyneth, Kate and Arundhathi joined the event live from Cardiff, Stroud and New York (via India). Their excellent readings were followed by a fascinating discussion around the shared themes in their work.
[28 February 2025]
