Out-Spoken: January

Out-Spoken is the Southbank Centre’s resident poetry and live music night, bringing the hottest UK and international poets to perform alongside world-class musicians every month.

Each monthly gig is hosted by TS Eliot- and Polari Prize-winning poet Taylor, with Sam ‘Junior’ Bromfield spinning the best in reggae, soul and R&B throughout the evening. This month’s edition features poetry from Anthony Anaxagorou, Joelle Taylor and Hollie McNish, and music from Karim Kamar and The Halfway Kid.

Presented in association with Out-Spoken

Anthony Anaxagorou FRSL is a British-born Cypriot poet, fiction writer, essayist and publisher. His third collection, Heritage Aesthetics won the RSL Ondaatje Prize and was shortlisted for the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award. His previous collection, After the Formalities was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and the Ledbury Munthe Poetry Prize for Second Collections. Anaxagorou is founder of Out-Spoken and Out-Spoken Press, and the editor-in-chief of Propel Magazine, an online literary journal for emerging poets.

Joelle Taylor is a queer, working-class author of six plays, a novel, and four collections of poetry. Her 2021 collection, C+NTO & Othered Poems, won the TS Eliot Prize, the Polari Book Prize forLGBT authors, and is currently being adapted for the theatre. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Poetry Fellow at the University of East Anglia. Her latest collection, Maryville, was released in November 2025 and described as ‘urgent and memorable’ by The Guardian. Taylor tours the UK with staged performances from Maryville in April and May.

As The Halfway Kid, British-Sudanese singer and songwriter Saeed Gadir finds himself in the midst of a very modern wave of songwriters; raw, modern and independent. Known for his evocative storytelling, gripping lyricism and electric live shows, he has built a devoted following from the ground up. The Halfway Kid has garnered massive support from tastemakers Radio 1, 6 Music and Radio X. He performed multiple times at the 2025 Glastonbury Festival.

Hollie McNish is a poet and author based between Scotland and England. She was the first poet to record at Abbey Road Studios and won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry for her poetic parenting memoir, Nobody Told Me, of which The Scotsman stated: ‘The world needs this book’. She has published five further collections of poetry including Papers, Cherry Pie, Plum, Slug and Lobster. Her latest collection is Virgin. She loves writing.

Performing as a solo pianist since 2013, Karim Kamar draws inspiration for his compositions from the likes of Hania Rani, Ólafur Arnalds, Lang Lang and Ryuichi Sakamoto. His evocative pieces and charismatic playing has amassed him a huge following, both online and off. From his humble roots serenading passers-by in train stations to now having played some of London’s best-known music venues, including Ronnie Scott’s, the Royal Albert Hall and the Jazz Cafe, Kamar is a force to be reckoned with.