As a part of A Dash of Lavender: Celebrating LGBTQ+ history month with Queer Botany, there will be a poetry reading at Chelsea Physic Garden. Following a long line of creative queers before us, Queer Botany will host a safe creative space to share writings about nature and plants from a queer perspective.

There will be 3 poets, Linden (they/them), Tom McLaughlin (he/him), and SZ Shao (she/her), a host, Bella Cox (she/they), an open mic, and time to mingle. You can participate to the Open mic by completing the sign up sheet provided at the event. Open mic participants will be called by order of sign up and can read 1 piece of 2 minutes or under.

The Physic Garden Café will be open for drinks and light bites.

Doors open from 6:30pm, event starts at 7pm.

Ticket Information:
Tickets are £10 per person
Please note that there are no discounts for Friends and Members of the Garden

Accessibility:

This event will have British Sign Language (BSL) Interpretation by Peter Abraham.

This event will take place in our first floor ‘Gallery’, unfortunately this space is not wheelchair accessible. Please email  if you would like to discuss accessibility.

Host Bio:

Bella Cox 

Image credit to Tyrone Lewis

An internationally acclaimed artist, Bella Cox (she/they) is a poet, performer, workshop facilitator, event host, and producer who has worked in Kenya, South Africa, and around the UK. She is a three-time Barbican Young Poets alumna, a twice-nominated young people’s laureate for London, and was a member of multiple poetry collectives throughout 2018 while being a founding member of two regular London open mic nights.

She has performed her work at events such as TEDx Pretoria, Sköll World Forum, Brighton Literature Festival, Bi Pride UK, and the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival, and has been commissioned to write for institutions such as the Barbican Centre, HSBC, Time Out London, Bach Remedies and Nationwide Building Society. You can find more of their work at www.BellaCox.com and @BellaCoxPoet on Instagram.

Poet Bios:

Linden McMahon

Linden McMahon (they/them) is a poet, performer, fiction writer, zinester and arts facilitator – they write about human connections with ecology, dreams for the future, belonging, and queer joy. They also combine creative workshops with nature connection. Some recent projects include an artist residency at Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park as part of the Queer Ecologies collective, and a trail of poems and stories through the community gardens of Bethnal Green. They currently run creative writing clubs for young people at Ministry of Stories, and are artist in residence with RHS Wisley, co-producing an exhibition with young people on the theme of weeds. They also like baking elaborate desserts, making pots, and reading sci-fi novels.

Tom McLaughlin 

Tom McLaughlin (he/him) is a Northern Irish poet based in London. His debut pamphlet Open Houses was published by Marble Press 2021. His follow-up, In Rooms of Falling Rain, is forthcoming with Beir Bua Press this year, and reflects on queer forms of dwelling. He completed his MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway in 2020 and is currently working on a practice-based PhD at Surrey on the relationship between queer domestic space and poetic form. You can find more of his work at tommclaughlin.uk/.

SZ Shao

SZ Shao (she/her) is a British Chinese landworker and creative based just beyond the London clay. SZ was invited to read at the 2022 Poetry Society AGM, and was also chosen for the 2022 Young Critics Scheme run by the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Young Poets Network. Her written work revolves around ecology, gender and entanglement with more-than-human life. You can find more of her work at https://szarchive.hotglue.me/.

For LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and other sexual and gender minorities) History Month, Chelsea Physic Garden is collaborating with Queer Botany to look at plants and the Garden through a queer botanical lens.