Press and media

Welcome to the Hammer and Tongue Press & Media section. Here you will find the latest press releases, media files, photographs/images available to use for print and web media. If you have any questions, or are in need of something specific, please do not hesistate to contact our Media department.

Quotes – What People Are Saying About Hammer & Tongue

Mark Gwynne Jones – UK performance poet:

“Hammer And Tongue must be one of the best community oriented gigs in Britain. They have created a living, breathing monster of poetry. Where else can you stage dive at a poetry gig?”

Marcus Moore, long time UK Slam organizer wrote after one of our events:

“Gentlemen, it was wonderful. It was how all slams should be – alive, passionate, diverse, wild, tense, tender, urgent… one moment a powering beast, the next a floating feather. And throughout it was hosted with such finesse, with great good humour and with the warmest arms of love.

You have reached the hearts and hearing parts of many. I applaud you and I thank you for all you are doing to make the world a better place.”

The following was posted on a website called the Chronicles Of Naomi:

“well just been to the hammer and tongue ‘poetry slam’ at the (absolutely packed ) ‘brickworks’ on the Cowley Road in Oxford …The poetry slam was v. cool – there was a couple of black poets from NYC on tour who were amazing – funny, angry, ‘paranoid’ and gracious and then some local non-professional poets who were entering the ‘slam’.

The place was just full of such a cool bunch of really diverse people black, white, young, old, a goodly smattering of eco-warrior/hippy types. I am definitely going back! I wish the church was much more like that.”

Dawn Saylor, A touring US Slam Poet who performed at a Hammer and Tongue event wrote the following on her website:

“Slam is alive and healthy over here. Last night I was on a slam team with Joel Chmara, Derrick Brown, and Taylor Mali. It was incredible. None of the backbiting or “I’m gonna kick your ass”, Is that a prop, is she going over-time? Nope. Just a bunch of poets doing poetry that really matters to them. To say I had a good time is an understatement. I would even venture to say that we all had the best slam experience that we could have possibly had. It was incredible. A crowd of at least 250 and 16 poets who were only there to share their words. There were teams from London, Oxford, Birmingham, and the US. We won, yes. All of you slammers who are disenchanted with slam lately, come to the UK. It’s what I imagine slam was like in the beginning. I want to move here.

The Oxford Times: “Poetry For The Club Generation”