On Performance

Valerie Laws loves to perform her poetry, and welcomes new gigs. She says:

"I'm happy to travel and to reach new audiences. I have performed many readings all over the UK and in the media worldwide, alone or with other poets such as Tony Harrison, Anthony Joseph, Jenny Lewis and Ann Alexander. My work has many moods and aspects, so similarly, my performances might feature cabaret-style, raunchy, funny rhyming poems about phone sex and wonderbras, or feature more serious poetry from my collections, or my new pathology-based work, or a mixture. I like to make people laugh, and to move them, and I change my set depending on audience mood and venue style.

"I was Poet in Residence at Ilkley Literature Festival, 2006. I've also performed at Literature Festivals in Durham, Hull, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Cornwall, Hebden Bridge, etc, and at regular live events at Leeds, London, Oxford, Plymouth, York and many more, including many in my own north east region.

"I've performed on BBC Radio 4, Radio 3, World Service, and many other radio stations, here and abroad, sometimes reading newly commissioned work. I've performed in noisy pubs full of hecklers, giving as good as I get, and in the hushed leatherbound surroundings of Christchurch Library, Oxford University, and all kind of gigs in between including between high tides on Lindisfarne, shops, schools, library reading groups and nightclubs."