Joelle Taylor - 'Colony' (Apples and Snakes: Blackbox)

Joelle is an award winning spoken word artist, poet, playwright and author. She has performed across the UK as well as internationally for the British Council (Zimbabwe, Brazil, Botswana) taking in a diverse range of venues from the 100 Club, the 02 Arena, the Royal Festival Hall and Ronnie Scott’s to the Royal Court, the Globe, the ICA, Buckingham Palace and various prisons including Pentonville and Holloway. She was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Society Arts in 2015 as well as being named as one of Southbank Centre’s Nelson Mandela Change Makers for positively affecting cultural Britain.

Her first collection Ska Tissue was released on Mother Foucault Press in 2011 and her latest collection The Woman Who Was Not There was published by Burning Eye in 2014. Her books include The Woman Who Was Not There (2014) Ska Tissue (2011) BRAND (2009), Intwasa (Ama 2008), Acts of Passion (Routledge 1998), BRAND 2 (2011), and Domestic Violence (Scarlet Press 1995). She has also written numerous texts about theatre and slam poetry for small publications and online texts. She has been published in Wasafari and Magma among other literary magazines, as well as a chapter on slam for Making Poetry Happen (2015 Bloomsbury). She is included in both the Laudanum and She Grrrowls anthologies, due for release in 2017. Her new collection Songs My Enemy Taught Me is due for release in Winter 2017 on Out-Spoken press.

Apples and Snakes is the leading organisation for performance poetry in England, with a national reputation for producing exciting and innovative participation and performance work in spoken word.

We work in partnership with creative individuals and organisations across the country to produce high quality artistic experiences - including work with, for and by young people - that raise the profile of spoken word and push the boundaries of the artform, artists and audiences. We offer professional development for artists including advice, training and performance opportunities at a local, national and international level, with a particular focus on nurturing emerging talent and championing marginalised and disenfranchised voices.