A mix of established and up-and-coming poets will be coming to Redbridge for an evening of inspiring poetry.

Ilford Recorder: Laurie Bolger. Pic: Quetzal Maucci.Laurie Bolger. Pic: Quetzal Maucci. (Image: Archant)

London Laureate Laurie Bolger, 26, is one of the most exciting young poets on the scene today and will be performing at the event at Redbridge Drama Centre, in Churchfields, South Woodford, on Tuesday, July 18, and poetry fans won’t want miss out.

The west Londoner recently released her debut collection Box Rooms and also hosts one of the capital’s most popular stand-up poetry nights, BANG Said the Gun.

Laurie’s talent and versatility has seen her become one of the leading young voices in the poetry world and was even hailed by comedian Phill Jupitus as, “The poet in residence of my heart”.

It is an impressive rise for Laurie who first became interested in poems whilst studying for her GCSEs and then started performing at university.

Ilford Recorder: Laurie Bolger. Pic: Peter Shiazza.Laurie Bolger. Pic: Peter Shiazza. (Image: PETER SCHIAZZA PHOTOGRAPHY 2013)

“I guess I had a really good GCSE English teacher that made poetry really fun. I think I always wrote as a teenager, it helped me get through school.

“At university there was a poetry pub crawl, I was like, ‘you know what? I’m going to do it’, I had a pint and did and it was great.”

Afterwards Laurie began performing poetry regularly and has managed to make a name for herself in a scene which in the past has seemed unrelatable for ordinary people - and at times women in particular.

“I’ve got lots of strong female peers and they’re great.”

“Peoples perception of poetry is changing and performance and page poetry have a huge cross over now, poets are really speaking people’s language and poet’s like Hollie McNish, Zia Ahmed and Kate Tempest do this brilliantly.”

The popularity surrounding Laurie’s writing stems from her ability to channel her experiences into something everyone can relate to. “I think sometimes poetry can be hard to be accessible. When I started writing I wanted it to be something an old man in the pub could pick up, or a mum, or teenager can pick up.”

Tickets for the Redbridge Poetry Mix cost £7.50 and can be purchased at http://bit.ly/2sNrmAJ.