Chester Poet Launches Book with Spoken Word event in Great Barrow

Barrow based poet, Andy Porter is launching his book Neighbour’s Got a New Hot Tub at the The Pavilion’s Acorn Hub on Barrow’s Playing Field on Thursday July 24th, 7pm . It promises to be a great evening with 4 leading spoken word artists performing alongside Andy himself, who will be reading poems from the collection.

Andy’s poetic muse fell asleep in the toilet of a Manchester nightclub in 1978 and woke up during the 2020 Lockdown. Porter combs the countryside and surfs the suburbs for the poetry in everyday life with whimsical, witty rhythm and rhyme. His work feels like the unlikely offspring of a liaison between Pam Ayres and John Cooper Clarke…

The book is published by Luain Press, an independent Irish publishing house and is available via Amazon, their Etsy site, and in Chester’s own Books on the Walls and Amblongus Books.

Andy is delighted that the launch is happening in his home village: “Some of the inspiration for the poems has been drawn from local events and I’ve always enjoyed documenting some of the more surreal aspects of village life in poetry and prose, so it seemed natural to host the Launch in the village. Being joined by two Dublin poets, Ryan Duggins and All-Ireland Slam Champion Leon Dunne, is a privilege and we also have two talented local poets, Anna Nixon and Colin Anderson for what should be a fun evening of celebration through the power of words.

Publisher Lee Sheridan commented: “Andy’s work stood out to us from the get-go. Its charm lies in its simplicity; it’s also completely different to anything we’ve published before. We planned on only publishing one book from last year’s submission window, but Andy’s book had me drinking my tears; we didn’t want Neighbour’s Got a New Hot Tub to gather dust on the shelf – we were delighted to bring it into being, and may it continue to make people laugh for generations to come.”