Between City and Sea

A Showcase of Local Poets with Plymouth Laureate of Word R.C. Thomas.

This event, curated by Plymouth Laureate of Words 2025-27 R.C. Thomas, will kick off SOUND Poetry festival in style with a showcase of local poets. Firmly rooted in Plymouth and the surrounding areas, these artists will situate the festival entire in our wonderful corner of Devon with meditations on their lives in the local landscape. We won’t try to put their words in a box (we couldn’t even if we tried) but you are guaranteed to come away with an enhanced sense of where Plymouth is in the world of its resident poets, and a desire to explore further.

Featuring:

Thom Boulton was Plymouth Poet Laureate 2016-2020. Once described as ‘approachable and youngish’. He’s written and published three collections of poetry: Prima Materia (2018), Gebo (2021) and The Lesser Key (2026).

Lesley Curwen is a poet, broadcaster and sailor from Plymouth. She had two pamphlets published in 2024 from Hedgehog Poetry Press and Hybrid Dreich. Her poems have been nominated for Forward and Pushcart Prizes. She has collaborated with Stephen Paul Wren on a poetry book about microplastics, which was published by Atomic Bohemian in December 2025.

Kenny Knight’s work has appeared in In the Presence of Sharks — New Poetry from Plymouth (Phlebas Press), Fire, The International Times, Litter, Smith’s Knoll, The Rialto, Tears in the Fence and Terrible Work, as well as Ten Poems About Tea (Candlestick Press), in which he shared the pages with the likes of Thomas Hardy. His collections, The Honicknowle Book of the Dead, A Long Weekend on the Sofa, Love Letter to an Imaginary Girlfriend and Ghost Town Street were published by Shearsman Books.

Lucy Lepchani is a poet from Devon who has two published collections of poetry, is currently writing eco-fiction and with a third poetry collection in gradual progress. She also works to develop others’ work for performance, publication and broadcast. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Plymouth.

Lorna Stubbs grew up in Scotland’s central belt, in a close-knit working-class mining community. She earned a BA (Hons) in English Language and Linguistics from the University of Exeter at forty, and completed a Master’s in Creative Writing at the University of Plymouth two decades later, graduating with distinction. Her poetry was recently featured in Plymouth’s City Layers exhibition in the town centre.

R.C. Thomas lives in Plymouth. He has four books of poetry: The Strangest Thankyou (Cultured Llama, 2012), Zygote Poems (Cultured Llama, 2015), Faunistics: A Collection of Wild Haiku and Illustrations (2024), and Infinity Strings (with Hifsa Ashraf, 2025). His poems have been published in online and print journals internationally including Frogpond, Gutter, Modern Haiku, Orbis, Poetry Salzberg Review and Tears in the Fence. He’s Plymouth Laureate of Words 2025-27.

Artwork by R.C. Thomas.