Dead Good Poets Society
The Dead Good Poets Society is based in Liverpool and exists to promote poetry through performance and to encourage the development of new poets and audiences.
DGPS was started around 1989 in the upstairs bar of the Pilgrim pub in Liverpool. Initially called the Pilgrim Poets, the club started to run events under the name "The Evil Dead Poets" in 1991. The current name (a reference to the 1989 film Dead Poets Society) was adopted as a funding-friendly brand when regional arts board money became available to run monthly guest NiGHTS. The Dead Good Poets Society has moved through several venues in its lifetime, and currently resides at the Everyman Bistro Third Room.
Current members include Dinesh Allirajah, Mandy Coe, Gladys Mary Coles, Deryn Rees-Jones, Jean Sprackland - whose , Levi Tafari, and Glyn Wright. Sprackland's recent book Hard Water (Cape, 2004) was short-listed for the 2003 Whitbread Awards. She and Rees-Jones were lauded as Next Generation poets (2004).
Dead Good Poets Society events draw people from Wirral, St Helen's, Wigan, Bolton, Preston and so on to monthly open mics and also to guest nights which have included: Simon Armitage, Paul Farley, Peter Finch, Rosie Lugosi, Les Murray, Chloe Poems, and Levi Tafari â along with promising local poets like recent Liverpool slam winners Clare Kirwan (2005) and David Bateman (2007).
Now a not-for-profit company in the process of applying for charitable status, DGPS aims to increase the skills of local poets both in their writing, performance, reading and appreciation of poetry. In 2006 they produced an anthology titled Dead Good Poets Society â The Book.
In 2008 Liverpool will be European Capital of Culture and there are now a wider range of poets than ever before - more people from diverse backgrounds and different levels of education who are taking part and giving their voices to the ever-changing cultures that make up Liverpool.