Stephen James Smith & Friends: See No Evil

This is a truly new kind of show.

Every single show is truly unique - the art is drawn in real-time on an iPad whilst Stephen delivers his big poetry to a live and inspiring soundscape - beautiful stuff!

Support from Nandi Jola.

Stephen James Smith is a Dublin poet and playwright central to the rise of the vibrant spoken word scene in Ireland today. His poetry videos have amassed over 2.5 million views.

In 2017 he was commissioned by St. Patrick’s festival to write a new poem as a “Celebratory Narrative” of Ireland. The resultant piece ‘My Ireland’ is accompanied by a short film which has been viewed over 300,000 times and was screened at the London film festival.

In 2018 he was commissioned by Dublin stadium sponsor Aviva to write a poem to highlight the recent rugby final between England & Ireland on Paddy’s day. The poem entitled “Bring it Home” chalked up over 750,000 views across the weekend – and Ireland won!

Stephen has performed at high profile events & venues such as Electric Picnic, other voices, The National Concert Hall in Dublin, The Barbican in London, Vicar Street & the London Palladium (alongside Oscar winner Glen Hansard); The Oscar Wilde Awards in Los Angeles, Glastonbury Festival and many more.

Stephen facilitates poetry workshops in schools around Ireland and is Artist in Residence at Dunamaise arts centre & Laois arts office. His poetry is included on the syllabus at Western Connecticut State University and his work has been translated into multiple languages.

His debut collection Fear Not, published by Arlen House, was launched in September 2018 in Dublin at Poetry Ireland on Parnell Square.

Nandi Jola is a South African born poet, author and playwright, she is Smock Alley Theatre - Rachel Baptiste 2022 Programme recipient. She was a creative writing facilitator for Ulster University Books Beyond Boundaries NI in 2021 and Poetry Ireland recently. Her one woman play ‘The Journey’ opened the International Literature Festival Dublin in October, 2020.

She represented Northern Ireland at the Transpoesie Poetry Festival in Brussels and is a commissioned poet for Poetry Jukebox, Ambiguities, a James Joyce programme of the Centre Culturel Irlandais and Impermanence Way Archive Project in Paris. She is studying for her MA in Poetry at Queen’s University Belfast. Home is Neither Here Nor There, her debut collection, will be published by Doire Press this spring.

Find out more about Stephen here.

You can follow Stephen on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and watch performances on his YouTube channel.

Watch Nandi perform at Imagine! Festival here.