Your Local Arena

CELEBRATING LIVERPOOL’S SUCCESS

In partnership with Writing on the Wall (WOW) Liverpool.

Since our Your Local Arena in Liverpool in May 2020 in partnership with the WOW Festival, which celebrated legendary football managers Matt Busby, Jock Stein and Liverpool's own Bill Shankly, Liverpool have won this year's Premiership title. In honour of that, we're delighted to publish some of the best life writing pieces to come out of our WOW Your Local Arena workshop run by Tony Wailey, as well as share Levi Tafari's celebratory poem about Liverpool's achievement.

Poetry - Levi Tafari

Levi Tafari was born and raised in Liverpool by his Jamaican parents. He attended catering college where he studied Classical French cuisine and then entered the world of catering. Attending the Liverpool 8 Writers Workshop to quench his artistic urge, in the early 1980s he started a new career as a poet. Levi sees himself as an Urban Griot, the griot being the traditional consciousness raiser, storyteller, newscaster and political agitator. His work is rhythmic and lyrical; in the past he has teamed up with reggae, soul and funk fusion bands. He has been Writer in Residence at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic and has toured various countries, including the Czech Republic, China and Hong Kong. He has also spent two seasons as poet in residence with The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Levi has four collections of his poetry published and his work has been included in many anthologies. He has written a number of plays which have been performed at Liverpool’s Unity, Everyman and Playhouse Theatres as well as at the Blackheath Theatre in Stafford. Aside from this, Tafari also works in education: running creative writing workshops in prisons, schools and universities.

YOUR LOCAL ARENA: RESPONDING TO Celebrating Liverpool's Success

Life Writing from Liverpool’s Your Local Arena WOW Workshop

Alex Blank

A London-based student, Alex Blank has been experimenting with various forms of writing for the past few years. Through prose poetry, journalism, fiction and so on, she’s continuously finding and re-finding her voice. She’s a culture & lifestyle editor and writer for Roar News, and her work has also appeared in publications such as HuffPost UK, Strand Magazine and Heliopause Magazine.

Love’s Mimesis

Alongside its primary letter, control is the centre of my life; a circle pretending to be open-ended …

READ THE FULL PIECE

J S Dali

J S Dali is a British Tunisian writer who has lived between Tunis and the UK freelancing in the arts sector for over ten years. Currently completing a writing course at Liverpool’s Writing On The Wall (WOW), her first written pieces will be published in a collective anthology in 2020. Her first self-published guided journal, Tales of i, was released earlier this year and is available on Amazon.

Mima

The phone call finally came, everyone was summoned …

READ THE FULL PIECE

Hannah+Enyon
Photo credit:

Hannah Eynon

Hannah Eynon. From Northern Ireland. Lived in Shetland with her daughter Scarlett. Word reached them from Derry about Scarlett's dad, Aidy, ending his life. Now they are back in Northern Ireland after feeling too far away. Nicol, my pal, made things better by just having the kettle on. Although I speak about myself in this piece. Everything happening in Derry surrounding Aidy's death and what it meant for his friends and family. That was always at the forefront of my mind. You'll Never Walk Alone.

A Posy or a Wreath

I go straight to Nicol’s. I need to order flowers …

READ THE FULL PIECE

KBRose
Photo credit:

Karen Bryony Rose

Karen Bryony Rose is a writer and freelance journalist from Wirral. Her words have been featured in Huffington Post and MetroOnline. She's currently working on a short story anthology.

The Salt Path

The scrape of cutlery across plates was deafening …

READ THE FULL PIECE

Brian+Wharton+Photo
Photo credit:

Brian Wharton

Brian Wharton was born in Everton and moved to Anfield when he was 12. He has dabbled in amateur dramatics, later training as an actor, and has had his plays produced on the local fringe. His biggest success came with his one-man Edinburgh show Footballer’s Boyfriend, a tongue-in-cheek fantasy that he wrote after talking to gay men who were big football fans.

Chippy

The lad lay on the bed sobbing …

READ THE FULL PIECE