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GOBS Poetry Book Club: Kostya Tsolakis – Greekling

  • Nottingham Central Library 1 Carrington Street NG1 7FH (map)

GOBS Collective invites you to chat and scribble your heart away at our Poetry Book Club, hosted in Nottingham Central Library and via Zoom.

GOBS Poetry Book Club provides a space for poets, writers, readers, performers, and artists to meet over a cuppa, and have a good chinwag over our poetry collection of the month. For the first half of the session we’ll talk about the book, and in the second half we’ll do some focussed writing exercises based on our favourite poems.

It’s preferable that you read the book before you come along, but if you don’t get chance and fancy heading down anyway, just pop along and there’s sure to be something for you to say, listen to, or write. No judgement.

March 2026’s Book:

Kostya Tsolakis – Greekling

Greekling is the much-anticipated debut poetry collection by Kostya Tsolakis that celebrates and commemorates damaged and rejected Greek bodies — be they of flesh and blood, made of marble, or natural bodies. In intertwining Greek culture, history and poetic influences with the contemporary queer experience, this collection is perceptive, lyrical, and deeply evocative of time and place. From an Athenian childhood to a closeted adolescence in the shadow of the AIDS epidemic, through sexual self-discovery and freedom, Tsolakis charts the pursuit of unconditional happiness. These poems explore queer joy on dance floors, darkrooms and bedsits, and reflect on a changing and often misrepresented country, and the nature of motherlands and mother tongues; Greekling is a voyage out — and a return.

Get a 15% discount on this book at Five Leaves by using the code GOBS

GOBS Poetry Book Club is also available to attend via Zoom.

Please note we have limited places available both in-person and online, so booking is essential.

GOBS Poetry Book Club is Pay What You Can (Suggested donation: £5)

When: Saturday 28 March, 11am-1pm

Where: Nottingham Central Library (Meeting Room 2), 1 Carrington Street, Nottingham, England, NG1 7FH

Hosted by: Polis Loizou

Any enquiries can be directed to Bridie at info@gobscollective.org

At previous events, we've looked at:

Caleb Femi – Poor

Tolu Agbelusi – Locating Strongwoman

Caroline Bird – The Air Year

Ella Frears – I am the Mother Cat

Kae Tempest – Running Upon the Wires

Roger Robinson – A Portable Paradise

Malika Booker, Sharon Olds & Warsan Shire – Your Family, Your Body (Modern Poets Three)

Inua Ellams – The Actual

Cecilia Knapp – Peach Pig

Yomi Sode – Manorisms

Will Harris – Rendang

Anthony Anaxagorou – Heritage Aesthetics

Hannah Lowe – Chick

Warsan Shire – Blessed is the Daughter Raised by a Voice in her Head

Gboyega Odubanjo – Adam

Brian Bilston – Alexa, what is there to know about love?

Amy Acre – Mothersong

Amanda Gorman – Call Us What We Carry

Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek – Marshmallow Clouds

Vanessa Kisuule - A Recipe for Sorcery

Makalani Bandele - (jopappy and the sentence-makers are) eponymous as funk

Haia Mohammed - The Age of Olive Trees

Adam Kammerling - Seder

Book now