Nude Against A Rock, Robert Hamberger’s exciting fifth collection, is a love song for the threatened world. There is a thematic widening of the lens that connects intimacy, home and family to other countries, porous borders. The collection culminates in a passionate sequence after the gay British painter Keith Vaughan, where the male ‘body of contradictions’ is a site of desire and tenderness,  landscape becomes a haven, and the artist is compelled to observe, create and bear witness.

We welcome back Robert Hamberger, an old friend of Five Leaves (which published some of his earlier work) for a reading from his latest collection.

The evening will also include readings by Hongwei Bao, from his new collection, Self Portrait as Banana, a candid exploration of his queer, diasporic, East Asian identity and transcultural intimacy. Appropriating, subverting and queering cultural tropes like the banana, rice and beckoning cat, and identity categories, such as queerness and Chineseness, this is a powerful journey. A bold, humorous and refreshing celebration of queer desire, identity and cultural differences.

In association with Nottingham Poetry Society

Refreshments included