The audio version of the The First Annual Babel Tower Christmas Service, recorded 18th December 2020.

The editor of The Babel Tower Notice Board, Richard Capener, and his esteemed assistant, Chloë Proctor, hosted readings from Khaled Hakim, Barney Ashton-Bullock and Vik Shirley.

Khaled Hakim has a background in film production and poetry, publishing sparingly in the 1990s as the first BAME experimental poet in the UK. He left both film and writing in the early 2000’s to pursue a spiritual path, becoming a Sufi musician.﻿ 

The previously published work has belatedly been published as Letters from the Takeaway (Shearsman 2019). The Book of Naseeb is published by Penned in the Margins (2020). The Routines which presents his semi-improvisatory performances dating to the 1980s is forthcoming with Contraband Books (Spring 2021). 

Khaled's piece on Babel can be read here: thebabeltowernoticeboard.com/featured-writing/from-the-plagues-by-khaled-hakim

Barney Ashton-Bullock has poetry published, or pending publication, in the Wellington Street Review, the New River Press Yearbook, SPAMzine, Re-Side Magazine, -algia Press, Scab Mag, Pink Plastic House Journal, Poetry Bus, Neuro Logical Magazine, in the Avalanches In Poetry tribute to Leonard Cohen, in the Dreich pamphlet ‘Fame’, in the Pilot Press ‘Queer Anthology Of Healing’ and in the 'Soho Nights' anthologies published by The Society Club Press, who also published his first collection ‘Schema/Stasis’ in 2017. He is the poet/librettist in the ‘Andy Bell is Torsten’ music-theatre collective and narrates his own verse on the Downes Braide Association albums ‘Skyscraper Souls’ and ‘Live In England'. His latest poetry pamphlet ‘Café Kaput!’ is published by Broken Sleep Books. 

Barney's pieces on Babel can be read here: thebabeltowernoticeboard.com/featured-writing/three-poems-by-barney-ashton-bullock

Vik Shirley's chapbook, Corpses, was published by Sublunary Editions in March 2020. Her collection, The Continued Closure of the Blue Door, is forthcoming from HVTN Press and a pamphlet of her visual poetry is due from Hesterglock Press, early 2021. Her work has appeared in such places as Perverse, 3am Magazine and Dostoyevsky Wannabe Cities: Bristol. She is currently studying for a PhD in Dark Humour and the Surreal in Poetry at the University of Birmingham. 

Vik's piece on Babel can be read here: thebabeltowernoticeboard.com/featured-writing/ghosts-by-vik-shirley

The First Annual Babel Tower Christmas Service

A Christmas Eve reading of "If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso" by Gertrude Stein.

If I Told Him, A Completed Portrait of Picasso by Gertrude Stein

A recording of a live reading event hosted by The Babel Tower Notice Board with Cat Chong, Amanda Earl and Matthew Haigh performing.

Babel Administration Team